Out Spotlight XXIII

This week we focus on an actress I have liked since she was very young- Heather Matarazzo. In 1996, when she was 11, she was in the movie Welcome to the Dollhouse. If you have not seen this movie, I highly recommend it. It's about a young girl who is absolutely tormented by her classmates. Matarazzo is incredible in it. In fact, she won an Independent Spirit Award for Best Debut Performance. Other movies Matarazzo has been in include- The Princess Diaries (she is extremely good friends with Anne Hathaway), Saved, Hostel II, Scream III, and 54. She has also been on TV in the lesbian shows The L Word and Exes and Oh's.

Heather Matarazzo came very casually out as a lesbian in 2004 (she was 22) in an interview with the New York Daily News. She said, "I met the person I'm so madly crazy in love with. She's not famous yet. She will be. She wants to do musical theater and stage, which is not as demoralizing as the movie business is." The girlfriend she was referring to is actress Caroline Murphy, who Matarazzo is still with. In 2005, Matarazzo was the keynote speaker for GLSEN of Boston's annual conference.

Heather Matarazzo had this to say about coming out-

"It was one of the most freeing experiences of my life, in that it gave me a sense of, wow, now I can fully be a part of the gay and lesbian community, and I don't have to be on the outskirts."

She also said this-

"Oh my God, I can breathe! Honestly, there was a time after I came out that I really did not think I would be working again."















Heather and Caroline at the Becoming Jane premiere last year.















Here they are again, in a pic that came out this week. Posted just because I think they are so cute!

"We were sitting in my pink room with pink carpeting. It was summer and we were sitting Indian-style across from each other and I was so incredibly nervous. And I thought, `Yeah, I am definitely gay.'" - On her first kiss with a girl.