Everything you need to know about LGBTQ+ Yellowstone and Stick actress Lilli Kay
(L-R) Lilli Kay, Mariana Treviño, Judy Greer and Marc Maron star in Stick (Apple TV+)
(L-R) Lilli Kay, Mariana Treviño, Judy Greer and Marc Maron star in Stick (Apple TV+)
New Apple TV+ show Stick is making waves this June, and starring alongside lead cast member Owen Wilson is talented up and coming queer actress Lilli Kay.
Stick is a golf comedy TV show that sees Owen Wilson take on the role of Pryce Cahill, a former professional golfer who is now a golf club salesman and coach. Lilli Kay plays Zero, a bartender at Sparling Meadows.
In a recent interview, Lilli Kay described Zero as “uncompromising”, explaining: “if Zero believes something they believe it with their whole heart.”
Previously, Lilli Kay delighted viewers with her role in another TV show; as Clara in the neo-Western drama Yellowstone, after joining the hit series in season 5.
Kay, who is the daughter of Yellowstone director Stephen Kay, played Clara Brewer, the assistant to the Dutton family patriarch and Montana Governor, John (played by Kevin Costner). She joined Yellowstone in 2022, playing and famously shared the show’s first LGBTQ+ kiss.
As per her Coverfly profile, she’s a vocal member of the LGBTQ+ community and seeks accurate and authentic on-screen queer representation.
Here’s everything you need to know about the talented star.
What have you seen Lilli Kay before?
Kay played Penelope Fowler in Netflix‘s 2019 supernatural horror show Chambers, opposite Nicholas Galitzine, but the series was cancelled after one season.
She also played Sofia Baxter in drama Your Honor, opposite Breaking Bad‘s Bryan Cranston, queer star Hunter Doohan, and Call Me By Your Name‘s Michael Stuhlbarg, and featured in queer biopic Rustin last year.
Who is Lilli Kay dating?
Kay is dating actor and model Juli Kocemba, who describes themself as a “trans masc person using they/them pronouns.”
The pair have been posting together since 2022 and regularly appear side-by-side on red carpets.
Their relationship was confirmed when they locked lips in Yellowstone’s first non-heterosexual kiss.
In episode seven of the fifth season, “The Dream is Not Me”, the ranchers go to the Montana State Fair. In a fleeting moment, Clara and someone in a cowboy hat share a kiss.
Speaking about how the kiss came about, Kay told Deadline: “We were in our Covid protocol… we were trying to figure out who was easy and comfortable [to cast and] who was also in the testing cycle.
“My partner, Juli Kocemba, was there with me in Montana so they said: ‘Oh, let’s just have you guys make out in the background’.
“My partner’s non-binary, so we were like: ‘Well, it’s a genderfluid make-out in the background’. We thought nobody [would] make a big deal about it. Then a lot of people made a very big deal about it.”
Although many viewers were delighted by the unexpected kiss, it also enraged others who accused the show of “going woke”.
Stick season one is currently airing on Apple TV+ in the US and UK.
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