Gay Boots stars Miles Heizer and Max Parker talk all-male spaces and the closet

Since its release this month, Netflix’s queer Marine series Boots has captivated audiences with its exploration of closeted life in the military under the even stricter ban that preceded “don’t ask, don’t tell,” the all-male space of boot camp, and — let’s face it — hot guys. The Advocate’s latest cover star, Miles Heizer, plays Cameron, a young gay recruit with something to prove, and Max Parker stars as Sgt. Sullivan, a drill instructor hiding his queer identity, who bullies Cameron mercilessly to force him to drop out in the show based on Greg Cope White’s memoir, The Pink Marine.

“The military is his whole life and sort of his whole identity, and the fact that he’s always striving to be perfect” is at Sullivan’s core, says Parker, the gay star of the British series Emmerdale. From the jump, Sullivan’s got it out for Cameron, terrorizing him extensively, even considering the brutal environment of boot camp.

Max Parker as Sgt. Sullivan and Miles Heizer as Cameron in BootsNetflix

Through flashbacks, the series shares Sullivan’s secret love affair with an officer, Maj. Wilkinson (Sachin Bhatt), while in Guam. Sullivan’s queer reveal in the show is methodical, timed to his increasing abuse of Cameron.

“The fact that he’s got on his way to be a recon Marine, sort of the pinnacle of where he wants to be, and the fact that he meets someone and falls in love with a man scares him so much so that when it is nearly outed for him in the military, it means he could lose everything that he’s worked for,” Parker says.

“Everything that defines who he is, he runs away, which is where you first see him as a drill instructor,” Parker adds. “That’s him sort of escaping reality and runs away to become a drill instructor, to sort of have an outlet for all this anger and energy that he has, and almost immediately meets Cameron, who sort of brings him right back to reality.”

Boots is a reminder that evolution is not always linear, considering the Trump Administration’s villainization and ousting of transgender service members. “Don’t ask, don’t tell” was instituted under President Clinton in 1994, and it was supposed to make life better for gay, lesbian, and bisexual troops, but it didn’t. It was repealed under President Obama in 2010. The show’s out star, Heizer (13 Reasons Why, Parenthood), credits Cope White with fighting for LGBTQ+ troops through telling his story in The Pink Marine.

“Looking back now, especially for queer people, the amount of progress that’s been made because of people like Greg and all these people that have fought to make change so that we could live in a time where this show even exists, Heizer says.

Angus O’Brien as Hicks and Miles Heizer as Cameron in BootsNetflix

“We’re very aware of that and very grateful and hope to sort of continue that progress as we go along,” Heizer adds of his series that had the Pentagon so riled that it called Boots “woke garbage.”

In his Advocate cover story, Heizer shared that life on set with a nearly all-male cast helped him find his “first male friends,” because as a kid, he was “scared they’d see I was gay.”

Of the nearly all-male space on set where they were immersed for months, Parker says, “I’ve never ever been in a show where it’s, we’re just surrounded by so much testosterone and being on set. With this show, for pretty much the whole show, we’re in every scene together. Every day, it is sort of like you become so close with each other and sort of rely on each other, but also so competitive.”

“But then also [there was] the sense of the female energy that we missed so much. So when Ana [Ayordo], who plays [the base’s captain], would come onto set, everyone would be like, ‘Hey, so how’s your day?’ It’d be a case of you don’t realize the power of the feminine energy that we all craved,” he adds. “Boys are great, but in a bit of variety.”

Watch the full interview with Heizer and Parker above. Boots is available on Netflix.

This article originally appeared on Advocate: Gay Boots stars Miles Heizer and Max Parker talk all-male spaces and the closet