Devin Way on Being Himself, the Importance of Community, and Why 'Survivor' Is "Gay Sports"

This story originally appeared on Out.Devin Way discovered Survivor at a watch party at Los Feliz bar Hi Tops. A friend invited him out, and he quickly saw just how passionate fans of the long-running CBS reality series could be."Oh, Survivor is gay sports," Way tells Out. "It's the closest I've ever felt to how I imagine straight people feel at a sports bar, watching a football game or soccer or something. I was like, wow, the community, the camp, the camping. Let's go."Now he’s on the other side of the screen as a castaway on Survivor season 51. The actor, best known for playing Brodie on the Queer as Folk reboot, has a theory about why the show resonates so deeply with queer audiences. “Being queer myself, the magic that I found in Survivor is the removal of masks,” he says. “It's taking everything away and playing an elimination game. What do queer people love? RuPaul. It is an elimination game. We love to see people fight for their life and win, the hope of winning, because that was so much of our stories.”“We were born into a world that told us we were different. We were broken. We were not okay. We put on a mask, and then as we started to learn ourselves, those masks started to strip away, and we were in a survival game,” he adds. Part of the appeal is the freedom to be more than one thing. “Being strategic, being cunning. Not just being the bright, positive, happy-go-lucky, but maybe the strategic, playful, sinister sides of ourselves too. I think that really resonates with queer people. It resonated with me.” Linnea Capobianco, Devin Way, and Ori Jean-Charles on 'Survivor 51.'Robert Voets/CBSFor Way, this opportunity allows him to share who he is in a way press tours for his acting work didn’t. Interviews around Queer as Folk understandably focused on his journey to queerness, while conversations about his role as Jordan on Sistas often centered on playing a straight man or being biracial. Survivor doesn’t come with a character to filt