After Years of Hiding in Hollywood, Trans Actress Trace Lysette Is Finally ‘Living Out Loud&rs

After Years of Hiding in Hollywood, Trans Actress Trace Lysette Is Finally ‘Living Out Loud’The Transparent star tells her inspiring story of going from the closet to 'living out loud’ in her two new roles as feisty trans women on upcoming TV shows.“The New York-based actress, known for her turn as sassy yoga instructor Shea on Transparent,has been living out her acting dreams since she landed her role in the trans-themed Amazon breakout hit last year.And now, she reveals to The Advocate, Lysette has been cast in recurring roles in two upcoming TV comedies: “brash head waitress” Gloria Del Rey on NBC’s new drama The Curse of the Fuentes Women and Gisele in quirky Starz comedy Blunt Talk, which has found her shooting alongside childhood idol Patrick Stewart.Lysette has nothing but glowing words for her coworkers, including Stewart and “incomparable”out trans actress Alexandra Billings — who was cast as Transparent’s tough but kind trans mentor Davina, in the role Lysette originally auditioned for — and for show creator Jill Soloway, who Lysette calls “an example of awesome humankind,” adding, “I love her.” Though Lysette didn’t land Davina, she remains focused on the best part of the experience: being surrounded by other trans actresses. “Though we were each other’s competition, it was a beautiful thing to be around other strong, talented trans women,” she says.The moment is particularly meaningful for Lysette, who at one point could never imagine herself in such company. The world Lysette now finds herself in seemed unfathomable not because she couldn’t envision her peers’ existence — “Aleshia Brevard had broken that barrier [for trans actresses in Hollywood]  years before,” she notes — or even because she couldn’t imagine a role like hers existing in a world where humanized trans stories were only beginning to gain traction.For Lysette, being surrounded by fellow out and proud trans women might have seemed impossible even a few years before because she herself was not openly trans. Her interview withThe Advocate is the first time she’s publicly talked about her years of living in the closet while working in Hollywood.“I started my acting career in 2008 going out for cisgender [nontrans] roles,” she recounts. Throughout the following five years of taking acting classes, landing an agent, and attending auditions, Lysette says she remained in the closet. Her first break came in a guest spot as sex worker Lila on the 14th season of long-running crime procedural Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. It’s an experience Lysette calls “a rite of passage in this business,” and one shared by her friend and fellow out trans actress Laverne Cox.“I never disclosed I was trans to anyone in the casting process for fear of being discriminated against. I wasn’t living out loud yet,” she reflects. “I hadn’t seen another trans woman in a nontrans role on TV before. … It was uncharted territory for me and I remember being a nervous wreck on-set, hoping that no one would 'clock’ me [as trans].”Little did she know that the same year — 2013 — would become a game changer for trans female actors everywhere: Netflix released its smash streaming TV hit Orange Is the New Black, a dramedy based in a women’s prison. Laverne Cox was cast as Sophia Burset, a spirited hairdresser, parent, and trans woman fighting for access to her hormone therapy. Quickly gaining national recognition for her portrayal of a complex character, Cox went on to be the first out trans actress to be nominated for an Emmy and to grace the cover of Time magazine in a 2014 article on trans visibility fittingly titled “The Transgender Tipping Point.”With The Advocate, she cheers over the expansion of trans women’s presence in scripted roles overall, which includes Candis Cayne in Dirty Sexy Money, Harmony Santana inGun Hill Road, and Michelle Hendley in Boy Meets Girl.“We have storylines now,” she says. “We are actually human. Not just a victim, a punch line, or a novelty.”Still, she has a message for Hollywood: “Trans folk are so often pushed to the margins and not afforded the resources and opportunities that some nontrans people are. Anytime you give a trans person an opportunity, especially an opportunity to be ourselves, you are promoting a shift in the way society sees us.”After all, her turn as Gloria is breaking new ground: “I don’t think there’s ever been a trans series regular character played by a trans actor on network TV,” Lysette tells The Advocate (Cayne’s Carmelita on Dirty Sexy Money was a recurring character, not a regular one). And Gloria will unlikely be the last. In a triumphant reversal of her past fears of auditioning as an out trans actress for trans roles, Lysette happily shares that after coming out nearly two years ago, “It’s been nonstop with auditions and work ever since.” Read the full piece here <– SERIOUSLY, READ IT! The above is just an excerpt and she has a LOT to say about trans visibility and trans representation in Hollywood. GREAT feature by The Advocate. -- source link
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