Benito Skinner's life changed when he dropped the golden boy jock act
In a Q interview, the actor and comedian discusses his new series, Overcompensating
Benito Skinner is a true master of disguise. The actor and comedian's millions of online fans know him best for his original characters and impersonations of celebrities like Shawn Mendes and the Kardashians. But now, for the first time ever, he's dropping the disguise.
On his new comedy series, Overcompensating, Skinner plays a closeted former football player who's struggling to accept himself. He based the character on his own experience growing up in Idaho, where threw himself into football to conceal his sexuality. As a gay man, Skinner says he felt safer wearing the disguise of a perfect golden boy jock.
"I think it was one of my first costumes in so many ways," Skinner tells Q guest host Talia Schlanger in an interview. "I'm going to be this version of a boy next door that it seems like everyone's cheering for, and they'll love me, and this costume will give me safety and social safety. I am definitely a perfectionist. I think that's, you know, the trope of the best little boy in the world."
As a kid, Skinner recalls feeling loved and accepted by his family. It wasn't until he started school that he developed a sense of shame, guilt and self-hatred about being gay.
"My mom bought me any doll I wanted," he says. "I had a really beautiful childhood and a really beautiful family, but I think it was just school that changed me to my core."
At school, Skinner became a master of observation. He'd tiptoe around his interests, like The Lizzie McGuire Movie or Britney Spears, testing the reaction of the boys before fully diving in.
"It was such a push and pull," he says. "I do think it's where my observation of people came from in a way. And I feel lucky, it feels like a superpower. If I can take one good thing out of being in the closet, I think it is that I just really saw people and I watched the way they performed and acted and I could either see myself in it or see differences."
Skinner overcompensated by practicing football everyday and getting straight As. Despite the fact that he didn't really enjoy football, he continued playing the sport throughout high school.
"I hate being hit," Skinner tells Schlanger. "Catching balls — as shocking as that sounds — does not come naturally to me…. I think I immediately saw a shield that I had and I felt really safe within it. I would put the pads on and I'm like, 'No one is saying a thing about me being girly anymore. They're not telling me I remind them of the guy in Will & Grace.'"
The turning point for Skinner came when he went to college and met one of his best girlfriends, who made him feel safe and accepted for being himself. Now, he says he has an entirely different relationship with perfection and success.
"I think I was really feeling … the weight of so many people and so many queer people before me who have felt that you have to be this whole thing in order to receive any kind of love," he says. "I think I started to see in making [Overcompensating] and coming out that the thing that I thought was so imperfect was that I was gay, and instead it's my favourite thing about me."
The full interview with Benito Skinner is available on our podcast, Q with Tom Power. Listen and follow wherever you get your podcasts.
Interview with Benito Skinner produced by Vanessa Greco.
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