For LGBTQ Youth, Longtime Ally Ben Cohen Is A Team Player
metroweekly.comPatterns, London teen Liam (Rufus Gleave) wishes for guidance from the poster boy on his wall, English rugby champion Ben Cohen, and, in the show’s camp comedy fashion, his wish is granted.Stepping directly out of a shirtless poster into Liam’s room, the former pro winger materializes to help the kid build up the confidence to conquer school bullies, and finally come out to his, incidentally, pretty DILF-y dad, Preston (Matthew Simpson).The role came as a natural fit for Cohen, who has long put combating bullying and homophobia at the center of his activism, founding the Ben Cohen StandUp Foundation in 2011.
Few world-class professional athletes, who are straight, have worn their LGBTQ allyship as prominently or as proudly as Cohen, who goes so far in Patterns as to dance a dream ballet in a crop tee and cutoff shorts, all for the sake of supporting Liam, and kids like him.“This was a great opportunity to be a role model and to help support [Patterns director-producer] Rex [Glensy] through something that I’ve probably always been curious of, with acting,” Cohen says over a video call from his home in the English countryside.Though Cohen has made several non-sports-related TV appearances, most famously as a contestant on season 13 of BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing, he had “never really acted before, in front of the camera.”He credits Gleave, the episode’s young lead, with supporting him. “He helped me massively, and made it easy for me,” he says, “[creating] a great environment for me to go in and be a novice actor.”The subject matter, of course, resonates with Cohen. “It was something that I’m very passionate about,” he says, “that whole being an LGBTQ+ ally, and where it’s come from when I started.
