Russell Tovey Talks About His 'Trademark' Ears, Explains Why He Came Out Early in His Career

Russell Tovey is opening up about his “trademark” ears and why he decided to come out as gay early on in his career.

The 40-year-old actor is currently starring in the 11th season of the hit FX anthology series American Horror Story. He’s also well known for his work in the HBO series Looking and the ABC series Quantico.

Click inside to find out what Russell Tovey said…

While being interviewed on the Just for Variety with Marc Malkin podcast, Russell said that he was pressured to change the way his ears look.

“Someone said to me, ‘If you want to make it in Hollywood, you’ve got to pin your ears back.’ And I remember being like, ‘They’re my trademark!’ I’ve never had an issue with my ears,” Russell said.

Russell also talked about coming out as gay years ago.

“I remember thinking, ‘I’m hearing you. Thank you very much. I appreciate your advice, but I’m going to do this because this feels authentic to me,’” he said. “This feels important to me. It feels important to my life outside of my pretend life of playing all these characters. I have to have the stability to know who I am outside of this.”

Russell added, “I don’t regret it on any level because my career has taken me somewhere really exciting. And I’ve played so many queer guys, queer characters that have brought me so much joy and I feel like have brought a lot of people joy and changed, set the dial somewhere else for people.”

Russell is still going strong with his longtime boyfriend!