Simon Callow voices concern about children bullying gay classmates: 'They get it from their parents'

The Four Weddings and a Funeral actor says he has received hate mail about his own sexuality

Callow was one of the first actors to publicly come out and did so in his 1984 book Being An Actor (Getty Images)

Simon Callow has expressed his concern about children bullying their gay classmates at school.

The Four Weddings and a Funeral actor, who recently married his partner Sebastian Fox, said he feared children were absorbing homophobic prejudices from their parents.

Callow, who has also worked as a writer and a director, said he had been subject to hate mail about his own sexual orientation.

“We’re not in the ‘promised land’. There’s a great deal of bullying and prejudice,” he told the Radio Times in an interview following the recent shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida.

“Some of the worst incidences of anti-gay feeling are in the playground. That’s very, very, very dismaying and strange,” he continued. “Children don’t, generally speaking, bully their black fellow pupils, the children of Poles or Italians or whatever, which they certainly used to do in my day.”

“Now, they very steadily and determinedly bully their gay fellow pupils. One can only assume they get it from their parents.”

He said the opposition to gay marriage by conservative parts of our society was one of the greatest paradoxes of this time.

“They should have been the ones supporting it, unless they actually say homosexuals are indefensible and must be put out into the middle of the ocean and drowned. I’m sure there are some people who think that.”

Callow was one of the first actors to publicly come out and did so in his 1984 book Being An Actor.

In an interview with The Independent back in 2004, Callow spoke of his decision to declare his homosexuality.

“I'm not really an activist," he said. "Although I am aware that there are some political acts one can do that actually make a difference and I think my coming out as a gay man was probably one of the most valuable things I've done in my life. I don't think any actor had done so voluntarily and I think it helped to change the culture.”

Callow is known for playing the role of Gareth in Four Weddings and a Funeral and Charles Dickens is an episode of Doctor Who. He will play Henry Palmer in The Rebel a sitcom based on a column in the Oldie about a 70-year-old who yearns for the social rebellion and freedom of his youth.