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And Scene - Once upon a time, playing an LGBT character on screen was career suicide. Today, portraying an LGBT character can lead to an Oscar win. Featuring A-listers like Queen Latifah, Will Smith and Taye Diggs, here is a look back at some of the most famous LGBT roles on the big and small screen.(Photos from left: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images, Paul Archuleta/FilmMagic, Tony Barson/FilmMagic) 

Photo By Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

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Will Smith - In 1993, Will Smith played the role of Paul in Six Degrees of Separation, based on the true-life story of David Hampton, an openly gay con man who managed to convince many people he was the son of Sidney Poitier.(Photo: Jason Merritt/Getty Images)

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Forest Whitaker - Academy Award-winner Forest Whitaker, always a willing participant to push the envelope, played a flamboyant gay fashion designer in Robert Altman's Prêt-à-Porter (1994). He also played a gay character in The Crying Game (1993).(Photo: Jeffrey Ufberg/WireImage)

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Wesley Snipes - Wesley Snipes lampooned his macho image in To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (1995), in which he, along with Patrick Swayze and John Leguizamo, played a drag queen. Snipes's Noxeema Jackson comes complete with a blond wig and red high-heeled shoes. Noxeema is the co-winner of a drag queen beauty pageant and is not afraid of wiggling her hips.(Photo: Jim Spellman/WireImage)

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Queen Latifah - Queen Latifah was unforgettable in her role as Cleo Sims, a tough, lesbian bank robber in the 1996 box-office hit Set It Off. The character earned her an NAACP Image Award nomination.(Photo: Jason Merritt/Getty Images)

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Isaiah Washington - In 1996, former Grey's Anatomy star Isaiah Washington played half of a gay couple on their way to the 1995 Million Man March in Washington, D.C., in Spike Lee's Get on the Bus. Played by Harry Lennix and Washington, the gay lovers are on the verge of separation.(Photo: Mathew Imaging/FilmMagic)

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Giancarlo Esposito - Giancarlo Esposito played Joseph, Gloria Matthew's (Loretta Devine) ex-husband and father of her child (Donald Faison) in Waiting to Exhale. He drops a bomb on Gloria in the film when he comes out of the closet as a gay man.(Photo: Jason Merritt/Getty Images)

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Rockmond Dunbar - Rockmond Dunbar, best known for his leading role as Kenny Chadway on the critically-acclaimed television series Soul Food, played a gay man in Punks (2000) and Dirty Laundry (2006), in which his character was a magazine editor.(Photos: Maury Phillips/WireImage)

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Ving Rhames - Ving Rhames portrayed a drag queen in the television movie Holiday Heart (2000) and a gay man in I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry (2007).(Photo: Lee Celano/WireImage)

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Anthony Mackie - In 2004, Anthony Mackie was an up-and-coming actor and already experienced big success for playing Eminem's BFF in 8 Mile. However, he showed off his Julliard-trained acting chops as the lead in Rodney Evans's Brother to Brother. Mackie tackled the role of Perry — an art student who was on the search for love while simultaneously learning the roots of the Harlem Renaissance via an older gay man — with grace. The risk paid off, earning Mackie an Independent Spirit Award for Best Debut Performance.(Photo: Lars Niki/Getty Images for Ronald McDonald House New York)

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Taye Diggs - In early 2006, Taye Diggs guest-starred for several episodes as Will Truman's love interest, James, on the final season of Will & Grace.(Photo: Michael Zorn/FilmMagic)

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Gabrielle Union - Gabrielle Union added playing a lesbian to her filmography in 2006 with a standout role as Annette Benning’s lover in the film adaptation of Augusten Burrough's best-selling memoir Running With Scissors.(Photo: Jon Kopaloff/FilmMagic)

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Taraji P. Henson - In 2006's Smokin' Aces, Taraji P. Henson was Sharice Waters, a hard-core lesbian assassin who had a crush on her parter-in-crime Georgia Sykes (Alicia Keys).(Photo: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images)

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Jada Pinkett-Smith - In 2008, Jada Pinkett Smith played a lesbian in The Women, which also starred Annette Benning and Eva Mendes. Smith said about the role, "I enjoyed playing a lesbian and I wish I could have been more of a lesbian in the movie, but I wasn't allowed to do that."(Photo: Michael Loccisano/Getty Images)

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Kerry Washington - In 2009, Kerry Washington wowed audiences playing a transgender woman in Life Is Hot in Cracktown.  She told BET.com about the role, "One of the things I realized in approaching this role was that I actually figured out early on that I was going to learn a lot about being a woman — period. Because, really, what a trans woman is, is somebody who is a woman but whose biology has betrayed them in someway."(Photo: Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic)

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Gun Hill Road and Pariah - The two indie films didn't have major star power, but were critical darlings in 2011. Rashaad Ernesto Green's Gun Hill Road starred Harmony Santana as a transgender teen living in the Bronx. Dee Rees's Pariah featured Adepero Oduye as a lesbian teenager from Brooklyn struggling with identity and family. Both films were honored with various indie awards and proved that LGBT stories are neccessary.  (Photo: John Lamparski/WireImage)

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Lenny Kravitz - The world-famous rocker looked for a provocative character to play for his return to the big screen and he found it in Hunger Games' Cinna, who is bisexual. To portray the flamboyant stylist, Kravitz says he channeled "a friend who is a dancer who is bisexual, and he was a lot of inspiration for my speech pattern and my rhythm, and kind of the way I sauntered in and out a little bit." (Photo: Chelsea Lauren/WireImage)

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Jeffrey Wright - Wright was nominated for a Golden Globe and won an Emmy for his portrayal of a drag queen in Mike Nichols's television adaptation of Pulitzer Prize-winning play Angels in America, about a group of people whose relationships and lives are affected by AIDS. The series went on to break the record previously held by Roots for winning the most Emmys.(Photos: Michael Loccisano/Getty Images)

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Michael K. Williams - As gun-toting stick-up man Omar Little on The Wire, Williams gave one of the most subtle, honest and surprising portrayals of a gay man on television. The character's personal life, and the inner life Williams brought to it, was so nuanced and unique that President Obama called him his favorite character on television.(Photos: John Ricard/BET)

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Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson - Johnson played a gay bodyguard with dreams of stardom in this sequel to the hit heist comedy Get Shorty. Though this character's job was not a stretch for The Rock, his personal life certainly was.  (Photos: Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images)

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Tony Bravado - On Let's Stay Together, Bravado played Darkanian Le'Johnson, a closeted professional football player who overcompensates for his secret relationship with a man by laying it on thick with the ladies.(Photos: Pervis PR)

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Gavin Houston - This actor's acting career started in 1992 in an episode of The Cosby Show, but his big break came in 2013 when he starred as Jeffrey Harrington, the closeted gay son of a politician, in Tyler Perry's The Haves and the Have Nots.(Photo: Chris McKay/WireImage)

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Nelsan Ellis - Ellis became an instant favorite in the popular series True Blood, playing chef Lafayette Reynolds at Merlotte's. His character was known for his flamboyant outfits and sassy attitude.(Photos from left: Astrid Stawiarz/Getty Images for Tribeca Film Festival)

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Rashida Jones - Rashida Jones played the girlfriend to the main character (Zooey Deschanel) in the 2011 film Our Idiot Brother, and she was honored for the experience. "I was very appreciative of the experience," she told the Huffington Post. "If there weren't still such a stigma, half of the acting and music community would come out."(Photos from left: Ethan Miller/Getty Images)