Academy Award-winning actress Olivia Colman disclosed that she's "always felt sort of nonbinary," adding that she's "never felt massively feminine in my being female."
During an interview to promote Jimpa, which premiered recently at Sundance, Them's Mathew Rodriguez pointed out that Colman's career has been full of LGBTQ+ projects, pointing out examples like The Favourite, Heartstopper, and Beautiful People. "What do you think it is about stories that include queer people that excite you as a storyteller and actress?" Rodriguez asked.
Colman replied, "I think it's a community that I love being welcomed into. I find the most loving and the most beautiful stories are from that community. And I feel really honored to be welcomed. Throughout my whole life, I've had arguments with people where I've always felt sort of nonbinary."
"Don't make that a big sort of title!" the actress added. "But I've never felt massively feminine in my being female."
Colman added, "I've always described myself to my husband as a gay man. And he goes, 'Yeah, I get that.' And so I do feel at home and at ease. I feel like I have a foot in various camps. I know many people who do. I don't really spend an awful lot of time with people who are very staunchly heterosexual … the men I know and love are very in touch with all sides of themselves."
"What you're talking about is so familiar," Jimpa director Sophie Hyde added. "We're raised as women, we're socialized as women, but that doesn't mean that that's not a limiting idea for us, the idea of being a woman or womanhood. It doesn't necessarily fit for all of us. And I think these binaries of gender are problematic for many of us."
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Colman argued that "men are limited, too in that, in the expectation they have to live up to. I think with my husband and I, we take turns to be the 'strong one,' or the one who needs a little bit of gentleness. I believe everyone has all of it in them. I've always felt like that. And it's only now and talking to Aud and their community, suddenly I'm not an oddity."
