#30 Jim Parsons
Jim Parsons has embraced roles that highlight and investigate gay men’s lives. In a 2012 New York Times profile, Parsons came out as gay while discussing his performance as a young gay activist in the Broadway show “The Normal Heart,” which deals with the subject of AIDS.
“Once it was out in the public, I was like, ‘If you still have a problem with gay people, you directly have a problem with me,’” he was reported saying in Vanity. “Being a full-fledged member of it and claiming it, there was just an elation there, and there still is! I still feel it. It’s a huge relief, and it’s also really nice to sometimes be able to feel righteous anger.”