Michael Johnston says playing gay characters helped him accept himself before he came out

‘Obsession’ breakout Michael Johnston is opening up about a part of his career that turned out to matter far more than a résumé line. The actor says that playing gay characters on screen, before he was fully out in real life, helped him make peace with his own sexuality.

Johnston, 30, spoke about it in his new Attitude cover story. He first found a devoted fanbase as Corey Bryant on MTV’s “Teen Wolf,” which he joined in 2015. Corey was a gay student who could turn invisible and became the boyfriend of Khylin Rhambo’s Mason over the show’s final two seasons. The following year, Johnston led the indie film “Slash” as Neil, a teen writing fan fiction while working out who he is.

Johnston says he wasn’t comfortable with his own sexuality while doing those projects, but the work shifted his perspective anyway. He once saw being gay as a weakness. Now, he sees it as a strength because it made him more empathetic.

A Southern Baptist upbringing

That reversal is bigger than it sounds. Johnston grew up in a Southern Baptist family in North Carolina and says he knew by age 11 or 12 that he was attracted to men. Everything he’d absorbed at church told him that was about the worst thing a person could be, so the realization felt like a catastrophe.

In an August Cosmopolitan interview, he said “Teen Wolf” arrived just as he was coming out to himself and then to those closest to him. At home, he initially brushed off the gay storyline as not real. One aunt had warned that it would poison him, and he now jokes that she’s been quietly proven wrong.

Even while he was still figuring things out, the response from viewers was impossible to ignore. Johnston told Deadline in July that thousands of people wrote to thank him, saying his character helped them feel better about themselves. Some said it gave them the courage to come out to their parents.

What comes next

These days, Johnston is best known for Curry Barker’s horror hit “Obsession,” where he played Bear, a straight guy whose wish for his crush goes horribly wrong. The film topped $400 million worldwide by early July. When Cosmopolitan asked what the role taught him, he said it made him glad not to be heterosexual.

Now, he wants a queer lead of his own. He told Attitude that an “incredible” queer story is coming and that he’s excited for his “steamy moment.” He hasn’t named the project, a director, or a release date. He has also floated writing it himself.

In the meantime, he’s staying busy. Johnston is part of the cast of the next “Mummy” film, alongside Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz, due Oct. 15, 2027. He says he’s playing a new character rather than Rick and Evie’s son.

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