Heroes gay character disappears

Thomas Dekker, aka Zach from Sci-fi series Heroes has left the show because playing a gay character would kill his career. 

The popular TV series has been hailed as the new Lost.  Just with superheroes, and storylines that people can actually follow.   

But they have lost their only gay character because 19-year-old Dekker's management think playing gay could reduce his chances of getting straight roles.

Tell that lame excuse to Heath Ledger. 

Heroes co-executive producer Bryan Fuller said in an interview posted on popgurls.com:

"(Dekker's) manager threatened to pull him from the show because he was up for the John Carter role in The Sarah Connor Chronicles and she didn't want him playing a gay character because it might affect FOX's interest in hiring him.

"It got really ugly. I was very upset by it – I was not happy about it at all."

Fuller explains that the character of Zach was intended to be gay from the very start.

In the first episode of Heroes, Zach is teased about getting horny in the boys locker room.

In another episode, a school mate calls Zach a "gay-boy" and he dismisses the remark by telling his friend Claire that he knows and likes who he is.

"The show's been such a positive experience for so many people, we didn't want to get hung up on the fact that one actor's management felt that it was a career killer for him to play a homosexual, which, as a gay man, I found incredibly insulting.

"We had episodes planned for him to be in, and she pulled him from the show altogether. So that's why he sort of disappeared." 

Good riddance, too.

In an e-mail last year to AfterElton.com, a website that monitors the visibility of gays and lesbians in the media, co-executive producer Tim Kring apologised for the resulting mess: "It was certainly not our intention to confuse the issue of Zach's character being gay.

"We have too much respect for our audience to do that intentionally."

photo: NBC

Comments

[Zedar]

There must be more to this. There are many precedents for replacing an actor. Jack Coleman (Mr Bennett) is one of the best known examples of this - he replaced Al
Corley as Steven Carrington in Dynasty without the series stumbling. And Becky, Rosanne's eldest daughter was smoothly replaced without working oilwell explosions and reconstructive surgery into the story. So, this actor's agent pulling him out is not sufficient explanation for erasing the character.

[Mike]

I'll take the role :)