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True Blood’s Lafayette Does Not Want to be Typecast

Ellis, definitely out of character.

Nelsan Ellis is many things as True Blood’s Lafayette: flamboyant but tough, and hard-edged yet sympathetic. However, Ellis, who Queerty reports is heterosexual, doesn’t want to be typecast as whatever “type” it is, exactly, that he’s playing on television: “I can’t just get upset with regular folk because all they see is the character,” he tells Vibe. “But when the industry can’t tell the difference, I’m like, ‘Damn that’s a little closed minded,’ because when white people play a character people expect it to be a character. But black people — we can’t just be character actors, we have to [really] be the things we’re hired for, which is what offends me. I don’t answer that question, ‘Are you gay or not,’ when it comes down to industry people. But if it’s a regular person asking me, that just says that maybe I’m doing a good job. But when a casting director or an agent asks me that question it takes on a deeper thing that says, ‘I can’t believe you’re doing this unless you are that.’” [Queerty]

True Blood’s Lafayette Does Not Want to be Typecast