'Looking' Actor Russell Tovey Reacts to Backlash from Gay Men, Nearly a Decade After HBO Series Ended

Russell Tovey‘s breakout role in the U.S. was in the HBO series Looking, which ran for two seasons back in 2014 and 2015.

Instead of getting a third season, the series was wrapped up with a movie in 2016.

While the series was praised for giving LGBTQ+ stories representation on a major network, it still received backlash from gay men who weren’t fans of the material. Nearly a decade after the show ended, Russell is speaking out in response to that backlash.

Keep reading to find out more…

“The critical narrative at the beginning was that nothing much happened in it,” he told The Independent in a new interview. “That it was too boring. But it was just real life!”

Russell, who is openly gay, even recalled an instance when he was filming a season two scene on location in San Francisco and he was approached by some gay men.

“They’d say, ‘You’re in Looking!… but I’ve not watched it, I’ve heard it’s boring,’” Russell said with an “exasperated roar,” according to The Independent. “They hadn’t even seen it! And it’s about you, in your city, filming outside your coffee shop, and you’re not even intrigued to watch it? It really, really frustrated me. It broke me, honestly. If that show came out now, it’d have a completely different response.”

Russell also talked about the kind of gay roles he will play on screen.

“I’ve always been really careful about the gay roles I’ve played,” he said. “It feels important to make sure that if I’m playing gay, that it’s doing something. That it’s moving the dial forwards.”

Last year, Russell talked about his trademark ears and why he came out early in his career.