“I hope fans aren’t like, ‘Something new?! NOOO!’” laughs Zane Phillips. It’s a Thursday afternoon in the UK – morning in the US – and I’m speaking with the latest addition to The CW’s fantasy drama Legacies over Zoom as he takes a rare day off from being gutted, ripped apart and flayed alive as his character Ben, aka Prometheus. The rising actor says he’s “nervous” about how the demigod – literally, he’s thousands of years old – has been perceived by fans, in spite of the countless fan accounts championing his character’s relationship with resident werewolf Jed (Ben Levin), which – fun fact! – made history for the expansive Vampire Diaries Universe as the first MLM (man loving man) romance. “Honestly, it’s been overwhelming, almost,” says Zane, who looks as far removed from Ben as possible with a backwards baseball cap and glasses, albeit still deity-like. “I’ve always just been nervous, but what’s really cool is that it has shaken things up, but hopefully in a positive way. This is fresh. This is what people have been asking for.”
First introduced in the ninth episode of season four, Ben/Prometheus was born circa 3000 B.C.E to a mortal mother and a divine father. He was later damned to eternal torture after harnessing and stealing magic to aid his best friend and lover, Ashur. After spending thousands of years savaged by monsters, Ben emerges in the present day – badly charred with no tongue, gruesome yes – and finds refuge at the Salvatore Boarding School for the Young & Gifted. If you’ve ever tuned into The Vampire Diaries Universe, you’ll understand this is just another regular, mundane day at the office. (“Give this man a sword,” Zane jokes. “Let him do some fighting back!”) There, he immediately bonds with Jed, the former bully of Legacies and werewolf alpha who’s been with the show since its inception. “He had this one person who he loved and considered his only love for 5000 years, and suddenly there’s someone else who is approaching that place in his heart,” Zane says of his perplexing arc. “As much as he doesn’t want to try and force anything, it’s taking a lot for him to be like, ‘This is the one. This is actually someone who could help me heal from 5000 years of trauma.’”
The Vampire Diaries Universe memorably launched back in 2009 with the Nina Dobrev-led series of the same name and has, so far, spawned two monumentally successful spin-offs: The Originals and Legacies. Over the course of 17 turbulent seasons with witches, werewolves, hybrids, doppelgangers, leprechauns, mummies and other bloodcurdling forces of darkness, the franchise has proudly flown the flag for the gay, lesbian, bisexual and pansexual communities, although a major romance between two men hasn’t been depicted until recently. What makes this particular pairing groundbreaking, also, is its rejection of harmful LGBTQ+ tropes and stereotypes that have plagued queer characters for decades on-screen. Instead of the classic “coming out” storyline with the inevitable attached trauma (there’s trauma in Legacies, of course, due to the plethora of nefarious beasts that plague their world but that’s besides the point), Ben and Jed’s identities are simply accepted by the other characters and it’s never presented as an issue within the narrative which is – and I cannot stress this enough – how it should be. “I think that’s really effective,” Zane tells me, “and I think that’s what I really like because television shows, especially fantasy, oh my god, you have so much room to say, ‘You have power in so many different ways.’ As much as I joke about giving Ben a sword, there’s so much more power than just swinging around a sword and using spells and breaking people in half. There is power in trust. There is power in creating family. There’s power, as trite as it may sound, in love – and to say that love actually empowers us is a very queer sensibility.”
