Variety’s Power of Pride: 55 Queer Artists and Decision-Makers to Know in 2022

Che Diaz was the most talked about character on HBO Max’s “And Just Like That …,” and helped make the show into a cause célèbre. Between Che and Callie Torres — the bisexual character Ramírez played on “Grey’s Anatomy” for 10 seasons — Variety’s Power of Pride cover subject has portrayed two of the most significant queer characters in pop culture history.

After establishing his rakish bona fides as Anthony in the first season of “Bridgerton” — Netflix’s romantic-drama juggernaut — Bailey turned up the heat as the focus of Season 2 to become the year’s most irresistible bachelor. That, plus a lead role in the smash London play “Cock,” has launched him to the next level

A recent Oscar nominee for “King Richard,” Ellis has been a steady and potent force in film and TV since the 1990s, from “The Practice” through “When They See Us” and “Lovecraft Country.” But she never publicly discussed her bisexuality until Variety’s 2022 Power of Pride issue. Now, the 53-year-old actor is actively seeking more queer stories to tell.

For as much — deserved! — praise as star Jean Smart earns, it’s the sparkling cast of queer talent surrounding her that keeps “Hacks” afloat. From Hannah Einbinder and Carl Clemons-Hopkins’ deadpan to Johnny Sibilly’s sympathetic smile and Mark Indelicato’s focused mania to Meg Stalter and Poppy Liu’s controlled chaos, each of these performers brings something new and wonderfully different to the HBO Max hit.

After Jackson won a Pulitzer for “A Strange Loop,” his meta musical about a Black gay man who is writing a musical about a Black gay man who is writing a musical, the show landed 11 Tony nominations. Boasting RuPaul Charles, Jennifer Hudson, Mindy Kaling and Billy Porter among its backers, “A Strange Loop” successfully helped bring people back to Broadway.

On HBO’s “The White Lotus,” Bartlett’s beleaguered Armond took abuse from all the guests at the resort he managed, with eventually fatal consequences. In the process, the Aussie actor — an out gay alumnus of “Looking” — gave viewers a poignant portrait of one man’s need for the dopamine hit of approval.

Based on Oseman’s web comics and graphic novels of the same name, Netflix’s “Heartstopper” has been the word-of-mouth streaming sensation of the year, as audiences have swooned over its sweet and gentle story of two teenage boys falling in love. Oseman, who identifies as asexual and aromantic, adapted the scripts herself, and she’s already hard at work on Seasons 2 and 3.

Nas’ first album, “Montero,” debuted last fall to wide acclaim and certified platinum sales, as he continued to leverage his image as an unabashedly sexual gay man with breathtaking self-assurance. In March, he previewed two singles from his next album, and he’s set to launch the Long Live Montero Tour, his first, in September.

As the scene-stealing Anita in Steven Spielberg’s “West Side Story” remake, DeBose made history as the first openly queer woman of color and second Latina to win an acting Oscar. Her dance card is packed: She’s hosting the 2022 Tony Awards, appearing on Season 4 of HBO’s “Westworld” and starring in Sony’s Marvel adventure “Kraven the Hunter.”

What does one do after becoming the most successful woman ever to compete on “Jeopardy!”? Perhaps start by quitting one’s job. A former software engineering manager, Schneider enjoyed the second-longest winning streak of all time on the game show; she also took on at least one anti-trans troll on social media.

One challenge facing gay rappers is that most are solo acts — as a cofounder of Brockhampton, a rare hiphop group, Abstract had the support of his bandmates when he came out in 2016. Lil Nas X cites him as an inspiration — and now that Brockhampton has broken up, Abstract is free to follow no path but his own.

After a banner year for both HBO and HBO Max, Bloys is thriving amid the tumult at the newly formed Warner Bros. Discovery, with shows such as “And Just Like That …,” “Hacks,” “Euphoria,” “Succession” and “The Flight Attendant” bringing in praise, viewers and Emmys. Next up: the presumed behemoth that will be HBO’s “House of the Dragon.”

