Portia De Rossi found it hard to play a gay character in latest movie role
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LESBIAN actress Portia De Rossi has admitted she found it hard to play a gay character in her latest role.
The former Ally McBeal star, who forms one of Hollywood’s most high profile lesbian couples with Ellen DeGeneres, has landed a role in the new season of TV drama Nip/Tuck.
But she admitted having issues to playing Joely Richardson’s self-assured onscreen lover.
“I hate gratuitous sex scenes. I’m a prude, I really am,” said de Rossi, 34.
“I related to (Richardson’s) character so much more than my own. She was having a really hard time with her sexuality, and it was difficult for her to tell people she was gay.
“To hear her struggle like that was very emotional for me.”
She was also worried it might hurt her career.
De Rossi told USA Today: “My relationship with Ellen is so public, and I thought, ‘Am I going to play a romantic lead again?’ I had that one moment of, ‘Does this mean I’ll be typecast as a lesbian?’
“And (Ellen) turned to me and said, ‘So what?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, yeah, right, so what?’
“I was offered romantic lead roles, and I turned them down because the lesbian seemed more interesting to me.”
In the show she is the victim of homophobic slurs from the lead characters – and she said it was a new experience for her.
“It’s so crazy because I never faced any kind of discrimination. Here, it’s all scripted, but it still stings,” she said.
“It was a very interesting thing for me to experience. I’d walk away at the end of the day not feeling very good.”
She called her three-year relationship with DeGeneres “lovely”. “We manage to have a very normal, very happy life together,” the actress said. “We’ve created it.”
But she said they are torn about having kids.
“It depends when you ask us. A few months ago, we were thinking about it. I wouldn’t want to say never, but at this point, it’s not something I think we’re going to do.
“But there are times when I think I’d be really selfish to not adopt a child so we’d share our life with somebody, a little child that really needs a home.”
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- JK
