9-1-1 star Oliver Stark ‘proud’ of playing queer character: ‘Important for me to do it’
Oliver Stark (Getty Images)
9-1-1 star Oliver Stark has come out in support of the LGBTQ+ community yet again.
Stark has played Evan ‘Buck’ Buckley on the firefighter drama since 2018, and has been exploring the character’s sexuality since his bisexual arc began in season 7.
Speaking at a Dream It fan convention on 24 May, the actor was asked why advocacy is so important to him. “I do it because I support and I do just think, ‘Get with the f****** programme,’ you know?” he said.
“I think it’s important for me to do it, so I’d just rather do it. And I think if more people thought, ‘Let me just do this thing that’s right,’ then we’d probably be at a nicer place… I play a queer character and I want people to know that I’m f****** proud of it,” he continued.
Stark went on to highlight how we do have access to more queer stories now than in previous times, but he thinks there’s something special about the fact that Buck’s queer awakening came for him while he was in his thirties.
“People have come up to me and said, ‘Hey, that’s cool, that’s unique to me,’ and oftentimes the stories you see are teenaged coming out stories or whatever,” he said.
“So I love that we were able to do something a little bit different with that, and maybe help somebody feel represented to that degree. I just love the story and I love that for the character, and I’ve loved getting to be a part of it. That’s why I’m always happy to speak on it.”
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