For years, Ronen Rubinstein played T.K. Strand, the openly gay firefighter at the centre of one of television’s most beloved queer relationships.

Now he is stepping into a very different uniform.

Rubinstein plays Jude Callan in S.W.A.T.: Exiles, the new Starz spinoff that brings a younger, rougher tactical team into the franchise. The series premiered on September 25.

Jude is a tactical officer with a troubled past — a long way from T.K., whose relationship with Carlos became known to fans as Tarlos.

From Tarlos to tactical action

Rubinstein’s new role offers a striking contrast with the character that made him a favourite among queer viewers.

T.K. was a gay firefighter whose story included love, family and recovery.

Jude is a wildcard with a darker history, joining a team of talented outsiders led by Shemar Moore’s Hondo Harrelson.

In a new interview, Rubinstein says he appreciates the chance to play “very badass people” while still giving them emotional depth.

For an openly bisexual actor, that range matters. Queer performers should not have to choose between playing meaningful LGBTQ+ characters and taking on action roles with physical authority.

A new chapter for Ronen Rubinstein

Rubinstein came out as bisexual in 2021, inspired in part by the experience of playing T.K. His portrayal helped make the Tarlos relationship meaningful to viewers who were used to seeing queer characters defined mainly by trauma.

Now his next role is built around danger, conflict and tactical action.

That does not erase T.K. Strand. It shows what comes after a character becomes part of queer television history.

Ronen Rubinstein can be the tender half of a beloved gay romance and a complicated action hero in the same career.

And in real life, he has the support of his wife, actor Jessica Parker Kennedy.

Read the interview at Out.

📷 @ronenrubinstein / Fox / Starz

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For 47 years, Marc Almond and Dave Ball made music together.

Now Soft Cell’s final album, Danceteria, has been released — a last piece of work from the partnership behind “Tainted Love,” “Say Hello, Wave Goodbye” and some of the most distinctive electronic pop of the 1980s.

Almond says Ball heard the finished album two days before he died. He was proud of it and excited about what they had created together.

A final piece of their partnership

Danceteria is inspired by early 1980s New York and named after the legendary club where Soft Cell spent time while working on their debut album, Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret.

For Almond, the record is also a farewell. He has said there can be no more new Soft Cell recordings without Ball, because making music together was at the heart of what the group was.

The album therefore carries the feeling of a final conversation between two people who had been making music, arguing, reconnecting and influencing each other since the late 1970s.

“Unless you lived through it”

In a new interview, Almond also reflects on what it meant to be gay through the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s.

He speaks about homophobia, the devastation of the AIDS crisis and the gay men who spent decades unable to come out. Some older gay men, he says, still carry the shame so deeply that they have never been able to live openly.

“Unless you lived through it, it’s almost impossible to understand,” Almond says.

That history is part of what makes Soft Cell’s work feel so important. Almond did not simply sing about alienation, desire and nightlife from a distance. He was making music inside a culture that was often punished for being visible.

A goodbye with the music still playing

Danceteria is more than a final album. It is a record Dave Ball got to hear, approve of and feel proud of before he was gone.

Marc Almond and Dave Ball made music together for almost half a century.

This is their last album together. But the sound of that partnership is still here.

Via The Guardian.

📷 @marcalmondofficial

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