Nicholas Galitzine Opens Up about Sexuality and 'Guilt' with Playing Gay Roles

You saw him sizzle with Taylor Zakhar Perez in the gay fantasy "Red, White, & Royal Blue" and smolder with Tony Curran in another same-sex royal romance, the Starz miniseries "Mary & George." But are you ready to see him "tear it up" with Anne Hathaway in his new rom-com "The Idea of You?"

The sexy Brit recently talked with GQ Magazine about being straight, feeling guilt when playing gay, and his new movie.

"Directed by Michael Showalter and adapted from a notoriously smutty novel by Robinne Lee, 'The Idea of You' is dizzying wish fulfillment," GQ explained, referring to a scene in the trailer in which Galitzine's character, Hayes – a pop star – is in a clinch with Solène, Hathaway's 40-year-old divorcee. Despite Solène's worries about their age difference, Hayes "slowly wraps his hands around Solène's thigh to pull her closer."

Audiences of any persuasion could melt to that moment.

The co-stars began their professional relationship with a "chemistry test" to see how well they would work together on screen, GQ related. Hathaway preferred to dance with her prospective male co-stars instead of locking lips, but their footloose encounter generated more sparks than they might have anticipated.

"We were flying," the 29-year-old Brit told GQ. "We were tearing up with each other."

Added the actor: "We were very 'yes, and' with each other, you know?"

Galitzine is straight, so the fact that he's played so many gay roles so well – and thrown off the kind of sparks he has with male co-leads – says something about his talent and his mindset. "I identify as a straight man, but I have been a part of some incredible queer stories," he reflected in his GQ interview.

Not only is Galitzine comfortable with gay roles, he told Huffington Post UK in a recent interview that taking those roles is helping stories come to life that need to be told.

"I have so many friends within the community," the actor said, "and I know so many of them didn't feel like they had these stories growing up."

Looking back on his queer roles in "Mary and George," "Handsome Devil," and "Red, White & Royal Blue," as well as in "The Craft: Legacy" and "Legends," Galitzine summarized, "I think with all of these characters the thing that I find really intriguing as an actor is that underbelly of vulnerability and having to hide oneself."

Or not: "My gay friends were like wow, to have something cheesy and broad and wholesome is like really, really important," Galitzine said of the reaction to his role in "Red, White & Royal Blue," "and I think the resonance of that means a lot to me."

Indeed, representation matters: GQ noted that "once, a parent told him that 'Handsome Devil,' in which Galitzine played a closeted gay rugby player, helped their son come out and feel comfortable in his sexuality."

True as all that is, though,"I felt a sense of uncertainty sometimes about whether I'm taking up someone's space," Galitzine said of being a straight actor who has made something of a specialty out of his gay roles, "and perhaps guilt."

"At the same time," he pointed out, "I see those characters as not solely their sexuality" – not unlike the way many queer people see themselves.

It probably also helps that Galitzine has been on the wrong end of toxic hypermasculinity in a way that many gay men will find familiar. GQ related how Galitzine was on track to become a pro rugby player before being sidelined by injuries. At one point, struggling with a knee injury, he found himself berated by someone who upbraided him with: "My six-year-old daughter has more mettle than you."

"These people in my life who were supposed to be positive masculine figures, I felt their shame in me," Galitzine told GQ, "shame that my body wasn't working properly."

The actor recalled his own struggles with internalized masculine anxieties. "I think a lot of men are really scared," the young actor reflected. "I think they're scared of being found out. There's this notion in masculinity that you have to be in control and certain of everything."

Still, whether he's playing gay or straight, Galitzine is all too conscious that his looks have contributed to his success and to his on-screen desirability.

"I think the most important thing to me is that I'm taken seriously as a performer," the thesp told GQ. "I'm not gonna ask you to cry me a river here, but it's been difficult being part of a conversation that feels very much like I am a cut of beef at a meat market."

Fortunately, his films do allow him to flex some appealing emotional muscles, too. Referencing a scene set after his pop star and Hathaway's midlife mom have sex in "The Idea of You," Galitzine told GQ, "Someone asked me once when I feel most loving, and not to be too crass, but it can sometimes be after sex, because that's when you shed all your vulnerabilities."

"The Idea of You" is streaming now on Prime Video. Watch the trailer below.