While Zane confides that he is “truly terrified” of looking at social media due to his “bad social anxiety,” he’s acutely aware of how significant this romance is for queer viewers at home. Like other on-screen romances, Ben and Jed have received their own ‘Bennifer’-esque ‘ship’ name: ‘Benjed’ or ‘Jedetheus’, the latter of which is Zane’s pick for “when you need to use a disappointed parent voice”. Social media also boasts extensive fan-fiction, detailed artwork and countless stans demanding for the pair to receive their own spin-off if Legacies is axed by the network. “I’m so grateful for the Twitter fans, because Twitter was the one where I was like, ‘Oh god, oh god, oh god.’ Now I’m like, ‘Oh god, oh god, oh someone really liked that scene!’ There are people out there still searching for, ‘Okay, who are the people like me? When I turn 18, what do I have waiting for me? What is the hope on the other end?’ I’ve already had people reach out to me and say, ‘I don’t know how I feel in my life and this storyline is huge to me…’ I do read things and take it to heart,” he passionately states. “Every single queer story is important, but it helps bring a feeling of meaning to what I do, and a feeling of purpose to something that I enjoy doing, which is acting and being a performer. This doesn’t exist in a vacuum, this does have material importance.” After volunteering with teenagers in New York for the Possibility Project, which empowers young people to transform their lives in the creative sphere, Zane recognised how “subservive” it still is for people to come out as members of the LGBTQ+ community, even in the Big Apple, saying “whatever identities are still not considered normal by the greater American society are still a very dangerous thing”. For him, this just affirmed the power of storytelling – particularly queer storytelling. “We talk about things needing to be universal, needing to be this, whatever,” he continues, before referencing the Daniels’ widely-acclaimed sci-fi comedy Everything Everywhere All At Once as a recent example of a story that was “so relatable” because of how it targeted “specific” audiences. “That is something that we need from our queer stories. We don’t need them to be generic, we don’t need them to be palatable to everybody. I think that’s why people say ‘universality through specificity’.”
Zane was born in Colorado, but moved to a small conservative town in Texas called Fredericksburg, where his school graduating class consisted of six people. He later embarked on a career in the “New York theatre world” where he played the “bland boyfriend of pretty girls”. When I ask Zane how it feels to play a character slightly closer to home – y’know, without the endless physical anguish, supernatural romance and powers and abilities afforded to him by birthright as a god etc – he pauses. It’s clear that playing a queer character means a great deal to him after years of playing the straight jock. “For actors, you are told that if you want to be successful and work a lot, being straight-passing and being able to fulfil certain roles is pretty important,” he explains, with clear disdain for that disposition in his voice. “It’s going to be an invaluable skill for you. But to be able to have this, where I can access this very real part of myself… What a blessing. We talk about representation, we talk about matching the identity of the role with the identity of the actor, and as much as it is important for the person watching, it is a blessing for the person playing that role. Suddenly, you get to relax.” Although Zane says being placed in “uncomfortable situations” comes with the territory of being an actor, he acknowledges that queer people have historically “put ourselves in uncomfortable situations” because we live in a world that constantly rejects our existence.
“I was talking about this in therapy the other night, that it’s an exhaustion,” he adds. “We are exhausting our queer people, especially because of what’s happening politically. We are so aware of every piece of hatred out there, of every law and group of people who are against them. Yes, celebrate queer characters and these ‘ships’ and whatever have you, but we also need to celebrate people who are able to be open in who they are and have that chance [to play queer roles]. I don’t fucking know if this is going to keep me from getting roles down the line. I think there was a point where I was like, ‘Yeah, I’ll post about my boyfriend on Instagram,’ and now it’s gotten to the point where I’m like, ‘I’m officially openly queer.’ You hear about some people as their star rises and their team is like, ‘Time for you to be hush-hush about this until we can get you a bit higher!’ My team says, ‘We know who you are and we know these are the roles you love,’ and they put me up for everything. I don’t want to put myself in a box, ever, but as long as I can have someone look at something I’m doing and think, ‘Wow, queer people can do that…’ We just want to see that there is a chance for us. We want to see that there’s a possibility for us to be who we are and still be able to live in this society.”
After spending 15-20 minutes chatting about mythology, which Marvel character he’d play (I chose Adam Warlock but… ) and how we’re both, at 28-years-old, unable to style our hair or take selfies – “To see people who are freed from [taking selfies] is so wild! I would love to have that brain” he laughs – conversation turns to Zane’s upcoming role in Fire Island. Inspired by Jane Austen’s famous novel Pride and Prejudice, the Andrew Ahn-directed Hulu comedy is led by Joel Kim Booster (who also wrote the film) as Noah, who embarks on a week-long vacation with his queer circle to the titular LGBTQ+ hotspot in New York. Also starring Bowen Yang, Conrad Ricamora, Margaret Cho, James Scully, Matt Rogers, Tomas Matos and Torian Miller, chaos and hilarity ensues in one of the decade’s brightest – and most authentic – queer films. Zane co-stars as Dex, a “sex-positive” man with an OnlyFans who ‘thinks’ he’s socially progressive. “There’s a certain brand of boy where they’re good-looking and know the power that comes with that,” he cautiously reveals of the character, who is – spoiler alert – a far cry from his brooding yet loveable demigod on The CW, “and they become uncomfortable when they can’t really express that power. Here’s the thing, I play the character, so I will tell you that my own chronic insecurity is the only thing keeping me from being like this person. He’s very physically confident. He’s there to be the drama, honestly. Shit gets to go down.”
