Following the profound impact of last year\u2019s I Saw the TV Glow<\/a> on LGBTQ<\/a> audiences, Justice Smith<\/a> is sharing some insight into his casting.<\/p>\n The actor noted that he\u2019s \u201creally passionate\u201d about transgender<\/a> people being able to play trans roles and tell their own stories onscreen, explaining why non-binary writer\/director Jane Schoenbrun<\/a> didn\u2019t cast a trans actor as his character Owen in the A24<\/a> film, which is a metaphor for the trans experience.<\/p>\n More from Deadline<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cI had some reservations at first, and I talked to Jane about this. I was curious as to why they didn\u2019t cast a trans actor to play that role,\u201d he said on the Zach Sang Show<\/a> podcast. \u201cBut they made me understand how me, as a cis person, I\u2019m being used as kind of a device for the structure of the movie. Because, spoiler alert, my character lives in this nightmare realm, and I am actually the girl from the other realm.\u201d<\/p>\n Smith added, \u201cSo, it wouldn\u2019t necessarily make sense if I was a trans actor, because the metaphor can\u2019t really exist.\u201d<\/p>\n Noting that the casting \u201cwas a big concern\u201d of his, Smith said, \u201cI\u2019m really passionate about those kinds of politics and trans people being allowed to play trans characters. But I am also passionate about trans people telling their stories the way they want to tell them, you know. So that was a bigger priority for me.\u201d<\/p>\n I Saw The TV Glow movie<\/p>\n In I Saw the TV Glow, teenager Maddy (Jack Haven<\/a>) introduces classmate Owen (Smith) to her favorite show The Pink Opaque, which begins to alter his sense of reality as he discovers the show is actually a supernatural world beneath their own.<\/p>\n Smith said the experience filming the movies \u201cwas really beautiful,\u201d noting many of the cast and crew were trans. \u201cAnd that was kind of a queer haven,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Best of Deadline<\/strong><\/p>\n Sign up for Deadline’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source ca.news.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Following the profound impact of last year\u2019s I Saw the TV Glow on LGBTQ audiences, Justice Smith is sharing some insight into his casting. The actor noted that he\u2019s \u201creally passionate\u201d about transgender people being able to play trans roles and tell their own stories onscreen, explaining why non-binary writer\/director Jane Schoenbrun didn\u2019t cast a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2145790,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[395981,341388],"class_list":["post-2145789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-jane-schoenbrun","tag-justice-smith"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Justice-Smith-Is-Really-Passionate-About-Trans-Actors-Being-Cast.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2145789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2145789"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2145789\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2145791,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2145789\/revisions\/2145791"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2145790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2145789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2145789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2145789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/span><\/div>\n