9-1-1 star Oliver Stark on Buck’s bisexuality and why Buddie fans ‘aren’t wrong’

“I do believe, or at least hope, they seem to be dying out,” laughs Oliver Stark. The British actor is manifesting the much-needed and deserved extinction of 9-1-1’s anti-LGBTQIA+ mob, who were – sadly, but predictably – out in full force after his mainstay character Evan “Buck” Buckley embraced his status as a bi-con in the procedural drama’s seventh season. Stark proceeded to showcase his LGBTQIA+ allyship by issuing a statement in which he condemned the biphobes and told them to, basically, piss off.

“I wondered if I should bother even saying something to them because, do I even wanna give them the time of day?” Stark tells GAY TIMES over Zoom. “I think the most important aspect was to put a message out for the other people, for the people who were supportive of the storyline and to make sure they knew I wasn’t at all swayed away from it and I’m proud to be telling this story.”

‘Refreshing’ is how fans – and Stark – describe the handling of Buck’s sexuality. Rather than question his masculinity or reject his identity – which has, sigh, traditionally been the case in television and film – Stark’s beloved first responder has embraced all facets of his queerness. From the start, it was important that ‘trauma’ didn’t have a place in his journey, Stark explains.

Read ahead for our full interview with Oliver Stark, where he celebrates 9-1-1’s progressive depiction of Buck’s sexuality and discusses his chemistry with co-stars Ryan Guzman and Lou Ferrigno Jr. Obviously, we had to chat with Stark about ‘Buddie’ – the much-championed ship between his and Guzman’s characters – and whether Buck is a fan of Atomic Kitten. That last part: very important and relevant.

This storyline, Buck’s sexuality journey, has been popping off online. How have these past few weeks been for you?

There have been different emotions. At first, it was really lovely and then it got a bit overwhelming, almost. I felt a lot of… It’s just a lot of emotions that have come with it, right? I’m so happy that the response has been as positive as it has and obviously there are a few people who want to speak against it, as you get with any storyline anyway, but it’s almost been overwhelming. It’s been a lot to take in, but for the majority, it’s been really lovely and positive and I’ve been really proud of it.

I saw that you had to put out a statement, shutting down the anti-LGBTQ+ crowd. It’s baffling, isn’t it? The show has had queer storylines throughout the series, and it comes from queer mastermind Ryan Murphy, of all people?

It’s a very strange one, and I wondered if I should bother even saying something to them because, do I even wanna give them the time of day? I think the most important aspect was to put a message out for the other people, for the people who were supportive of the storyline and to make sure they knew I wasn’t at all swayed away from it and I’m proud to be telling this story. The people that aren’t on board with it – as I said in the post – they can go and watch something else.

You just gotta focus on the people who actually appreciate the show, right?

Yeah, and as you say, those storylines have always been present in the show, so it doesn’t make sense to now, suddenly, be so anti it. Also, the things that they come up with, ‘He was always such a womaniser!’ Being a womaniser, or a young man struggling to understand your feelings of attraction to the same sex, I’m sure quite a common cover-up to that is probably spending some years as a womaniser and a bit of a player, running away from those feelings. The other thing is, we’re telling the story here of a bisexual man, so yeah, he was attracted to women and he will continue to be attracted to women. That’s an integral part to his bisexuality.

@gaytimes Star of 9-1-1 #OliverStark shares his thoughts on #Buck's bisexual journey and fan reactions to #Buddie 🚨 #911 #buckandeddie #911lonestar #oliverstarkedit #buddie911 #911buck #911buddie #911onfox #911edit ♬ original sound – GAY TIMES

Yeah, you can be a womaniser and like men, too…

Yeah, exactly. Now that he likes men, it doesn’t mean he isn’t gonna have any attraction to women, right? He’s attracted to more than one gender.

These trolls are wild, Oliver…

I do believe, or at least hope, they seem to be dying out. [There’s] less and less [biphobes]. I think we’re becoming more and more open and, hopefully, through representation in entertainment and media, it’s part of what is hopefully moving that needle.

The Buddie stans, and I will admit Oliver, that includes me…

You can admit that!

We’ve been out in full force for years now, so did you ever anticipate, even before this season aired, that a queer storyline could happen for Buck? For our bisexual bi-con Buck?

“Bisexual bi-con”, I like that. Yeah. It was brought to me a couple years ago as a possibility and I had said yes, and then it was shut down from somewhere else above. So, I had known that this was a possible storyline that we might, one day, be able to lean back into. Honestly, at the beginning of this season… I see what everybody else sees. Like, I watch the same show. I don’t think that the Buddie fans are wrong. So, I decided this year that I wanted to possibly lean into some kind of sexual awakening for Buck, anyway. When the storyline was brought to me by Tim Minear, who writes the show, it was like, ‘Great! I was gonna do that anyway. Good to know we’re all on the same page.’

And it’s been handled so well. It hasn’t conformed to any tired queer tropes such as Buck rejecting who he is or questioning his masculinity. Was that important to do from the start, to be progressive?

Absolutely. One of the first things that Tim said to me when he pitched me the story was, ‘I don’t want this to feel like the bravest episode of television. I want it to feel like a rom-com.’ The struggles that Buck did end up having in the following episode was less about, ‘Ooh, what does this mean for myself?’ and more like, ‘I’ve always said that I was such an ally!’ and I think that’s quite an honest way to tell that story. But, it’s always done light-hearted. He never was hard on himself [about his sexuality]. His biggest internal conflict that he went through was the fact that he lied to Eddie about being on a date, but it wasn’t about the fact that he was on a date. He was absolutely okay with that, and I think that’s a really refreshing way to tell the story because we want to tell a queer love story here, but we don’t want to do it in this traumatic, heavy way where the fact that it’s a queer love story is the issue. It’s gonna have issues, but hopefully not surrounding the queerness.

That date… My reaction was a mixture of smiling and, ‘Oh no! Don’t do that!’ You could tell he was coming from a good place, though.

That’s the thing with Buck that has been there for all seven seasons. He’s always well-intentioned. He often says the wrong thing, but his heart is in the right place. Yeah, that was no different on his first date with Tommy.

Later on in the episode, Buck confided in Eddie about his romance with Tommy, which was a really heartfelt scene and rightfully praised by viewers. What was it like to film that with Ryan?

We always have a really lovely and open time in our scenes, and I do know that he’s spoken about this publicly, so I’m okay to share it. He’s had that conversation with a friend coming out to him before. There was a moment where he was maybe taken aback, just because it’s new, and then it’s, ‘But you’re my friend. I love you, and I’ll support you through anything.’ I know it’s something that he had a very personal connection to. We just wanted to dive into the openness and supportiveness and vulnerability of the whole thing. At the beginning of the scene, Eddie is talking about his own relationship drama and it’s kind of in the air for Buck, and it’s about finding the right moment to open up and drop what he thinks is going to be this bombshell. But in actual fact, it doesn’t have as much of an impact as he thinks it might cause.