When Star Trek Beyond enters orbit on July 22, John Cho's Hikaru Sulu will be going where no main character from that franchise been able to venture: out of the closet. He'll be depicted as a loving dad in a same-sex relationship.
“I liked the approach, which was not to make a big thing out of it, which is where I hope we are going as a species, to not politicize one’s personal orientations,” he told Australia's Herald Sun.
Cho's publicist confirmed the quote's accuracy to USA TODAY. Paramount went the "we can neither confirm, nor deny" route, citing director Justin Lin's desire that the film's revelations be a surprise to the audience. But a spokesperson didn't deny the story detail, either.
Cho said the decision from Lin and co-star/writer Simon Pegg, who wanted to acknowledge the pioneering George Takei, who originated the Sulu role in the 1960s and has long been a vocal advocate for LGBT equality.
Takei himself acknowledged how things have changed since his early Hollywood days in a 2015 interview with News Corp: "If I wanted to work as an actor I had to keep it a secret. Back then I couldn’t marry a white person — that was against the law here, miscegenation. But now I am married to a white dude, so we have changed.”
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