Adamo Ruggiero participated in a panel of young LGBT stars hosted by Kathy Griffin on Thursday night presented by Academy of Television Arts and Science’s Diversity Committee. Adamo was asked about playing Marco, as well as his own coming out story.
“I got Marco just around the time I was starting to stand up for myself,” Ruggiero, who had been picked on in school for being different, remembered. “So Marco was kind of my idol.”
“I felt like I could do what I wanted to do on the playground and on TV as well. And so, growing up with him, he was coming out faster than I was, and I just wanted to keep up.”
Griffin followed that question by asking what it was like to be playing a character who was more out than the then very young Toronto-born actor.
“It was petrifying,” the actor admitted. “And my parents were watching the show! I ran out of excuses [not to watch it with them]. At the beginning I kind of resented [Marco] a bit, but then I realized I had like the best gay manual ever… and I got to gauge my parents reaction.”
You can read some of the rest of what he had to say right here.