Last year the love of my life and the man that I totally thought I was going to marry, Wentworth Miller came out at The Human Rights Campaign dinner. Not only did this shock a lot of people, but he also broke tons of girls hearts, including mines.
Since coming out, Wentworth Miller hasn’t talked about it until now! The Prison Break star opens up to Details magazine about deciding to come out, returning to acting and dealing with depression.
On taking a break from acting to take up screenwriting: “I knew I needed a change. I was fried after four years on an intense network drama. The body-tattoo makeup alone took four hours every day. So the idea was to see what was behind that other door. I hadn’t thought of myself as a writer, but when I wrote Stoker, the feedback was very positive. I used a pseudonym because I didn’t want other actors thinking I’d written the part for myself only to decide I didn’t want to play it.”
On getting through his depression: “I’m part of a group called the ManKind Project. It’s a circle of men I sit in with every week that’s a safe sounding board for whatever’s up for me: good, bad, ugly, really ugly. We know how to respond to someone coming out now—we’ve had that training—but admit you’re sad or that you’ve thought about suicide and people don’t know what to do. With sadness, particularly with men, that conversation is unfamiliar.”
On coming out: “I feel more fully expressed. After Prison Break, I came to grips with the fact that my public persona was in misalignment with how I actually felt. I was out to a handful of people in my twenties, and once I hit 30, I was out to family and friends. But professionally, I was feeding a fantasy. I created this air of “We don’t address that thing.”
On if he regrets not coming out earlier: “My face was on billboards, and I thought it was my job to act a certain way. But I think audiences knew to a certain degree.”
For more on Wentworth Miller, head over to Details!
