HOLLYWOOD star Simon Callow has said he disagrees with Tom Hanks’ claim that straight actors should not be playing gay characters.

The Four Weddings and a Funeral favourite told GB News: “Think of all the wonderful performances of people who are not gay have given: John Hurt, Daniel Day Lewis, and Heath Ledger in Brokeback Mountain.

“I mean, these are all as far as I know, heterosexual actors who’ve given utterly convincing credible and illuminating performances.”

He added: “Though I’m gay, it doesn’t qualify me to play all the many different kinds of gay people that there are.

“It’s a very simple idea and a dangerous idea that you can only play someone who you actually are.

“So although I think Tom Hanks’ heart is clearly in the right place, I think it’s a terribly important thing that we stress, but actors are about imagination, about creating characters…

“It’s not about graphical acting, mustn’t be, shouldn’t be.”

Asked if a straight ban on gay roles was the way the movie industry was moving, he said: “There’s pressure everywhere to conform to a certain series of ideas which have been generated in the last couple of years, which all of which have huge implications

“And you have to consider it – it seems like a terribly enlightened thing to say only people who are something should act them, but it’s not.

“It’s a limiting thing. It kills the imagination, it kills the liberation that you feel as an actor when you play somebody else.

“So, I think Tom Hanks is a very kind and gentle and thoughtful man who was trying to ally himself with a sympathetic idea, but it’s a dangerous one, in my view.”