*Photo credit: Prime Video
The father, the son, and the holy spirit? So passé. How about the president, the cowboy, and the video store clerk?
The president in question is Uma Thurman’s scene-stealing role of Ellen Claremont in the new gay rom-com Red, White & Royal Blue. As President of the United States, Thurman speaks in a questionable (but unquestionably entertaining) southern drawl and masterfully handles her son, played by Taylor Zakhar Perez, coming out as bisexual.
RelatedThe Tony Award winner, in his directorial debut, took ‘Red, White & Royal Blue’ from a heartwarming book to an endearing rom-com.
“You know, the B in LGBTQ is not a silent letter,” she says, sounding straight out of a community theater production of The Glass Menagerie, before recommending her son get the HPV vaccine and a prescription for PrEP. Now that is allyship.
And so, Ellen Claremont joins the ranks of supportive moms in gay media, scoring a place in the pantheon alongside Olivia Colman in Heartstopper and Jennifer Garner in Love, Simon.
Thurman’s role also means she’s joining her ex-husband Ethan Hawke and daughter Maya Hawke in shouting “Gay rights!” from the rooftops with her filmography. Ethan just played opposite Pedro Pascal in Pedro Almodóvar’s queer western Strange Way of Life, and Maya is Netflix’s go-to girl for sapphic characters, playing gay in both Stranger Things and Do Revenge.
The real kicker? There’s a fourth Thurman-Hawke. Yes, he’s also an actor. Yes, he also plays gay.
The man in question is Levon Hawke, who at 21 years old is only just starting his acting career. His first big role came this year in the critically panned Tom Holland series The Crowded Room, where he played Johnny, a “friend” of the main character who encourages him to make less than stellar decisions.
Where will the Thurman-Hawke clan strike next? Who’s to say. But we can bet it will be good, and we can bet it will be gay.