Revealed by the series Teen Wolf, Michael Johnston is today the face of the film Obsession, a global horror phenomenon that makes the new Hollywood sensation one of the very few openly gay actors to carry a massive popular success at the cinema.
Propelled to global stardom by Obsession, Michael Johnston becomes one of the very few openly gay actors to carry a massive popular success at the cinema. A look back at the career of an actor who has never hidden his sexual orientation and whose trajectory could mark a turning point in Hollywood.
Michael Johnston’s life changed radically in a matter of weeks. Until now little known to the general public, the 30-year-old American actor has become the face of a cinematic phenomenon: Obsession. Since its release in theaters on May 13 in France, Curry Barker’s horror feature has shattered all records. Shot on a budget estimated at only $750,000, far from Hollywood standards, it has already grossed over $400 million worldwide, drawing more than 1.3 million spectators in France alone. A success that makes it the year’s biggest commercial success, and places it among the most profitable films in history.
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This success has another peculiarity: it brings a openly gay actor to the forefront. In the United States as in France, the phenomenon remains exceptional. Michael Johnston has never made his sexual orientation a subject of publicity; he simply came out on social media in 2023, posting a photo with his then-boyfriend. And while it was with a gay role that the actor first became known in 2015, the actor describes it as “a pure coincidence”, in an interview with Anthem Magazine. In the fifth season of Teen Wolf, a series for teens with a homoerotic subtext, he indeed portrays Corey Bryant and forms a couple with Mason Hewitt, played by Khylin Rhambo. The public reaction surprised him. “I received thousands of messages and letters from fans thanking me and explaining how much my character in Teen Wolf had helped them”, he says. “I had no idea of the importance this representation would have for so many people.”
From the Bible Belt to the incel horror
The following year, in the independent film Slash by Clay Liford, he plays Neil, a solitary teenager whose discovery of sexuality passes through writing queer fanfictions. These early roles, Michael Johnston calls a moment “very frightening”. He himself grew up in North Carolina, in the heart of the Bible Belt, this region of the United States marked by the weight of evangelical Christianity and largely hostile to LGBT rights. At the age of 12, the actor discovers a passion for voice acting. As a refuge to protect himself from the outside world, he builds a recording booth in his room. Since then, he lends his voice to numerous projects, ranging from video games (World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy, God of War) to animated series (X-Men ’97).
The role that is now exploding his career is, however, the antithesis of the values he defends. In Obsession, his character, Bear, makes a wish: that his colleague Nikki, played by Inde Navarrette, fall in love with him. The wish comes true… and the nightmare begins. This gauche and discreet anti-hero, archetype of the innocent boy, is already considered by critics as a new symbol of the incel horror, a relatively recent horror subgenre that rests on masculine violence. “They do not foment mass attacks against women, but embody a more diffuse idea: as soon as they have the possibility, men control or manipulate women – either to keep them, or to possess them”, summarizes journalist Maëlle Le Corre in Trois Couleurs. Michael Johnston fully embraces this reading. “I loved exploring the dark side of the cliché of the ‘nice guy’, he explains to Numéro Netherlands. Bear gives the impression of being a good person, and it is at the moment he makes this wish that he is most vulnerable. His ego keeps him from admitting that he is responsible.”
The story of Michael Johnston also tells Hollywood’s story. The industry has never lacked gay actors, but it has long hesitated to make them the faces of its biggest popular successes. Jodie Foster did not come out until she was 50. Kristen Stewart publicly dated women only after the end of the Twilight saga, once freed from the commercial constraints that accompanied her star status. As for Matt Bomer or Neil Patrick Harris, both openly gay and immensely popular on television, they never had a film career trajectory comparable to cinema. Michael Johnston’s ascent thus resembles a fortunate anomaly. “Growing up, I always wanted to see representations on screen and never would I have believed that it could be me”, he tells Pride. His next dream mirrors his journey: “To embody a big and beautiful queer story.”
