An interview with Looking star Russell Tovey has been published in The Guardian – he opens up about being happy that he is not effeminate.

During the interview with Tom Lamont, Tovey speaks about how his father wouldn’t allow him to attend a popular performing arts school.

“I was so envious of everyone who went to Sylvia Young Theatre School. I wanted to go, but my dad flat-out refused. He thought I’d become some tapdancing freak without qualifications. And he was right in a way. I’m glad I didn’t go. That might have changed…”

What might have changed? Well, Tovey assumes that if he had attended a theatre school, he would have become “really effeminate”. Hmm.

“I feel like I could have been really effeminate, if I hadn’t gone to the school I went to. Where I felt like I had to toughen up. If I’d have been able to relax, prance around, sing in the street, I might be a different person now. I thank my dad for that, for not allowing me to go down that path. Because it’s probably given me the unique quality that people think I have.”

That “unique quality” is that he can ‘play straight’…

“I get told, a lot, that I’m kind of carving my own path. That there are not many actors who are out and are able to play straight, and gay and everyone’s OK with it.”

Read the full interview here.