The Swedish-born singer-songwriter has mastered the art of pairing melancholy lyrics with euphoric sounds — just listen to her danceable new single “No One Dies From Love,” released by her newly launched Pretty Swede label. Lo is openly bi and frequently explores sexuality in her work, with songs like “Talking Body” and “Disco Tits” quickly becoming LGBTQ anthems.

Johnson became the first openly gay Black woman cast member on “Saturday Night Live” after joining NBC’s iconic series in 2020. Often punctuating sketches with a blunt punchline, she brought the same energy to HBO Max’s “Love Life,” in which she memorably played the wry sister of William Jackson Harper’s character.

His persona may be a mystery — “Orville Peck” is a stage name, and his face is always obscured in public — but there’s no missing the singer-songwriter’s talent. He has collaborated with Shania Twain, Tanya Tucker and drag superstar Trixie Mattel, covered Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” in 2021, and released his second LP, “Bronco,” earlier this year.

After winning the highly competitive “Top Chef: All Stars Los Angeles,” King has become one of the industry’s most in-demand gastronomic experts. When Marcus Samuelsson needed assistance with the 2022 Met Gala menu, it was a no-brainer to enlist King, who then walked the red carpet in Thom Browne.

Following his heartfelt turn on the first season of “Russian Doll,” it stands to reason that Barnett would find steady work, from “Tales of the City” to “You” to “Ordinary Joe.” This year’s insightful “Russian Doll” return, however, proved just how much Barnett — who’s engaged to “Love, Victor” set designer Drew Bender — deserves a spotlight all his own.

The “Crown” star reigned as Princess Diana on the Netflix series’ fourth season, and then made headlines after updating their pronouns on Instagram in July alongside multiple photos of them wearing a chest binder. Next, Corrin toplines Amazon’s queer romantic drama “My Policeman” as a woman whose husband, played by Harry Styles, is secretly gay.

When “Selling Sunset” premiered in 2019, Stause was married to “This Is Us” star Justin Hartley; after their divorce, she dated her boss and co-star Jason Oppenheim. But during the Netflix show’s Season 5 reunion, Stause announced she was in a relationship with the nonbinary musician G Flip — and has had a lot of fun flaunting her coming out on Instagram since.

As the head of Amazon’s newly-formed Studio Creative Content division, e oversees producer deals, IP acquisition, tentpole and universe development, along with relationships across the global media entertainment businesses at the tech giant — and uses the platform to champion underrepresented voices.

Willow made “RuPaul’s Drag Race” herstory as the first trans winner of a regular season of the show; she was one of five trans contestants to compete on Season 14. With her showstopping performances and off-center drag style — who can forget her spaghetti bath while lip-syncing to Enya? — Willow is a true one-of-a-kind queen.

As Leighton, the Manhattan social queen on HBO Max’s “The Sex Lives of College Girls,” Rapp is fearless in showing the hard, sharp edges of living in the closet. In life, Rapp is the opposite, happily out as queer and singing about heartbreak in her (unfinished) single “Tattoos” on TikTok when not filming Season 2 of “College Girls.”

The singer-songwriter and actor (“The Fosters,” “CSI: Cyber”) became a pop luminary with her debut album, “Expectations.” Kiyoko writes lyrics about coming out, having crushes on straight girls and finding true self-liberation, and her fans have taken to calling her the “lesbian Jesus.” Her second studio album is due on July 29.

In 2000, Roberts was the most talked about gay 20-something on television as a star of MTV’s “The Real World: New Orleans.” Returning for a reunion season on Paramount+, Roberts is open about the long-term mental health consequences of short-lived fame, and providing curious viewers a look at what 40-something contentment, of a kind, might look like.

After a subtle but triumphant coming out in his 2022 comedy special “Rothaniel,” the heat-seeking indie actor and stand-up conquered the “SNL” stage and achieved national recognition. Always a low-key provocateur, Carmichael summed up the experience by simply saying, “If you say you’re gay in New York, you can ride the bus for free and they just give you pizza.”

