Darren Criss Is Straight, But Considers Himself 'Culturally Queer'

By Emily Richardson | Celebrity | April 30, 2024 |

By Emily Richardson | Celebrity | April 30, 2024 |

Darren Criss identifies as straight, but he’s played a lot of gay roles: Blaine in Glee, Andrew Cunanan in The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, and Hedwig in Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Obviously, this has put him smack dab in the middle of the “should straight actors play queer?” conversation.

Back in 2018, Darren made headlines for saying he didn’t wanna be “another straight boy taking a gay man’s role.” People took this to mean he was swearing off LGBTQIA+ roles forever. Several months later, Darren told the Independent that he was misquoted and “never said this.” He added that he’d been “shit on” for accepting queer roles, and had turned “plenty” down because he didn’t think he could add value to them.

Let’s cut to this past weekend, shall we? Darren was at the Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo, and he was asked about Glee. Specifically, what was it like portraying the groundbreaking relationship between his character and Kurt Hummel (Chris Colfer)? Darren replied, via Entertainment Weekly:

“It was f—-ing awesome… Nowadays, we just call it a relationship on TV. But to contextualize it, a gay relationship on mainstream FOX, that’s a pretty cool thing to be a part of.”

That’s when Darren shared that he’s always felt “culturally queer”:

“I have been so culturally queer my whole life,” he continued. “Not because I’m trying — you know, actually, I was gonna say not because I’m trying to be cool but I’m gonna erase that, because I am trying to be cool. The things in my life that I have tried to emulate, learn from and be inspired by are 100 percent queer as f—-.”

“It was in queer communities that I’ve found people that I idolize, that I want to learn something from,” he said. “And I’d say that’s a gross generalization, that’s a lot of things and a lot of people. But I grew up in San Francisco in the ’90s. I watched men die. There was an awareness of the gay experience that was not a foreign concept to me. So, it was a narrative that I cared deeply about.”

Darren added that he felt a lot of responsibility when he was cast as Blaine: “it was a f*cking privilege.” He wanted to do his best to “talk about it in the way I believe and a way that I’m passionate about.”

Here’s a clip of Darren talking about Glee:

@sammnnicole this is truly why i love this man. this was so well said. ❤️👏🏻 #darrencriss #glee #gleek #gleetok #fyp #foryoupage ♬ original sound - sam