Billy Porter On Shooting POSE: "I Was Set Free"

Speaking with POSE creator/producer Ryan Murphy at an event in support of the Emmy-nominated series, Billy Porter says he felt "set free" shooting the acclaimed FX series.

Via Deadline:

For Porter, who spent decades struggling as an openly gay black artist, shooting Pose was cathartic.

“The first ball day sticks out really clearly to me because I was doing what I thought my television performance should be. I was trying to play Pray Tell and be smaller, be still, don’t be so crazy.

"[Murphy] walks in and is like, ‘Are you going to give me the sh*t? I need the sh*t. I need you. I need whatever you do,’” he recalled. “I had never said anything to him about it, but he knew instinctively. I was set free on that day, and I never turned back.”

Later in the chat, Porter added he made a conscious decision years ago to choose himself - his "sanity" and "authenticity" - over fame.

“20 years ago, I looked at the landscape, I looked at my life, I looked at what my choices were, and I made the choice to choose myself, choose my sanity over my fame, choose my authenticity over all else, and took every hit that comes with that,” Porter said. “Never did I imagine that I could and would be a first.”