As Jim on HBO Max’s delightful queer rom-com “Our Flag Means Death,” Ortiz plays the rare nonbinary character whose gender identity is revealed casually, when other characters just start referring to Jim with “they/ them” pronouns. Also nonbinary in real life, Ortiz performs as the drag king Vico Suave.

A longtime “Saturday Night Live” writer, Pell has lately stepped out in on-camera turns, most notably in Peacock’s “Girls5eva,” to which she lends brusquely nutty energy as the out and proud lesbian member of an aging girl group, one who might sometimes prefer staying home to touring the world. (Who can’t relate?)

As the director of the Disney+ series “Loki,” Herron brought the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s beloved god of mischief to streaming with singular panache — and was instrumental in establishing the character’s bisexuality, making Loki the first canonically queer superhero in the MCU. For her next trick, Herron, also bi, is working on her own unannounced project.

The actor (the “Harold & Kumar” movies, “The Namesake”) came out as gay in October in advance of his memoir, “You Can’t Be Serious,” announcing he was engaged to his partner, Josh. The two met during Penn’s time working for President Obama’s Office of Public Engagement and have been together for more than 11 years.

On TikTok, Olsen is an open book, sharing his journey through addiction and depression with honesty and playfulness — and, somehow, making high-heeled Crocs look not terrible. Speaking of books, Olsen will appear this month on the Discovery+ docuseries “The Book of Queer,” a five-episode musical tour of LGBTQ history.

Hurwitz started her career as a stand-up and now champions LGBTQ, female and Black voices in comedy through Push It Prods., which she formed with Wanda Sykes. Push It recently produced Fortune Feimster’s Netflix special “Sweet & Salty” and “Stand Out,” a queer comedians’ night that was part of the Netflix Is a Joke festival.

A Tony Award nominee for scenic design (“Slave Play”) and winner for costume design (“Eclipsed”), Ramos recently made the jump to features, creating the stunning handmade period costumes for the 2021 Aretha Franklin biopic “Respect.” As the producing creative director of Encores!, he oversaw Billy Porter’s restaging of “The Life.”

After coming up as a comedian and radio personality, Cola joined the cast of Freeform’s “Good Trouble” as Alice, a building manager and stand-up comic sorting out her lesbian identity in Los Angeles. Bisexual in real life, Cola will next appear in the untitled directorial debut of “Crazy Rich Asians” screenwriter Adele Lim.

In October, Moore — who chronicled her transition on social media while a co-showrunner on “Dear White People” — was one of the first prominent trans creatives to publicly boycott Netflix over its relationship with comedian Dave Chappelle. Moore is executive producing Peacock’s much anticipated “Queer as Folk” reboot with Stephen Dunn.

Aspiras made Oscar history as the first Vietnamese-Filipino American nominated for makeup and hairstyling for creating Lady Gaga’s singular coifs in 2021’s “House of Gucci.” The mastermind behind the performer’s hairstyles for almost 15 years, he created 54 looks for the film that span the late 1970s through the mid-1990s.

When King set out to revive “Sex and the City,” which he ran for years, skeptics felt sure a Kim Cattrall-less version of the show wouldn’t work. Yet “And Just Like That …” has been HBO Max’s most successful original series to date, as well as a rare watercooler hit — with each episode enflaming fiery debates on social media.

In his January stand-up special, “A Different Kind of Dude,” Butcher gets right to his transition, joking that taking testosterone has made him feel like “history’s slowest werewolf — just a hair every now and then.” He also mines comedy from issues like housing, health care and education, and plans to shoot an hourlong special soon.

Maroon 5’s “Memories,” Justin Bieber’s “Anyone,” “Holy” and “Ghost,” Miley Cyrus’ “Prisoner,” Charli XCX’s “Boys” — Michael Pollack’s credits read like a soundtrack to the greatest hits of the past five years. His success has yielded a Grammy nomination and a 2022 BMI songwriter of the year honor.

