Wilson Cruz Is Still Breaking Barriers—On and Off the Screen

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Actor Wilson Cruz was only 20 when he started breaking boundaries in Hollywood through his portrayal of Enrique “Rickie” Vasquez, a gay Pennsylvania teen, on the 1994 single-season show My So-Called Life. In taking the role, Cruz, now 50, became the first out gay actor to play an out gay character on prime-time television, sparking dialogue across America and offering a lifeline for people who have long lacked visibility in Hollywood. “I understood that I was giving young people and their families permission to see themselves in me,” Cruz says. “I knew that I wasn’t the only one who was having difficult conversations with his family about his sexuality.”

In fact, the breakout role was what got him to come out to his own parents. “I wanted them to hear it from me before we started production and before doing press, in which I knew I’d be coming out and being honest,” he says. But his father, not ready to accept this news about his son, kicked him out of his home, an experience that’s still all too common: a 2021 survey by the Trevor Project found that nearly 30% of LGBTQ youth reported experiencing homelessness or housing instability at some point in their lives, in many cases because of strained relationships with their parents or caregivers over their identity.

It took a year before Cruz and his father reconnected. After the episode of the show on which Rickie came out aired, Cruz’s dad asked him to speak, and the actor drove some 60 miles to have that conversation over a six-pack of beer. “I grew up assuming that I wasn’t going to have a relationship with my father, so the fact that he was vulnerable enough to go there with me was the biggest gift and best gift he’s ever given,” Cruz says. And it reassured him that being public about his own sexuality and struggles was the right decision, as it could “give people permission to take the risk,” he says.

Moving forward with a sense of purpose, Cruz has been intentional about the roles he selects. He starred in Rent, portrayed an HIV+ doctor on the drama series Noah’s Arc, and, since 2017, on Star Trek: Discovery, has played Dr. Hugh Culber, a character he says he made Puerto Rican to show the perseverance of the island even thousands of years into the future, when the show’s plot is set.

Hispanic people make up nearly one-fifth of the U.S. population but account for nearly a quarter of all box-office ticket sales and streaming subscribers, per a McKinsey report. Still, Latinos are largely underrepresented across the entertainment industry, making up less than 5% of leading on-screen, off-screen, and executive roles in U.S. media.

“It would be a lie to say that I didn’t see how far we’ve come since 1994,” Cruz says. “Does that mean that we are at a point where the number of characters and stories reflect the actual size of our population? No. There’s still a lot of work to do.”