Charlie Carver - who is best known for his roles on MTV's "Teen Wolf" and HBO's "The Leftovers" - came out as gay on Instagram Monday. The 27-year-old actor posted a series of thoughtful and inspirational posts with a graphic that read: "Be Who You Needed When You Were Younger."
"As a young boy, I knew I wanted to be an actor. I knew I wanted to be a lot of things... It was around that age that I also knew, however abstractly, that I was different from some of the other boys in my grade," wrote Carver in the first of five posts. "Over time, abstract 'knowing' grew and articulated itself through a painful gestation marked by feelings of despair and alienation, ending in a climax of saying three words out loud: 'I am gay.'"
He went on to explain how coming out to his friends and family was what came next, and how this felt safe and was surprisingly easy for him, but things began to get "complicated" as he moved forward with his acting career and realized Hollywood wasn't as accepting at first.
"I did not want to be defined by my sexuality," he wrote in the third post. "Sure, I am a proud gay man, but I don't identify as a Gay man, or a GAY man, or just gay. I identify as a lot of things, these various identifications and identities taking up equal space and making up an ever-fluid sense of Self... As an actor, I believed that my responsibility to the craft and the business was to remain benevolently neutral - I was a canvas, a chameleon, the next character. For the most part I had a duty to stay a Possibility in the eye of casting, directors and the public. If I Came Out, I feared I would be limiting myself to a type, to a perception with limits that I was not professionally comfortable with."
After nearly 10 years in the business, though, Carver realized it's ever-changing, and his perspective began to change as well. "I long for the world to be simple, for everyone to feel happy and safe in who they are as individuals and members of a community," he continued. "I can only hope that the beginning of this unrest is productive, something our generation(s) is moving through in order to end up someplace better... So now, let the record show this - I self-identify as gay. And does that really matter anymore? As a young man, I needed a young man in Hollywood to say that - and without being a dick about it, I owe it to myself, more than anything, to be who I needed when I was younger. And let the record show my twin brother is just as cool for being straight."
