Though she played an out lesbian character in the absolutely iconic 1999 film But I’m A Cheerleader, Clea DuVall was closeted at the time, and terrified of being outed. “We started the press cycle for it, I remember feeling like, ‘Oh shit, I need to hide, I need to stop’,” she told The Independent.
“I was very closeted and very afraid of people finding out I was gay,” Clea said. “It was the ’90s, there was no conversation about sexuality – you were just not going to talk about it.”
Though she starred in plenty of queer-coded roles over her career, Clea didn’t publicly come out until 2016, after writing, directing, and acting in The Intervention. “I’ve played a lot of gay characters, but I haven’t really played a gay character that is gay in a way that is the gay that I feel like I am, if that makes sense,” she said of the role.
