Billy Porter is known for going big. The 54-year-old actor and singer routinely stole scenes as the drag ball emcee Pray Tell in FX’s drama Pose, a role that won him an Emmy. In Amazon’s 2021 update of Cinderella, he turned the fairy godmother into a fabulous, tough-talking fairy “godmuvva”, as he puts it. But his latest role, in the Bill Oliver-directed relationship drama Our Son, takes a different tack: as Gabriel, a relatively meek stay-at-home dad divorcing his husband, Nicky, (Luke Evans), Porter is required to play small, wounded and, sometimes, bitter, without any of the glitz or glam of his best known characters.
It’s the kind of role that Porter always knew he could pull off, but has rarely been considered for. Even fans, he says, don’t really get it. “At the premiere, somebody said to me, ‘Oh my God, Billy, how do you act like that?’” he recalls. “Would you ask Viola Davis that question? Would you ask Al Pacino that question? The world has a difficult time understanding that fabulous and serious do coexist – and you’re looking at him.”
