Eric Stonestreet, Portia de Rossi, Carson Kressley, Norman Lear and Former NFL player Chris Kluwe were Hollywood stars celebrating lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality at Paley Center for Media on Wednesday.
TheWrap took the opportunity to ask 15 of Hollywood’s prominent attendees to sound off on the industry’s surge in casting openly LGBT as comic book character heroes and villains.
“I think it’s wonderful,” ABC’s “Scandal” star Portia de Rossi said. “It is another example of how far the LGBT community has come, and how it really ceases to matter about an actor’s sexuality. I think we’re there now. I think we’ve been inching for awhile, but now I think we’re there.”
“Superheroes are super gay,” joked the former “Queer Eye” host Carson Kressley. “I mean — hello — Aquaman? I have so many Aquaman fantasies. Batman and Robin — the first same sex couple on television.”
“If you you buy in that it’s possible there is such a thing as a superhero, you also have to buy into the fact that there are gay superheroes,” said Eric Stonestreet, star of ABC’s “Modern Family.”
“Let’s call it like it is,” said Peter Paige, co-executive producer of ABC Family’s “The Fosters. “If you’re going to grow up gay you’re going to be strong, you’re going to be tough, you’re going to find your way through it — otherwise you won’t survive.”
“And you look good in tights, too,” added Bradley Bredeweg, another co-executive producer of “The Fosters.”
The stars also spoke to what superpowers they would want and what their Kryptonite might be, were to become a superhero themselves.
Watch the conversation about LGBT casting up top and about superpowers on below.
Itay Hod contributed to this report.