What's It Like Being An Aroace Actor?

On a general level, I describe myself as aroace: aromantic and asexual.

I’m still learning what microlabels most accurately describe the way I experience the world, but basically, I don’t experience sexual or romantic attraction.

I love my aroace-ness and the way it allows me to value strong friendships and relationships that don’t fit clean definitions.

And, as an actor in an amatonormative (prioritizing romantic/sexual relationships) world, it provides a special acting challenge.

As an actor, I have to find different ways to relate to characters like Romeo or Juliet for certain scenes. While I (and every aspec person) understand love, the specific types of attraction I experience are different from the “norm.”

I know what intellectual attraction and aesthetic attraction feel like, and can play those instinctually. I don’t have that instinct for playing sexual or romantic attraction because I don’t have those emotional needs.

It’s like trying to play charades based on hieroglyphs you’ve never seen without the Rosetta Stone, and the majority of the team (or everyone but you) is fluent.

Research is a part of every actor’s job, but I often get weird looks or patronizing comments when I ask questions about these types of attraction.

Because our culture assumes that everyone is allosexual and alloromantic (experiences sexual and romantic attraction, respectively), I’ve had more than one instance where a director just assumed I understood my character’s motivations.

I also run into plenty of misconceptions about asexuality and aromanticism:

“You can’t be the matinee idol/love interest/lead”

“But you’re gonna be so lonely!”

“So you just don’t love anyone?”

“How do you know you don’t like [sex/romance] if you’ve never tried it?”

But I love the special perspective my aroace-ness provides.

I get to question character motivations and come up with (often) unexpected versions of well-known characters.

I can separate myself more easily from romantic character arcs (no showmances here!)

I have a nuanced (and constantly evolving) understanding of relationship structures and attraction, which allows me to play MORE stories, not fewer.

And it’s always fun to surprise people (more on that in a future post!)

For more information about the aspec (asexual and/or aromantic) community, I highly recommend these aspec activists and educators:

Ace Dad Advice (Cody Daigle-Orians)

Cody has two books that are AMAZING: I Am Ace and The Ace & Aro Relationship Guide

Yasmin Beniot

Happy learning!