Dylan O'Brien Speaks About Straight Actors Playing Gay Roles

Dylan O’Brien is diving headfirst into the tricky conversation around whether straight actors should take LGBTQ+ movie and TV roles. It’s a topic he had to wrestle with recently when filming his 2025 dramedy Twinless, in which he plays a pair of twins: one straight, and one gay. According to O’Brien, he was comfortable playing the gay twin Rocky because of the insight he received from his director and co-star, James Sweeney.

“Permission goes a long way,” O’Brien told Dazed. “James is a gay man, and coming from a place I could trust. ... It was nice to have his insight, support, and calibration. He’d be like, ‘Go crazy on this one. We can dial it back if it doesn’t feel real.’”

O’Brien added that he and Sweeney agreed on why some gay roles can work with a straight actor, and others just don’t. “We had a similar take on straight actors playing gay parts, especially in recent years: you started seeing straight actors playing a queer role completely straight. It started to feel inauthentic,” O’Brien said.

Sweeney, who was also part of the Dazed interview, echoed O’Brien’s remarks, emphasizing that O’Brien put in the work to bring Rocky to life. “As an actor, Dylan is making capital ‘C’ Choices,” Sweeney said. “These are larger-than-life characters that feel so real because he brings so much pathos.”

“In terms of him playing queer – I’ll take credit for giving him permission and pushing him in a direction to be fluid with the masculinity and femininity,” Sweeney continued. “A lot of times when straight actors play gay, they don’t lean into that out of fear of being vilified by the public, and are like, ‘We’re all the same, so I’m just going to play myself.’ I don’t mean that as a denigration to other straight actors, but I felt for Rocky to be attracted to Dennis, he would need to be comfortable with both masculinity and femininity – in my experience of dating.”