Christopher Plummer wins Golden Globe for gay dad role

Christopher Plummer’s performance as a gay father in the film Beginners has won him a Golden Globe Award for best supporting actor in a motion picture.

Opposite on-screen son Ewan McGregor, he plays a father who comes out after his wife’s death.

Plummer is often remembered for his role as Captain von Trapp, head of the von Trapp family in the 1965 musical The Sound of Music, in which he played a slightly more reserved widower.

At the ceremony last night, Plummer thanked McGregor in his speech, saying: “I want to salute my partner, Ewan, that wily Scott [...] That scene-stealing swine.”

Backstage, Plummer, who is married to actress Elaine Taylor told reporters: “Gay characters are human beings. we’re all exactly the same. That’s the reason I played it the way I did, not as a caricature.

“They’re a part of our society since the Egyptians, the Greeks – it’s part of the human condition. I know there is a lot of anti-gay sentiment in our society at the moment and I abhor it.”

The actor has won two Emmys, two Tonys, and one previous Golden Globe.