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Outside of ‘the Umbrella Academy,’ Robert Sheehan has experimented with gay experiences

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Since playing gay character Klaus Hargreeves, Irish actor Robert Sheehan has sparked interest among fans who want to know if he is gay in real life.

Robert Sheehan is an Irish actor who rose to prominence after portraying Klaus Hargreeves in Netflix’s superhero sci-fi series The Umbrella Academy. His character Hargreeves, who has the superhuman capacity to communicate with the dead, is openly gay, and his siblings call him “The Seance.”

In addition to Luba, a pansexual escort in Netflix’s Mute, the actor has played LGBT roles in a number of other productions.

Since he has portrayed queer characters on screen, many fans have speculated about the actor’s sexuality and taken to the internet to see if he is gay in real life.

Sheehan sat down for a wide-ranging interview with Hot Press magazine in October 2018 to address his followers’ questions and worries. In the interview, he said that he had sexual encounters with males in order to determine if he was sexually attracted to them.

“I think it would be irresponsible not to question my sexuality. I had a couple of experiences when I was younger with dudes where I tried it, experimented, to see if it did anything for me.”

The ‘experiments,’ on the other hand, were in vain. “And it [gay experiences] didn’t,” the actor remarked when asked if the tryouts helped him.

This statement reaffirms his non-gay status in real life. However, he divulged more details about his personal life, which verified his sexuality.

Sheehan also admitted that he wasn’t dating Sofia Boutella at the time, but the two remained friends. Boutella is an Algerian actress and model who has starred in films such as Atomic Blonde, Star Trek Beyond, and Kingsman: The Secret Service.

Robert Sheehan and Sofia Boutella (Photo: Pinterest)

“We still adore each other.” “You know, we still acknowledge that,” the actor remarked.

They first met on the set of the 2016 film Jet Trash, in which they co-starred, and subsequently began dating.

Returning to his role in The Umbrella Academy, Sheehan told Digital Spy in 2019 that he hoped audiences would see Hargreeves for more than his sexuality. With the labeling of sexuality, he claims, a character’s other identity as a whole diminishes.

“Like it or not, if your character is labelled as a ‘gay character’, then that label becomes defining and it kind of reduces all else about the character. So you’re kind of doing the character a bit of a disservice.”

He went on to say that Hargreeves was not introduced as gay or had any LGBT tendencies when the show first started. However, as the plot progressed, the character was forced to represent LGBTQ+.

“[Klaus] wasn’t even gay when we started,” he claimed. Or he wasn’t gay when we started dating. But when we created the persona, that type of thing happened. “Things weren’t always like this.”

In a short period of time, the 33-year-old actor has cemented his place in the entertainment industry. He has been in significant projects such as Misfits, Love/Hate, Mortal Engines, and The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones since his debut in the early 2000s.