Jussie Smollett says he jumped at the chance to play Jamal Lyon, the gay son of Lucious (Terrence Howard) and Cookie (Taraji P. Henson) in Fox's hit series Empire. "I knew from the moment that my manager and my agent sent me the script that I connected to Jamal," he told Cosmopolitan.com in a phone interview this week. "I jumped right on Instagram, of all places, and I direct-messaged [co-creator] Lee Daniels, who I didn't even know, and I said, 'I sing, I dance, I'm a songwriter, and I act. I'm Jamal Lyon in more ways than one.'" Here, the actor-singer-songwriter — who, trivia-time, starred in The Mighty Ducks back in the day — discusses universality of homophobia, how his character has impacted fans, and what it was like to duet with a legendary guest-star in the finale.
Were you at all uncomfortable with some of your scenes, like sex scenes or when Cookie used the "F" word? And did you discuss these things with Lee Daniels?
Well, Cookie didn't use the "F" word in a scene with me [it was with the actor who plays a younger version of Jamal]. But, yeah, the character altogether is something that I spoke in depth with Father Lee about, because the character is so close to his heart; it's loosely based on him. As far as being uncomfortable, I'm a freak. And I'm an artist [laughs]. So it's like, I wasn't uncomfortable. It's all good. "What do you need me to do? You need me to have to have sex over there? Sure." I mean, you're going into a project working with Lee Daniels. Don't go in there being anything less than fearless.
The role of Jamal is especially interesting because while there are now lots of gay characters on mainstream TV shows, this one exists in the world of hip-hop, which is not typically welcoming to gay men. Did you speak with any gay people in the industry about this?
Well, first of all, here's the thing: I grew up in the business. I know about homophobia in the music industry — not just in hip-hop. Obviously, we're dealing with homophobia in hip-hop, we're dealing with homophobia in the black community. We're dealing with homophobia in the black community and in hip-hop because we're telling the story of a family that is a hip-hop family that is black. But that in no way is to let any other group of people off the hook, as if this is an isolated issue just simply in the black community. I have Jewish friends, I have Middle Eastern friends, I have Spanish and Italian and British and Scottish and German friends and Austrian friends, and guess what? They all deal with homophobia. It's an earthling epidemic, it's not isolated in the black community. So it's definitely a story that Lee wanted to get out there, and it's a story that I'm proud that we're telling. But this is a universal story of people that are not respected and understood, and we all can relate to that, whether we're gay, straight, bi, transgender.
When Tiana turned out to be lesbian or bisexual, Cookie says it's a good thing for her career; even Lucious acts like it's no big deal. But for Jamal [his sexuality is] considered a bigger "problem" that has to either be kept quiet or dealt with strategically. That's also a double standard that exists everywhere too.
Sure. Hell yeah, that double standard exists everywhere. Because you want to know something? At the end of the day, and it's sad, but what do we work off of? Usually, what society works off of is the fantasy of straight men. And men are not scared of the idea of two beautiful women kissing. But somehow, the idea of two beautiful men kissing — Oh my god. Well, good lord! Someone call the press! Stop it! [Laughs] You know what I mean? There is this double standard, sure. It's the world that we live in. So that's why we're here, to hopefully change some of that.
Also, is Smollett worried about the fact that Jamal isn’t the first gay role he’s played? He also played a gay character in the 2012 film, “The Skinny.” June Thomas of Slate.com asked after the TCA panel and here is Smollett’s response:
No, because I really don’t care about that. To be honest with you, I just don’t care. I don’t want to do good roles and I want to do roles that challenge me and say something. I don’t want to play the same thing over and over. I could. I could and play it safe and that might work for a time being but I think it’s awesome that I get to play different characters. I was on The Mindy Project and I played a completely heterosexual cop, you know what I’m saying? There are two movies that I have coming out where I’m playing race car drivers. There are different things that I do but if another movie came along and I was playing a race car driver I wouldn’t be like ‘Oh, no, I don’t want to be typecast as a race car driver!’ For that, I just don’t care. I do what I want to do with who I want to do it and that’s that. And how could I possibly turn down the chance to work with Lee Daniels? My mama ain’t raised no fool, straight up! I’m smarter than that.
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