《越狱》男主Miller人权运动年度晚宴演讲
2013-12-25 15:53
米帅(温特沃斯·米勒 Wentworth Miller)宣布出柜(come out of the closet)后再度袒露心声。9月7日晚,这位曾演过热门美剧《越狱》的41岁的男演员在西雅图“人权战线”组织HRC晚宴上发表演讲透露心声,承认在寻求自我认同的成长过程中曾不止一次试图自杀直到现在走出低谷勇敢面对生活。第一次是在15岁的时候,因为苦于没有发泄与倾诉的对象,在家里人都离开的时候,独自吞下了一整瓶药片。他早些时候在一封言辞恳切的出柜信中婉拒了莫斯科国际电影节的邀约。
Thank you...
First and foremost I want to personally thank the Human Rights Campaign for the incredible work that they've done and the work they continue to do (applause) not only here in Washington state but across the country and around the world. As we all know this work is critical. It's life changing. It's life saving.
It is my great honor and priviledge to be here tonight, to count myself a member of this community. It is also something of a surprise (laugh)
I've had a complicated relationship with that word: Community. I've been slow to embrace it. I've been hesitant, been doubtful. For many years, I could not or would not accept that there was anything in that word for someone like me - like connection and support, strength, warmth. And there are reasons for that.
I wasn't born in this country, I didn't grow up in any one particular religion, I have a mixed race background, and I'm gay. Really, it's just your typical, All-American boy next door.
It has been natural to see myself as an individual, it's been a challenge to imagine that self as part of something larger. Like many of you here tonight, I grew up in what I would call "survival mode." When you are in survival mode, your focus is on getting through the day in one piece. And when you are in that mode at [age] five, at 10, at 15 there isn't a lot of space for words like "community," for words like "us" and "we." There is only space for "I" and "me."
In fact, words like "us" and "we" not only sounded foreign to me at five and 10, at 15, they sounded like a lie. Because if "us" and "we" really existed, if there was really someone out there watching and listening and caring, then I would have been rescued by now. That feeling of being singular and different and alone carried over into my 20s and into my 30s.
When I was 33 I started working on a tv show that was successful not only here in the states but also abroad, which meant over the next four years I was travelling to Asia, to the Middle East, to Europe and everywhere in between, and in that time, I gave thousands of interviews. I had multiple opportunities to speak my truth, which is that I was gay, but I chose not to. I was out privately to family and friends, to the people I learned to trust over time, but professionally and publically I was not.
Asked to choose between being out of integrity and out of the closet, I chose the former. I chose to lie. I chose to dissemble, because when I thought about the possiblity of coming out, about how that might impact me and the career I worked so hard for I was filled with fear. Fear and anger and a stubborn resistance that had built up over many years.
When I thought about that kid somewhere out there who might be inspired or moved by me taking a stand and speaking my truth, my mental response was consistantly, No, thank you. I thought, I've spent over a decade building this career. Alone.