On a three-way call, O'Connell and Alvarez spoke to POPSUGAR about breaking new ground on Special, putting the intimacy back in gay sex scenes, and what representation means to authentic storytelling. So, to watch a gay man with cerebral palsy lose his virginity to a gentle, patient partner - a sex worker played beautifully by Brian Jordan Alvarez (of NBC's Will & Grace and The Gay and Wondrous Life of Caleb Gallo on YouTube) - charts new territory for queer representation altogether. Portrayals that reveal honest, imperfect people with human wants and needs, whose relationships don't revolve around what others them, are ever rarer.
It's rare we see the stories of gay disabled people play out on TV, full stop.
In O'Connell's new semi-autobiographical Netflix series, Special - which he created, wrote, and stars in - he plays Ryan, a gay man with cerebral palsy who gradually becomes emboldened to go after what he wants, in life and in love. Hollywood may have a lack of imagination when it comes to the lives of gay people with disabilities, but Ryan O'Connell certainly doesn't.
