Hunter Schafer has revealed that she no longer wishes to accept transgender roles after her breakout performance in HBO‘s young adult drama Euphoria.
The 25-year-old actress told GQ that she had been offered “tons of trans roles” but does not want her gender identity to define her work in the future.
“I don’t want to be [reduced to] that, and I find it ultimately demeaning to me and what I want to do,” Schafer said. “I worked so hard to get to where I am, past these really hard points in my transition, and now I just want to be a girl and finally move on.”
Schafer said her ability to reject trans roles was a “privilege,” but she believes that she can further the cause of the transgender community simply by honing her craft.
The actress recently appeared as Tigris in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, a role that she said was a “challenge” because it was not “one step away from who I am.”
“I know for a fact that I’m one of the most famous trans people in media right now, and I do feel a sense of responsibility, and maybe a little bit of guilt, for not being more of a spokesperson,” she explained.
“But ultimately, I really do believe that not making it the centrepiece to what I’m doing will allow me to get further. And I think getting further and doing awesome s***, in the interest of ‘the movement,’ will be way more helpful than talking about it all the time.”
Schafer’s comments come amid an ongoing debate about authenticity in casting, with some arguing that movie stars should only play roles with characteristics shared by the actor.
Eddie Redmayne, for example, has previously admitted that it was a “mistake” to play a transgender woman in the 2015 film The Danish Girl, despite embracing the project with good intentions.