For Ruaridh Mollica, joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe has brought a moment of personal recognition alongside a major acting role.
The Sebastian star plays Tommy in VisionQuest, and describes the experience of being a bisexual actor portraying a bisexual character as an honor.
“I feel so seen,” he tells Variety in a new interview.
Identity goes beyond a relationship
Mollica also addresses a distinction between the character’s identity and what viewers see of his romantic interests.
Tommy flirts with Lisa Molinari and is not shown being attracted to men in the series.
For the actor, that attraction to a woman does not undermine the character’s bisexuality; he says it helps him feel represented.
His comments offer a useful reminder that the person someone dates does not provide a complete account of their sexuality.
A bisexual person in a relationship with a woman remains bisexual, just as a relationship with a man does not automatically make that person gay.
For viewers who have had others make those assumptions about them, the distinction can carry a personal resonance beyond a superhero storyline.
A new chapter after Sebastian
Queer cinema audiences may already know Mollica from Mikko Mäkelä’s 2024 film Sebastian.
He plays Max, a young London writer who begins working as a sex worker while researching a novel.
As described by distributor Kino Lorber, the character’s double life becomes a more complicated exploration of desire, ambition and identity.
The film was selected for the Sundance Film Festival, placing Mollica at the center of a very different kind of screen story from a Marvel production.
Moving between those projects gives audiences two distinct ways to encounter an actor whose work has included intimate questions about how people understand themselves.
Where VisionQuest fits
VisionQuest stars Paul Bettany as Vision, continuing the character’s story following WandaVision.
Marvel’s official series listing introduces Thomas Shepherd as a mysterious boy who may be Vision’s reincarnated son.
The series launched on Disney+ this October.
Mollica’s interview adds a personal perspective to that fantastical premise: the pleasure of recognizing something of yourself in a character with a place in a much larger universe.
For him, the role is already meaningful, even without a scene spelling out every part of Tommy’s attraction.
📷 Disney+ / @RuaridhMollica.
