One of the easiest ways to earn yourself Oscar buzz as an actor is to play an iconic musician in a biopic. Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown, Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody, Johnny Cash in Walk the Line — all meaty roles that earned the lead performers nominations. You would think, then, that any actor in Hollywood would be jumping at the chance to play a beloved artist with a tragic life story like Marvin Gaye. Apparently, the opportunity for accolades and attention wasn’t enough for Terrence Howard, who revealed in a recent appearance on Bill Maher’s podcast that he turned down the chance to play the legendary singer in a Lee Daniels-directed biopic after he learned about Gaye’s rumored sexuality.
“I was over at Quincy Jones’s house,” Howard told Maher, “and I’m asking Quincy, ‘I’m hearing rumors that Marvin was gay’ and I’m like, ‘Was he gay?’ And Quincy’s like, ‘Yes.’ They would’ve wanted to do that, and I wouldn’t have been able to do that.”
After Maher asked him, “You mean you couldn’t kiss a guy on screen in a movie?” Howard responded, “No. Because I don’t fake it. That would fuck me. I would cut my lips off. If I kissed some man, I would cut my lips off.”
Let’s set aside for a moment that kissing someone you’re not attracted to — regardless of their gender — is something that countless actors and actresses have done throughout the history of cinema. (That’s where the acting comes in, right?) Howard has every right to set boundaries and avoid gay roles if he’s not comfortable with them, just like an actress might avoid any role that requires nudity. But what crosses a line is his implication that kissing a man is disgusting, so much so that he’d have no choice but to deform himself after doing it.
Of course, Howard is famously easily grossed out. In a 2007 interview with ELLE magazine, he said he only dates women who use baby wipes instead of toilet paper because “if they’re using dry paper, they aren’t washing all of themselves. It’s just unclean.” And while a simple display of affection like a same-sex kiss is a bridge too far, Howard has no problem with violence against women — on or offscreen.
Howard tried to claim that “it does not make me homophobic to not want to kiss a man,” adding that, “I can’t play that character 100%. I can’t surrender myself to a place that I don’t understand.”
But again, isn’t putting yourself in someone else’s shoes and allowing yourself to fully inhabit your character sort of what acting is?
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