Actor Luke Macfarlane

Update October 2022: 42-year-old Canadian actor Luke Macfarlane (b. 1980), is starring in the movie "Bros", a gay rom-com that is playing to many. many empty seats in theaters nationwide. Your blogger has seen it, and the problem is not the cast. The problem is the script. As a surprise to no one, straight audiences do not want to see a movie in which Mr. MacFarlane's purported love interest is a bitchy, pushy uber-queer.

A major disappointment.

All that off toward one side, Mr. MacFarlane is perhaps best known for his portrayal of a gay man on ABC’s TV series Brothers & Sisters (2006-2011), is out in real life. The actor, in the role of Scotty Wandell on the drama, went public with his sexual orientation in 2008 in a newspaper interview in which he revealed that his family and friends were all aware of his sexual orientation.

He said, “There is this desire in L.A. to wonder about who you are, and what’s been blaring for me for the last three years is how I can be most authentic to myself, so this is the first time I am speaking about (my sexual orientation) in this way.”

In a May 2008 episode of Brothers & Sisters (photo and video clip below), McFarlane’s character wed his gay lover, Kevin Walker (played by straight Welsh actor Matthew Rhys), and he hoped the plot would help viewers overcome anti-gay prejudices.

Macfarlane adds, “We’re saying that this can be part of the cultural fabric now, because it was two series regulars, two people whom you invited into your home and saw every week.” The popular and highly praised Brothers & Sisters television series (2006-2011) won four GLAAD Media Awards for Outstanding Drama Series. Veteran actress Sally Field, who headed the ensemble cast, won a Primetime Emmy Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award for her portrayal as the matriarch of the Walker family.

Macfarlane, also a classical cellist and trumpeter, was the lead singer and songwriter for the band Fellow Nameless, which produced an underground album.


As well, Luke has enjoyed both stage and film careers since 2003. Although he appeared in the acclaimed 2011 Broadway premiere of Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart, he has been most active in television productions. Since 2014 he has made prominent appearances in The Night Shift (NBC), Killjoys (SyFy) and Mercy Street (PBS), as well as thirteen Hallmark Channel movies (not a typo). In the near future is a major role in "Platonic" an Apple TV+ comedy series (10 half-hour episodes ordered so far).

In 2018 Luke was made a naturalized U.S. citizen.

Luke in "Killjoys":

Luke plays the cello: