Quarantined soap opera fans who are looking for entertaining content as the coronavirus pandemic rages on may want to check out the new Mike Doyle film Almost Love, starring One Life to Live alum Scott Evans (ex-Oliver Fish).
The indie movie follows Evans as a painter and Augustus Prew as his boyfriend who runs a famous fashion Instagram account. As their relationship comes to a crossroads, viewers are introduced to the couple's circle of friends, including a wife (Kate Walsh) whose husband of 15 years leaves her for a younger partner; a woman (Michelle Buteau) who is surprised to find out that the man she's been seeing is homeless; and a tutor (Zoë Chao) who is falling for her almost 18-year-old student.
As reported in Variety, Doyle insisted on having openly gay actors play the lead couple, because "there've been some movies of late that have gotten a lot of attention, and the non-gay romantic leads playing gay are applauded for their bravery, which just drives me crazy. I'm not making an edict that only gay people can play gay people, and straight people play straight people -- we're actors, so we can do many things. It was just very important to me that the two stars are out loud and proud."
Evans agrees but says that the way his character was written is what really sold him on accepting the role. "All of a sudden, the entertainment industry wants a kind of pat on the back for giving gay people gay roles, but all the gay roles are still kind of those roles that you don't necessarily want to play all the time. Reading Almost Love, it was a completely different thing," he explains. "It was seeing something that I totally related to and that I knew a lot of my friends related to, and a lot of people relate to whether you're gay or you're straight. It was very exciting."
Another gay role that Evans is proud to have played is his OLTL character, Fish. Evans starred on the ABC soap opera from 2008 to 2010, during which time his character was in a gay romance with Llanview resident Kyle (Brett Claywell). At the time, he didn't realize how much of an impact that role and his real-life sexuality would have on viewers.
"Before I even started pursuing a professional career in entertainment, I was out of the closet. I came out when I was like 18, 19," he shares. "I just knew that I didn't want to live a lie. I'd spend my whole life living a lie. It builds up in you and it really causes lots of problems for your psyche later in life. I think I made that decision fairly early on, and then didn't even realize the potential repercussions that it would have in the entertainment world."
He continues, "When I was first starting out, I was on a soap opera for many years. I played an openly gay character on the show. Soap fans are the best fans, first of all. The letters would just come in, handwritten and emails and everything, just messages of support and thank you, and 'thank you for giving me something to watch in my small town.'"
Soap Central previously wrote about Evans' film Almost Love, which used to have the title Sell By, when it was running in theaters back in October of 2019. Said Evans at the time, "I don't think there's somebody out there who wouldn't be able to relate to somebody in this movie. You can see yourself in every character, whether you're male, female, gay, straight, whatever."
Almost Love was released on digital and on VOD on Friday, April 3.
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