Actor Fernando Dente gets very candid about his sexuality
A post shared by FER DENTE (@ferdente)Argentine actor Fernando Dente has opened up about his hurdles as a gay actor and his internal struggle with his own sense of homophobia.Dente, 32, rocketed to fame in the Argentine incarnation of Disney’s High School Musical series.
He first beat out 26,000 applicants to win High School Musical: La Selección, a Star Search-type reality show competition to find the new leads for the Latin American version of High School Musical.
With his win, he followed up in High School Musical: El Desafío, playing the equivalent of the role of Troy, the character made famous in the United States by Zac Efron.Since his stint with the High School Musical series, Dente has enjoyed fame touring in a South American production of Kinky Boots.
As a promotion for the stage play, he sat down with radio journalist Catalina Dlugi to discuss the show. Over the course of the conversation, he also revealed his ongoing battle with internalized homophobia.Related: Drag queen son of Argentina’s new president wears Pride Flag to inauguration“We all grew up in a society with mandates, thoughts, prejudices, being part of the minority does not exempt you from having been raised in this society,” Dente explained. “I’m gay and I have homophobic thoughts, what I do is discover them and to say ‘this is absurd,’ deep in my head there is a thought that does not make sense.”“Any person who runs away from that norm is much more exposed and without doing anything, simply being who he is, ends up being criticized,” he elaborated.
