Stanley Tucci gives his verdict on straight actors playing gay characters

Tucci, who starred in The Hunger Games and The Devil Wears Prada, said an actor's role is to play characters: “That’s the whole point of it.”

The star was asked about his beliefs on whether “straight actors should play gay characters” following his recent role playing Colin Firth’s on-screen partner in Supernova.

“Obviously, I believe that’s fine, and I’m always very flattered when gay men come up to me and talk about The Devil Wears Prada or when they talk about Supernova, and they say ‘It was just so beautiful, you did it the right way’.

"Because often it’s not done the right way," he told the BBC.

“But I really do believe that an actor is an actor is an actor.

“You’re supposed to play different people. You just are. That’s the whole point of it.”

Tucci described acting as an “escape” for him following the death of his first wife, Kathryn (Kate) Spath, in 2009 who died of breast cancer.

He said: “It’s a way of controlling time and emotion and space, because we have no control over any of that in our lives and that’s what theatre does, that’s what film-making does.

“I feel much safer on stage than I do in my real life. Sometimes walking into a cocktail party or a dinner party I get very nervous.”

The actor said that he did not work for almost a year after her death, adding: “You never really get over it.”

The actor now lives in London with his second wife, Felicity Blunt who is more than two decades younger than him.

“I was kind of afraid of getting into a relationship and I kept trying to break it off because I am 21 years older than she is and I didn’t want to feel old but I knew this was an incredibly special person,” he said.

“If anybody made things better for all of us, it is her. She’s the one.”