Russell Tovey: I Can Play Straight Because I Didn't Prance Around

In an interview with The Guardian, out actor Russell Tovey (HBO's Looking) says he could have ended up "really effeminate" if he had been allowed to attend a famous acting school in London.

“I was so envious of everyone who went to Sylvia Young Theatre School. I wanted to go but my dad flat-out refused. He thought I’d become some tapdancing freak without qualifications. And he was right in a way. I’m glad I didn’t go. That might have changed…”

“I feel like I could have been really effeminate, if I hadn’t gone to the school I went to. Where I felt like I had to toughen up. If I’d have been able to relax, prance around, sing in the street, I might be a different person now. I thank my dad for that, for not allowing me to go down that path. Because it’s probably given me the unique quality that people think I have.”

In addition to Looking, Tovey stars in the new BBC drama Banished, about British convicts in Australia, which premieres this week.