Fact-Checking Oscars History: Which Best Actor Nominees Are Openly Gay?

Understand the core facts Fact-Checking Oscars History: Which Best Actor Nominees Are Openly Gay in this comprehensive guide.

The factual record of openly gay performers nominated for Best Actor is remarkably short. Throughout 98 years of Academy Awards history, exactly two men have secured nominations while publicly out.

Sir Ian McKellen earned the first milestone nomination for the 1998 drama Gods and Monsters. Directed by Bill Condon, the film cast McKellen as classic horror director James Whale, who lived as an openly gay man in Hollywood during the 1930s. McKellen had publicly come out on BBC Radio in 1988 while protesting Margaret Thatcher's Section 28 legislation. By the time he walked the red carpet in March 1999, his identity was an established part of his public life. He ultimately lost the statuette to Roberto Benigni for Life Is Beautiful.

A quarter of a century passed before the category saw another out contender. In January 2024, Colman Domingo earned a Best Actor nomination for Rustin, portraying civil rights strategist Bayard Rustin. Domingo, who has been married to his husband Raúl Domingo since 2014, became the first openly gay Afro-Latino performer nominated in the category.

Domingo's nomination highlighted the scarcity of openly gay leading men at the highest levels of the studio system. While character actors and supporting performers have navigated public careers with fewer commercial restrictions, leading men have historically shouldered intense studio pressure to maintain a strictly heterosexual image.