Playing it Straight

Alan Cumming in Josie and the Pussycats (2001)

This vastly underrated comedy — one of the smartest and sharpest satires of youth marketing and the music industry in many a year — features a rapier-sharp performance by the famously “omnisexual” Cumming as Wyatt Frame, a record-label talent scout who blithely orders a plane crash to take out a boy band (the hilariously named “Du Jour”) that’s been asking too many questions; by the time Wyatt has finished collecting his parachute, he’s already looking for his next pop sensation.

Ultimately, we come to find out that Wyatt has done it all for the love of his former high school crush, but for most of the film, he’s ruthless in the most entertaining way possible.

3 Steves: The crush in question is played by Parker Posey, who over the years has probably had more gay admirers than straight ones.

Rock Hudson in Seconds (1966)

While the film has gone on to become a cult classic, the initial box office failure of John Frankenheimer’s powerful and disturbing Seconds was a great disappointment to Hudson, who saw the film as a rare opportunity to act and not merely to be a handsome matinee idol. The film tells the story of a rich, unfulfilled businessman who takes advantage of an unusual proposition from a shadowy organization that promises to fake his death, give him rejuvenating plastic surgery and allow him to start life over again.

Hudson plays the post-surgery version of the character, and while he tries desperately to embrace love (with Salome Jens as a mystery woman), passion and even decadence, he finds that, even with a new face and body, he’s still the same troubled and unhappy man deep inside. Playing a character whose true inner life didn’t match the exterior that the world saw hit close to home for Hudson, resulting in some of his best work.

5 Steves: This ain’t Pillow Talk (1959) or Man’s Favorite Sport? (1964); Hudson’s haunted hetero is thoroughly convincing.

Rupert Everett in Prêt-à-porter (or, if you insist, Ready to Wear) (1994)

As Everett has revealed in his memoirs, he’s had the occasional fling with women even though he thinks of himself principally as gay. So perhaps that’s why he’s so very convincing in the Robert Altman comedy, which examines the over-the-top and often cutthroat behavior of the international style set during Paris Fashion Week.

One of the many threads running through this poorly received yet underrated ensemble piece features Everett as Jack, the snaky son of legendary designer Simone Lowenthal (Anouk Aimée). Not only is Jack trying to sell the company out from under his dear mother, he’s also cheating on his model wife Kiki (Tara Leon) with her twin sister Dane (Georgianna Robertson), who’s also a model.

4 Steves: Everett makes a very believable two-timing snake. But, y’know, he’s still British, and they always come off just the tiniest bit gay unless they’re characters in a Guy Ritchie movie. And sometimes even then.