Highlights
- Andrew Scott says movies should keep telling AIDS crisis stories, even as joyful queer hits like Heated Rivalry rise.
- The Elsinore star said the shame belongs to governments who ignored the epidemic, not to gay people who lived it.
- Scott plays Ian Charleson, who played Hamlet while dying of AIDS. Focus Features opens Elsinore in the US Nov. 20.
Andrew Scott isn’t interested in looking away from the AIDS crisis. And he doesn’t think Hollywood should either.
Appearing at the BFI on Thursday, Oct. 8, Scott was asked about the queer roles that have been staples of his career. He was speaking the day after the festival opened with the European premiere of Simon Stone’s Elsinore.
The question was pointed. He has appeared in a recent run of films criticized for depicting queer turmoil and sadness.
Scott didn’t dismiss the lighter wave. “I welcome things like Heartstopper and Heated Rivalry,” he said, adding, “I really, really, really do.”
He called the range of queer storytelling a win. “The fact that there’s lots of different types of gay drama is extraordinary.”
But the instinct to skip the harder chapters bothers him. Scott said he is troubled by the idea that tragic moments in LGBTQ+ history could be overlooked.
That reluctance, he suggested, often “comes from a place of shame.”
Then he drew the line clearly. “The shame does not lie with gay people,” Scott said. “The shame lies with the governments who ignored the AIDS crisis.”
He extended the blame to the stigma and prejudice of the era, closing with: “That’s someone else’s shame.” The audience applauded.
In Elsinore, written by Stephen Beresford, Scott plays Chariots of Fire star Ian Charleson. In 1989, already succumbing to complications from AIDS, Charleson replaced Daniel Day-Lewis as Hamlet at London’s National Theatre.
Charleson died of AIDS-related causes in January 1990 at age 40, eight weeks after his Hamlet. He was among the first UK celebrity deaths openly attributed to the illness.
The role runs close to home. Scott has called it “so much about everything in my life.” He played Hamlet for 150 shows at London’s Almeida Theatre in 2017 and found it grueling. As he put it: “That part really does nearly kill you.”
He also lived through the period. In a Telluride interview, Scott said the era left people feeling “completely abandoned by your government, who wouldn’t even say the name” of the illness. As a young adult, he said that scared him.
The premiere itself became a tribute. Scott welcomed many of the real people depicted in the film onstage, including HIV/AIDS treatment pioneer Professor Margaret Johnson, whom Olivia Colman plays.
“It’s difficult to underestimate the impact this person had on the development of treatment,” Scott said. He recalled that all 2,000 people in the Royal Festival Hall stood for her.
Scott described the night as a “very, very, very special evening.”
Elsinore opens in the U.S. on Nov. 20 and in the UK on Jan. 29.
