Josh Duhamel Knows The “Love, Simon” Scene Gay Viewers Keep Thanking Him For
Eight years on from Love, Simon and Josh Duhamel still gets stopped in the street for the same reason. Fans want to thank him for playing Jack Spier, the dad who, after fumbling his son’s coming out, sits down and apologises for it.
That apology scene has done a lot of quiet work. For many in the LGBTQIA+ community, it landed as the blueprint for what acceptance can look like at home. For others, it filled in a moment they never had with their own parents.
Duhamel knows it. In a new interview with Out, he says the scene was the reason he took the part.
“I remember when I read that script. He’s been hard on his son and didn’t know how to react to his son being gay. When he has that moment where he apologizes and comes clean to him, that’s [when I realized], I have to play this part,” Duhamel told Out.
The role he keeps being thanked for
Love, Simon arrived in 2018 as the first major Hollywood studio film built around a gay teenage romance. Nick Robinson played Simon. Duhamel played the well-meaning, slightly oblivious father who has to learn in real time. The film’s impact has not faded. If anything, it has hardened into a cultural reference point that gets rewatched every year by someone working through their own coming out.
Duhamel says the gratitude has been a constant since. “I have had a lot of people come up to me over the years thanking me for playing that part. It was never my intention! I just really liked the part and I felt like it was an important part. I appreciate [the love],” he said.
It was truly such a pleasant surprise to see Josh Duhamel reprise his role from LOVE, SIMON in the new season of #LoveVictor.
— Max Gao (@MaxJGao) June 17, 2021
(Who else might we see in the new season of this show? 🤔) pic.twitter.com/sttdBlKUHU
Now playing another dad in Neglected
This week he is back on screens as another father, this time in the thriller Neglected, which opens on Friday. Duhamel plays a detective close to retirement whose son falls into danger. Dylan Sprouse co-stars.
“I understood the character. He had a lot of guilt for not being there for his son because he worked so much. I can relate to that on some level. I feel incredibly lucky to be in this business going on 26 or 27 years now,” Duhamel told Out.
At DNA we have always rated Love, Simon for what it actually did. It shifted the culture in small ways that matter more than the box office numbers. Duhamel clearly thinks the same. He could have walked away from that performance as a job he did once. Instead, he treats the conversations with fans as part of the work.
If you grew up watching that scene and felt something quietly land, you are not alone. He hears it from people every week.