A few years ago, Zane manifested a part in Fire Island after hearing of Joel’s intention to make Pride and Prejudice, but gay. “I didn’t know [Joel] before doing this project, but I followed him. I was like, ‘I wanna be in that.’ I saw myself as more of a Jane at that point, but whatever. I had never wanted to be part of a project more,” he gushes. “They took a chance on me, despite having very few credits to my name!” Zane praises the “fucking funny” Fire Island script, the “legends” involved and how comforting it was to be surrounded by members of his own community on set. “Just being able to say, ‘I don’t have to worry about how my voice sounds like, right?’ which is wild,” he says of a prior conversation with the director. “Even within our own community, we’re always fucking censoring ourselves and making sure that we’re living up to an ideal that comes from outside the community. We’ve all internalised it and now we’re torturing each other at any given point.” One of the central themes of Fire Island is how queer men oppress one another, but more importantly, the film portrays the beauty of being LGBTQ+ and the chosen families we make along the way, rather than the constant strife. “To show a queer space in such a loving way… It feels almost like, dare I say, The Birdcage,” says Zane. “It shows a queer space with such love and makes you want to be there. It’s very unique and powerful, and it looks gorgeous.” This role isn’t another IMDB credit for Zane. Hearing him buoyantly reminisce on the talent, the story and the “summer camp”-like experience he had while filming, it’s clear that this was a momentous moment for, not just his career, but him as a queer person. “[Fire Island] is a look into something closer than all of straight culture has ever seen or knows about. It’s something that we get,” he tells me, before continuing our prior conversation about how art can impact queer audiences. “They can look me up and see I’m [gay hand gesture], but also someone who’s happy. That’s why we want storylines that aren’t built on queer pain. It can be about joy and the beauty of it, too. That’s what is so fucking fun about Fire Island! It’s so joyful.”
Before he secured the role on Fire Island, Zane had more theatre-related projects lined up in 2020, which were ultimately cancelled because of the pandemic. After losing his health insurance, he considered quitting acting for good and becoming – he laughs – “an engineer”. “I felt like things weren’t going right for me, and that was fine. I’ve always been the kind of guy that’s like, ‘I’m not going to delude myself into thinking that I should be in a space where I shouldn’t be. If I’m a flop, I’m a flop and I’m gonna get out. I’m gonna leave.’” Being cast in Fire Island ultimately paved the way for his role on Legacies, with show writer Price Peterson revealing that Joel Kim Booster lobbied for his role after they filmed the queer comedy last summer. “I can finally take a break from the striving, know what I mean?” Zane says with relief. “I cannot tell you, a year ago I was tutoring five times a week. I was trying to make life in New York work, trying to support myself. To be able to now sit back and say, ‘Hey, I think I’ve done okay,’ is really cool. As an actor, everytime you finish a job you’re like, ‘Okay, so that was a fluke, right? I’ll never get hired again?’ I’m trying to push those feelings away a little bit.” Fluke, it is not, as he’s far from a flop, because: Hulu? Check. The CW? Check. Netflix will also have a ‘check!’ next to it in the next few months, with Zane set to appear in the upcoming courtroom dramedy Partner Track, in which he plays Hunter, a “total himbo” who simply sits around and acts “dumb”. As we prepare to conclude our hour-and-a-half call, the star reflects on how far he’s come and his ambitious future goals. “I keep saying everyday on the Legacies set, ‘This is what a 10-year-old version of me thought acting was.’ I get to come on set, get stabbed, cry and kiss people!” he proclaims with excitement. “It’s like playing in a sandbox everyday. I’m honestly not too far from my dream project right now. This is getting me close. Fingers crossed they put a gay elf in Lord of the Rings or something, because I’m coming for that.”
Fire Island is now streaming on Disney Plus.
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