'Glee's' Jane Lynch: Gay Actors Might Never Land Lead Roles in Hollywood

Glee star Jane Lynch recently addressed the hot-button topic of gay actors in Hollywood facing discrimination when it comes to pursuing the role of a romantic lead.

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"I don't know when or if that will ever happen," the 50-year-old openly lesbian actress said in an interview with AfterElton.com. "...This is a business of projection and desiring people from afar ... so there has got to be some truth to it, in terms of, 'I could see myself with that person.' Because the leading man and lady are the person we want them to fall in love with, and most of the audience is straight. So for right now, we can only use straight actors."

Lynch's statements come a few weeks after two openly gay actors, Richard Chamberlain and Rupert Everett, addressed the controversial casting issue in seperate interviews, with both lamenting that coming out in Hollywood profoundly affected their careers, especially regarding landing romantic leading man roles.

"I wouldn't advise a gay leading man-type actor to come out," Chamberlain told The Advocate. "There's still a tremendous amount of homophobia in our culture. It's regrettable, it's stupid, it's heartless, and it's immoral, but there it is."

In a chat with the BBC's Radio 4, British actor Everett addressed the reaction he received in Hollywood after coming out professionally. "I just never got a job there, and I never got a job [in England], after [coming out]. I did a couple of films, I was very lucky at the beginning of my career... and then, I never had another job [in America] for 10 years probably and I moved to Europe."

Lynch puts the blame of bias on the studios. "It's everybody looking at the bottom line ... I think they want their young Romeo/Juliet archetypes to be straight."