Ryan Phillippe has reflected on his groundbreaking gay role in the American daytime soap opera One Life to Live.
In 1992, the handsome talent got his big break when he portrayed Billy Douglas in the long-running TV series.
At the time, the character was a groundbreaking addition to One Life to Live, as Billy was the first openly gay character to be featured on daytime television.
While Billy was only featured in the series for a year, he made a massive impact on LGBTQIA+ viewers at home.
In a recent interview with PEOPLE, The Lincoln Lawyer star reflected on his “profound experience” portraying the iconic character in an era when there were few queer characters on screen.
“I was so young that there were elements of me that were afraid because it was such a different time,” he told the news outlet.
“I think there were some fears associated with the point in time that we were at and it being before so many walls and ceilings have been broken in that regard.”
While Phillippe was initially hesitant to play the character, his nerves dissipated after seeing the positive impact Billy had on viewers.
“As that job progressed, I realized how important it was to some people. and I was only 17 years old, so you don’t really have a sense of that,” he continued.
“It was such a different time, but I very much matured through having had that experience and seeing the impact that it had for others.”
ABC
Phillippe’s recent sit down with PEOPLE isn’t the first time he has opened up about his One Life to Live experience.
In a 2020 interview on Barstool Sports’ KFC Radio podcast, the Big Sky actor revealed that his family was “not happy” about him taking on the role of Billy.
“I had grown up going to Baptist school and Christian school. Coming out of the Christian school, when I was a senior in high school, I played the first gay character on a soap opera, first gay teenager ever.”
He explained further: “I was shunned at that point, so they were already out of the picture. This was 1992, and I was playing a gay teenager and I was in a Christian school. They weren’t happy about it.”
ABC
Since his One Life to Live days, Phillippe has gone on to star in a variety of iconic projects, including Cruel Intentions and I Know What You Did Last Summer.
Earlier this month, the 50-year-old talent added another hit to his extensive resume with the release of Prime Video’s Motorheads.
Following a group of outsiders “in a once-thriving Rust Belt town” who form an unlikely bond over their mutual love of automobiles, the drama also stars Michael Cimino (Love, Simon), Nathalie Kelley (The Vampire Diaries), Melissa Collazo (One of Us is Lying), Nicolas Cantu (The Walking Dead: World Beyond) and Uriah Shelton (The Glades).
Upon its release, Motorheads received generally favourable reviews from critics and landed in the top 10 on Prime Video’s TV show ranking.
Check out the trailer below.
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