RYAN JAMAAL SWAIN.
“We are entertaining but providing a space for enlightenment and another space for ecstasy,” says Pose actor Ryan Jamaal Swain early one Saturday morning Stateside, revealing how the Emmy-nominated Ryan Murphy show affected audiences. “I have people coming up to me on the brink of tears saying how much the show has moved them, taught them, how much it has articulated a language for their family to find empathy, for them to find forgiveness – which I find very important.”
His first major gig since leaving university, Ryan’s life changed almost overnight, and with that he welcomed a new level of exposure, but also privilege, in bringing a spotlight to issues that affect those within the queer space.
“It asks me to check my ignorance and educated myself on the issues and the civil rights bouts and things we have yet to accomplish when we’re talking about the LGBTQ community in relation to the community at large,” he explains. “It has pushed me into a space to be more of an activist than I’ve ever been before.”
And in 2019, a sense of activism and moving against what was once deemed as ‘the norm’ thrives him to push on. Unsurprisingly for Ryan, such drive comes from the hierarchy of
