Bailey, 38, is a film, television and stage actor who launched The Shameless Fund to support LGBTQ+ charities. The English actor received a Primetime Emmy nomination for his performance in Showtime’s Fellow Travelers and a total of four Actor Award nods for Bridgeton and Wicked. Bailey is People’s reigning Sexiest Man Alive – a huge – and until quite recently, unimaginable – step forward for representation.
John: You know, being gay has been never been a problem for me, as far as an entertainer goes. … And I’m extremely lucky to be able to do what I do because if I can help people by being open about who I am, then that is one of the greatest gifts you can possibly have.
Bailey: Yeah, it’s a total privilege, isn’t it?
John: Yes.
Bailey: I feel like I’ve just been such a recipient of queer joy sort of all my life. Um, and it permeates through art in such a like, special way. But yeah, I think joy is like a universal, human experience and I think it’s something that everyone relishes. So…I think if you choose good work and you show up and put all your sort of love and enthusiasm into it. I think that sort of permeates through no matter what you’re doing. But yeah, I love the community. And yeah, I’ve always loved theater and going to the cinema and going to see live music and it’s that feeling that has always driven me into wanting to, to do what I do. So, to pay that back and to create more moments for other people to experience that feels completely, sort of thrilling actually.
John: Jonathan, did you ever feel when you were younger, pressured to hide the fact that you might be gay because of, uh, the business you were in, or you were just frightened? Or were you just confident within yourself that it didn’t really matter?
Bailey: I think, uh, there’s so much nuance to it. I think there’s, there’s a combination of all three. In a way I feel innately that I knew myself at quite a young age actually, and the hardware is one of confidence. And then of course you, you know, you just take on these stories and these narratives that are sort of like cobwebs. And the closer I got, you know, I found acting. And I think the reason why I loved acting is because for the first time, in a world where you have to sort of code switch and be hypervigilant about what you’re saying and how you come across, especially to your peers, if they’re gonna acknowledge something that you say or the way you say it as denoting of your sexuality to then get given a script and to actually be able to lean into the right thing to do and to then be truthful in it felt really, really good.
But then as that hobby sort of led towards an adult career, of course I was well aware that there are, and, you know, with even now, breaking glass ceilings about, the possibilities and the limits of queer actors and what that means to an audience and whether that, you know bleeds into commerce and how that affects it. So yeah, I think when I was in my early twenties, there was definitely an understanding that, to be gay would be a hindrance. But I got to a point, I was just like, there’s absolutely no way. I wasn’t gonna, you know, everything is a compromise. I wasn’t gonna not hold my boyfriend’s hand in the street, and that was something that I felt so strongly in an animal sense. And of course if that meant that it was gonna impede any potential work, then I was willing to take that risk.
So, there’s lots of nuance in there, but I think I feel very lucky to be born at a time that I, that, that I was, and that I do think fundamentally I was very confident about who I am and in my sexuality. Um, but then of course it’s been, you know, I feel like I was in, uh, an escape room, um, and ducking and diving lasers and it does feel really, really scary. But, you know, it’s always, it’s never an easy path. Um, but you just, uh, I think if you can just act with kindness, then every step gets easier, maybe.
John: When I was younger and I, listen, I didn’t know I was gay, but I saw people like Little Richard. And I saw people like Liberace. Um, and I, and I’d, I thought they’re different. There’s something about them that I want to be like, in a way, they were showmen, they were just, they, there was something different and magical about them. There was a lot of Little Richard and a lot of Liberace about me. Um, and so I think those two especially, really influenced me to how I performed, how I looked. And so they had an incredible impact on me. But I didn’t know what gay was in the 1950s. Nobody, there was no gay people in my family. There were no examples of it around. Um, so I mean, I didn’t really have a gay experience till I was 23. And then it all, you know, blossomed. It was like a rocket taken off. Um, and it was, uh, all my life really was involved in music.
Bailey: And I think, I think what makes sort of the queer experience kind of brilliant for artists in general is that there is, you have to at some point be completely radical and you have to express something bigger than the world will understand. And so I think that’s why. You know, even before you understand actually, or people in a closet or the way that they carry themselves and tell their own sort of stories, you sort of relate to them. But I, for me, I, I was fully aware of, I sort of was lucky that I was born into a time where, you know, things were really, to use your word, were blossoming and it was like the right time to become sort of inspired and the obvious is like, I’m just so aware of how important stories are and about representation in that I remember This Life [a 1996 British TV series] being my older sister’s watching This Life. Remember being so turned on and so excited. Those two performers and it was so hot.
And then I also in, in like, even in cartoons, like watching like the masculine foreman when I was really young in The Little Mermaid, I was obsessed with Prince Eric, which I later sort of understood. And, and like even in Heartbreak High, which was an Australian sort of teenage soap, they were just like these stories and obviously Queer as Folk. And then Brokeback Mountain came out when I was in my sixth form and I changed my thesis on representation in terms of homosexuality in Brokeback Mountain, just so that I had an excuse to go back to cinema about 15 times. But it, even though the stories itself were painful, it was just enough to see actors performing them, which just shows how bread-crumbed I think we were, at that point.
And then you look to people like Ian McKellen, obviously, and, the fearless sort of gay actors, you know, have been out from the get-go. And I think true to what you were saying, Elton is like, there was no option to not be out for so many different people. And, and then, you know, people are like – I get to go work with Matt Bomer, but I remember working with him on Fellow Travelers, but also having seen him just be amazing and brilliant and out with his family, and it’s just amazing then that you get to go and work and surround yourself with these people and then you sort of look to the next generation, I’m like, God, there’s so much that I feel like I can learn from them because they are so articulate and so self-aware and generous in terms of empathy.
And yeah, there’s nothing to no advice really to give other than the fact that growing up in the nineties I was just, I was so lucky to see legislation coming into play that sort of politically and, um, legally protected our community, which meant joy was easily accessible. And, I wonder if the next generation just needs to know how to harness the joy that they can communicate to their fans and in the stories they tell. And just know that we’re gonna need it more than ever. Because obviously it’s a striking time where there’s a real threat that things can slip. But yeah, I mean, it’s an amazing thing, isn’t it? Generational, um, relationships and being in a part of a community where we are all just benefactors of who came before us.
John: You spearheaded the whole group of new gay actors and there are so many of them. And, um, it’s so wonderful. A lot of people have, I, I think, um, were afraid to, in an acting world, were afraid to come out because they wouldn’t get parts. I mean, you…people like you and Matt Bomer and so many other actors right now, young actors, um, Ben Wishaw, Andrew Scott. Yeah, I mean, it’s just amazing. So, bravo my darling. You certainly deserve this award and I’m so proud to know you and count you as a friend. So thank you so much for all you do.
Bailey: Well, thank you. Listen, we’re taking on, um. We’re taking over the baton and the legacy and, and, uh, and we continue. And we continue. And that’s what it’s all about with joy.
