Chaz Bono acted in only three roles before his transition from 2008 to 2010, and said he regained his passion for acting in 2012 when he could enroll in Anthony Meindel's actor workshop as a male.
"What little acting I did was not something I was looking to do as a career at that point," Bono told UPI in a recent Zoom interview. "After I transitioned, I ended up getting a couple of cameos in things and really enjoyed the experience."
Bono, 54, the son of Sonny Bono and Cher, graduated from the High School of the Performing Arts in New York in 1987. He said playing a male role in a senior year play was a pivotal experience, but it was decades before he could play male roles in Hollywood.
"It was the first time I felt comfortable, really comfortable on stage," Bono said. "That kind of led me to quit acting because I knew that nothing like that was going to happen out there in the real world."
Bono appeared in the 1994 film Bar Girls, a 1997 episode of Ellen and the movie Fronterz in 2004. In 2012, he played the role of Chaz on DeGrassi: The Next Generation, but soon after found his niche in horror.
American Horror Story cast Bono in his first of three roles for the anthology series in 2016. He also appeared in the films Reborn, 3 from Hell and Bury the Bride, premiering Friday on Tubi.
In Bury the Bride, a bachelorette party encounters a group of hunters in a remote desert, including Bono's character. Bono said Bury the Bride, which he also produced, gave him new acting challenges.
"I don't speak for the majority of the film," Bono said. "I had to try to lay down these tracks for this character that would make sense once you hear my story."
Bono plays Puppy, whose major speech explains to the girls how he fell in with the violent clan. He said he believed Puppy is telling the truth, though the film leaves it open to interpretation.
ADVERTISEMENT
"I played it very much that every word that comes out of my mouth is the truth," Bono said.
He said he hopes it helps make sense of how he was acting beforehand.
While Bono now relishes the challenge Puppy gave him, he admits he was reticent at first. After writer Krsy Fox asked him to play the role, Bono said he had reservations about the lack of dialogue.
"As actors, we like to talk," Bono said. "But she said, 'Look, this is going to be an incredibly impactful character. There's a reason why you don't speak. When you finally do, it's going to mean a lot.'"
Bono said it's not a coincidence that he has acted so frequently in horror productions, noting that he grew up loving horror movies and relating to other horror fans. But as a filmmaker, he also began to appreciate what horror movies can achieve.
"The genre has always mostly been independent filmmaking," Bono said. "Texas Chain Saw is such a great film. You can see they made it for next to nothing and it doesn't matter at all."
While horror movies can be an escape into fictional fear, Bono said that he fears anti-trans trends in the real world. Recently, Kansas passed restrictions on gender affirming care, and Kentucky went further to compel physicians to detransition youths.
"It's a lot scarier to be trans right now," Bono said. "I know this will pass. I watched them put the same attack out on gay and lesbian people in the '80s and '90s, but in the meantime, it's tough."
Bono said he believes much of the anti-trans sentiment comes out of fear. He also said politicians stoke trans fears to rally their base, as well as racist sentiment against Asians, African-Americans and other groups.
Bono said he worries for trans youth who are growing up under such fears and restrictions.
ADVERTISEMENT
"You're going to kill a lot of people," Bono said to the politicians passing such laws.
Bono said he hopes the people behind such attacks can learn trans people are nothing to fear.
"We're the ones that are afraid," Bono said. "Nobody should be afraid of us. We're not going to do anything."