![]() ![]() “He didn't hang out in the boys’ room he hung out in the girls’ room, because that's where he was comfortable, but he didn't consider himself trans. ![]() “I understood that this was somebody who lived in the in-between worlds, like he wasn't fully Black, he wasn't fully Puerto Rican, he considered himself bisexual,” Cruz said. And he was doing that for everybody who saw themselves in him.”Ĭruz recalled Rickie’s description during the audition as “15, half Black, half Puerto Rican, androgynous, like Jodie Foster in ‘Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore.’” He was somebody who was demanding to be seen. “I mean, up until that point, we were the sidekicks, and the people that were always thought of after the fact, but Rickie Vasquez forced you to notice him,” he continued. “I have great pride in being that person, but the freedom and the relief and the strength that people were able to garner, just from seeing him, and the feeling of validation they received by his existence - his very existence of being on a national television show about teenagers, that people like him felt seen, and included and were a part of the story,” Cruz told TODAY for our 2021 LGBTQ Pride Month series. In 1994, Wilson Cruz became the first openly gay actor to play an openly gay teen on primetime TV, as Rickie Vasquez on “My So-Called Life.” Nearly three decades later, Cruz says it’s the response to the groundbreaking character that means the most to him. ![]()
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