Celebrating the wonderful career of gay actor Ben Whishaw
Cloud Atlas in my science fiction list. In it, Whishaw plays, amongst other roles, Robert Frobisher, a bisexual composer, who goes to work for ageing composer Vyvyan Ayrs (Jim Broadbent).
The film has some beautiful moments between Frobisher and his lover Rufus Sixsmith (James D’Arcy), although sadly, (spoiler alert) it doesn’t end well.A personal favourite of mine is Lilting, which sees the character Richard, played by Ben Whishaw, dealing with the death of his boyfriend Kai (Andrew Leung).
He is left to deal with Junn (Cheng Pei-pei), Kai’s mother.They both struggle as they do not share a language and Kai was struggling to come out before his death, something Whishaw identified with: “I had a lot of fear in doing it for a long time… But it takes courage and people have to do it in their own time, which is a negotiation you see happening in the film.”Whishaw had a role in the controversial movie The Danish Girl.
He praised the lead actor Eddie Redmayne’s acting but did comment on a cisgender actor playing a transgender role.“I think Eddie did a beautiful job,” he said. “And it’s done.
