Canadian actor Adamo Ruggiero has opened up about his groundbreaking role on Degrassi and his coming out journey.
In an interview with the AV Club, Ruggiero celebrated the show’s 20th anniversary and revealed that his character – Marco Del Rossi – helped him come out.
“I was a closeted gay boy, and I found myself on the show, and my life went from zero to 100. I hadn’t really acted that much before,” he explained.
“Suddenly, I was a character that was playing to all my deepest, darkest secrets, so there was a lot of negotiation of my coming out personally and a negotiation of my personally not being prepared to have those conversations because they were drawing to these pains in me.”
He added: “But in a way, I was forced to have those conversations, publicly and globally. That balance was ping-pong, like, “Who am I? Am I ready to reveal? I know that this character, whether I like it or not, is going to reveal it for me.”
Although his time as Marco was an eye-opening experience, Ruggiero wished that his own coming out journey wasn’t so public.
“It was a time that was incredible, but also left some things in me that have taken me some years to negotiate, and I’m still negotiating,” he said. “It was a coming-out experience that should not have been that public for me.”
He went on to say that his character helped introduce him to the “queer world.”
“What Marco gave me is a community. In the promotion of the show, I connected with a queer world,” he exclaimed.
“He just busted open this door of a world that probably would have taken a lot longer to find.”
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