The 34-year-old North Carolina native lets his pride flag fly as one of Peloton’s most popular instructors. Rigsby’s parlayed his fitness fandom into a spot on the 30th season of “Dancing With the Stars” — he and partner Cheryl Burke came in third — and last month he co-hosted the GLAAD Media Awards in New York City with “RuPaul’s Drag Race” star Peppermint.

As VP of unscripted series at Netflix, Levy has delivered prolific and addictive reality content, from stalwart series like the Emmy-winning “Queer Eye” to the massive “Love Is Blind” spinoff “The Ultimatum,” and she knows which strings to pull to keep subscribers bingeing. She’s also just ordered up “Easy-Bake Battle,” hosted by Antoni Porowski.

Moreno, who came out as trans in high school, has perfected playing massively popular teens, first on Netflix’s Mexican series “Control Z” and then on HBO Max’s “Gossip Girl.” On the latter, Moreno’s Luna La is a trans Manhattan style influencer and eager lieutenant to her school’s queen bee.

The VP of talent and development and brand partnerships at Nickelodeon and AwesomenessTV, Larese has brought a slew of LGBTQ programming to his networks, including “The Blue’s Clues Pride Parade Sing-Along” featuring drag queen Nina West and “The Sorta Scary Show” featuring Matt Taylor and Ace B. King of Paramount+’s “Next Influencer.”

The Filipina director, writer and actor’s third feature, “Lingua Franca,” was the first movie by an openly transgender woman of color to compete at the Venice Film Festival when it premiered there in 2019. She then was tapped to direct an episode of “Under the Banner of Heaven,” gay Oscar winner Dustin Lance Black’s FX true-crime limited series.

One of Latin music’s preeminent divas, Anitta made big strides in crossing over to the U.S. market this spring with her trilingual Warner Records debut, “Versions of Me” — heralded by an electrifying Coachella performance. She came out as bisexual years ago in Brazil, a country with a strong far-right contingent where universal support wasn’t guaranteed.

The openly gay TV vet (“Sex and the City,” “Melrose Place”) is one of the most successful minds in female storylines. With his critical darling “Younger” wrapping up after seven seasons this past year, Star continues to make magic with Netflix’s smash “Emily in Paris,” which has been renewed for two more seasons.

The NBCUniversal executive vice president and chief diversity officer puts the “human” in human resources at the media giant. In 2021, he led efforts to offer employees a “chosen name” and preferred pronouns on corporate documents. He’s also overseen an expansive “Heritage Month” program to celebrate identities year-round.

As resident culinary expert on Netflix’s popular makeover series “Queer Eye,” Porowski can teach the show’s subjects the secret to the perfect guacamole as easily as he (and his co-stars) can convince viewers to be more accepting. He will continue entertaining people through food as host of Netflix’s upcoming competition series “Easy-Bake Battle.”

A breakout star of the Showtime thriller “Yellowjackets,” Brown also played the first queer character in the “Scream” franchise with the fifth film, and is set to return for the sixth. Brown, who identifies as queer and lesbian, co-hosts the Netflix podcast “The Homo Schedule” with “Yellowjackets” co-star Liv Hewson.

The veteran indie singer-songwriter questioned her sexuality for years with men-are-kinda-shitty-am-I-gay? musings in interviews. She found her answer in her relationship with writer Beau Thibodeaux, and came out to her mother shortly before her death last year. All of the above — along with the pandemic — went into the making of Olsen’s stunning new album, “Big Time.”

Nearly two decades into its run, “Grey’s Anatomy” introduced Fightmaster in Season 18 as Dr. Kai Bartley, the show’s first nonbinary doctor. Fightmaster — their real name! — appeared for two seasons on Hulu’s “Shrill” and on Showtime’s “Work in Progress,” and performs in the Los Angeles-based band Twin.