Van Hansis, a gay film and web series actor, had a strong message for the LGBTQ community regarding the post-Orlando struggle for equality in his recent interview with Playbill:
“I think it’s really important to stay out there and keep fighting and to not let something like this terrible tragedy stop the celebration and the ownership of how far we’ve all come. It’s very telling that even though gay marriage passed across the country and things have changed so much for the positive, there’s still this underlying homophobia.”
Hansis, who did not come out until 2014, has a lot of experience with homophobia. Though he played the gay character Luke on the CBS show As the World Turns, he stayed in the closet for nine years after the show first aired because he knew that he would be stereotyped. In an interview with The Fight Magazine, he said: “The Luke story was groundbreaking at the time. Now, I think every remaining soap has a gay storyline. I was completely green, fresh out of college, and honestly, I was scared.”
Van Hansis went on from CBS to receive four Emmy nominations and take on many more LGBTQ roles, starring in Kiss Me, Kill Me, a movie which won him Best Actor in a Feature Film in the Audience Awards at the San Diego LGBT Film Festival, and EastSiders, a popular web series for which he received three acting awards nominations.
When asked about the June 12 mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, one of the worst hate crimes in United States history, Hansis said that it hit very close to home, as it was queer people like him and his partner, theater actor Tyler Hanes, who were targeted. Hansis urged people not to let Orlando simply fade into the past, and to instead use it as a way to move forward and keep advocating for equality for the LGBTQ community.
“You’ve got to stay angry, and you’ve got to stay vigilant. You have to ask for more than just moments of silence and prayers at times like this.”
