Whatever happened to 'Crying Game' star Jaye Davidson?
An unknown actor at the time, Jaye Davidson received an Academy Award performance for his captivating portrayal of Dil in Neil Jordan‘s 1992 hit thriller The Crying Game.
Of course what the majority of viewers will remember most about Davidson’s performance is his infamous gender reveal, one of the most surprising plot twists in contemporary film. Today, the film reads problematic, given his lover’s (Stephen Rea) violent and panicked reaction (see Peter Piatkowski’s thoughtful breakdown of that scene from 2017), yet the movie was nonetheless groundbreaking for its inclusion of a transgender character two full decades before there was ever a signification discourse over trans representation on screen.
Davidson capitalized on the success of The Crying Game by starring as the evil sun god Ra in Roland Emmerich’s 1994 sci-fi spectacular Stargate … and then completely disappeared from the public eye.
At the Los Angeles press day for his latest film, the stalker thriller Greta, Yahoo Entertainment asked Jordan what Davidson has been up.
“Very wisely actually, Jaye made one other movie for which he made a ton of money,” Jordan told us (watch above). “He then said, ‘Look, this is not for me.’ You know? He went back to his life.”
Davidson, who identifies as gay, now works as a fashion stylist in Paris.
“He’s a very happy man now,” said Jordan, who remains in touch with the retired actor/model and saw him two years ago at a Crying Game 25th anniversary event. “He’s bulked up now. … Different person now. But very healthy and very good.”
Greta is now in theaters. Watch Chloë Grace Moretz and Neil Jordan talk about how the thriller subverts its genre:
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