The progress of the LGBT movement in Hollywood can be moved along as long as the face of the gay movement is white men.' 'I think it's a similar issue with gay stories too, but because white men can be gay, Hollywood is a little more lenient in terms of pushing that envelope. 'I like the idea that Hollywood is at the forefront of these changes, but it think Hollywood is also very sensitive to the nation's sentiments and wary ,' Stephens said. See the most-read stories in Entertainment this hour >įor Stephens, and many other actors like him who are both openly LGBT and black, Hollywood's famed progressive social views often take a back seat to commercial considerations. 'You can be one or the other,' said Stephens, 41, sitting in a West Hollywood park. Stephens took the job anyway, but later came to realize that his agents had a point. When actor Darryl Stephens received a call in 2003 that he was cast in a straight-to-DVD series about black gay men, he thought it was his big break, that his four years at UC Berkeley had paid off.īut his agents told him not to take the role, concerned, in part, that a job requiring a man-on-man kiss would be 'too gay' and limit his career.
