Hunter Doohan can now speak proudly about his husband and sexuality, but there was a time when he feared that being openly gay might prevent his acting career from moving forward.
The Wednesday star has revealed that he once archived photographs of his boyfriend from Instagram before auditioning for the Showtime drama Your Honor.
Doohan was already openly gay in his personal life and had been dating producer Fielder Jewett for several years.
However, the audition represented his first experience of an especially intense network screen test (People).
He felt that casting executives were examining every detail and became frightened that discovering his sexuality might affect how they viewed him.
No producer or casting director had explicitly instructed him to hide his relationship.
The decision came from Doohan’s own anxiety about an industry with a long history of treating openly gay actors as less believable in heterosexual roles.
He responded by going through his Instagram account and archiving photographs that showed him with Jewett.
The images were not deleted permanently, but they were removed from public view at a moment when Doohan believed visibility might carry a professional cost.
He ultimately won the role of Adam Desiato, the teenage son of Bryan Cranston’s character, Michael Desiato.
The legal thriller followed a respected judge whose life collapses after his son becomes involved in a fatal hit-and-run accident.
The role gave Doohan one of his first major opportunities and placed him opposite an Emmy-winning actor he deeply admired.
Securing the job should have represented a straightforward professional breakthrough.
Instead, hiding his relationship created an emotional situation Doohan had not fully anticipated.
During lunch with Cranston, an apparently ordinary conversation made Doohan realise that he was carefully avoiding mentioning the truth about his personal life.
A question from Cranston left him facing the uncomfortable reality that he would have to come out again.
Doohan had already been openly gay for approximately eight years.
He had experienced the difficult process of coming out and believed that chapter of his life was behind him.
By concealing his relationship for the audition, he had effectively placed himself back inside a professional closet.
Doohan later described having to disclose his sexuality again as deeply unsettling.
The experience convinced him that he never wanted to hide himself for a role again.
His fear also proved unnecessary in another revealing way.
Every major character Doohan has played so far has been heterosexual, despite his having auditioned for gay roles as well.
His career therefore offers another example of audiences accepting an openly gay actor in characters whose sexuality differs from his own.
Doohan has credited actors who came before him with making that freedom increasingly possible.
He has specifically cited Jonathan Bailey as an inspiration because Bailey has built a career spanning gay roles, heterosexual romantic leads and major Hollywood blockbusters without treating his identity as a limitation.
Doohan’s own breakthrough expanded dramatically when he was cast as Tyler Galpin in Netflix’s global hit Wednesday.
Tyler was initially presented as the charming boy next door and a possible romantic interest for Wednesday Addams.
The character later emerged as a considerably darker and more dangerous figure, giving Doohan the opportunity to play romance, vulnerability and horror within the same role.
His success in the series helped turn him into an internationally recognised actor without requiring him to conceal the man waiting for him at home.
The most touching part of the story arrived away from a film or television set.
Doohan and Jewett first connected through Tinder in 2015 and became engaged during the pandemic.
They married in June 2022 after approximately seven years together.
The person who officiated their ceremony was Bryan Cranston.
The co-star to whom Doohan had once nervously come out now stood before the couple as they publicly committed their lives to one another.
Jewett was also the same partner whose photographs Doohan had hidden before the Your Honor audition.
The full-circle moment transformed a painful memory into part of a much happier story.
Doohan is now 32 and starring as Joseph in Evil Dead Burn, the latest blood-soaked chapter of the long-running horror franchise.
While promoting the film, he reflected on how completely his attitude toward visibility has changed.
He said he can no longer imagine living any other way because hiding would feel awful.
Doohan also described the opportunity to encourage other people to live authentically as a real blessing that outweighs the occasional negative consequences of being publicly gay.
Jewett has remained beside him throughout a career that grew from short-film auditions to major television series and studio movies.
Doohan remembers excitedly telling him about small auditions long before either of them knew how dramatically his professional life would change.
Their relationship offers stability within an industry that frequently sends actors away from home for months at a time.
Doohan’s story does not prove that homophobia has disappeared from Hollywood or that every openly gay performer receives equal opportunities.
It does show what becomes possible when actors no longer accept the old assumption that visibility must be exchanged for success.
A relationship he once feared could close professional doors instead remained beside him as those doors began opening.
The photographs he concealed eventually gave way to a wedding photograph he proudly shared with the world.
Sometimes progress can be seen in laws, representation statistics or the roles appearing on screen.
Sometimes it can be seen in the distance between a boyfriend hidden from Instagram and a husband celebrated before family, friends and the co-star who helped make their marriage official.
📷 @hunterdoohan @evildead @netflix
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