Olivia Colman is opening up about her experience with gender identity, explaining why she describes herself as a gay man.
The Oscar winner’s latest film is Jimpa, a drama examining the dynamics in a family with multiple members who are part of the LGBTQ+ community.
Colman plays a filmmaker called Hannah, who travels to Amsterdam with her non-binary transgender teen Frances (Aud Mason-Hyde) to visit their grandfather Jimpa (John Lithgow), who is gay.
The official synopsis reads: “When Frances expresses a desire to stay with Jimpa for a year abroad, Hannah is forced to reconsider her parenting beliefs and the stories she has long told about her family.”
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The 52-year-old Heartstopper actor, who is married to husband Ed Sinclair, spoke candidly about gender and sexuality in a new interview promoting the new film.
“I think it’s a community that I love being welcomed into," she told Them, gushing about being accepted and celebrated by the LGBTQ+ community.
"I find the most loving and the most beautiful stories are from that community. And I feel really honored to be welcomed.”
Colman then explained why she feels ‘sort of non-binary’ and why she describes herself to her husband ‘as a gay man’.
She shared: “Throughout my whole life, I’ve had arguments with people where I've always felt sort of nonbinary.
"Don’t make that a big sort of title! But I’ve never felt massively feminine in my being female. I’ve always described myself to my husband as a gay man. And he goes, 'Yeah, I get that.'. So I do feel at home and at ease. I feel like I have a foot in various camps. I know many people who do.”
Tyla has contacted Olivia Colman’s representatives for comment.
Jimpa director Sophie Hyde, who was also present in the interview, said: “What you’re talking about is so familiar. We can have different positions and stuff, but because we’re raised as women, we’re socialised as women, but that doesn’t mean that’s not a limiting idea for us — the idea of being a woman or womanhood. It doesn’t necessarily fit for all of us. I think these binaries of gender are problematic for many of us. It’s like, how can you fit? There are problems sometimes. A lot of us have been limited by this.”
Speaking about her relationship with her husband, Colman added: “I think with my husband and I, we take turns to be the ‘strong one,’ or the one who needs a little bit of gentleness. I believe everyone has all of it in them. I’ve always felt like that. It’s only now, and talking to Aud and their community, suddenly I’m not an oddity.”
The acclaimed star, who played Queen Elizabeth II in The Crown for two seasons, met her husband when they were both university students. They married in 2001 and share two sons: Finn, born in 2005, and Hall, born in 2007. They welcomed a daughter in 2015.
Topics: Celebrity, TV And Film, UK News
The Tyla Team