Quick Wiki
- Full Name Conner Williams Jessup
- Nickname Connor Jessup
- Occupation Actor
- Nationality Canadian
- Birthplace Toronto, Canada
- Birth Date Jun 23, 1994
- Age 30 Years, 5 Months
- Partner Miles Heizer
- Did You Know? Jessup resides in Toronto.
Connor Jessup | Biography
Plays Tyler Locke On Series 'Locke & Key'He believed that he did not need to share intimate details with strangers. However, he finally decided to speak publicly about his sexuality because he had 'conspicuously not said it before.' Further explaining the reason for coming out, he wrote, 'Most painfully, I’ve talked about the gay characters I’ve played from a neutral, almost anthropological distance, as if they were separate from me. These evasions are bizarre and embarrassing to me now, but at the time they were natural.'
Connor Jessup is a Canadian actor best known for his role as Taylor Blaine in the ABC crime drama series American Crime.
Who is Connor Jessup?
Connor Jessup is an actor who began his acting career at age 11. He debuted his on-screen career, appearing in one episode of The Jon Dore Television Show in 2007. After that, he appeared in a recurring role as Simon Atherton in the television series The Saddle Club from 2008 to 2009.
Jessup initially rose to fame for portraying the role of Ben Mason in the TNT sci-fi series Falling Skies from 2011 to 2015. After that, in 2015, he appeared as 18-year-old Oscar Madley in the drama-fantasy movie Closet Monster. His role of Madley portrayed the story of a troubled but artistically talented gay teenager. Madley goes through vivid imaginations to cope with his childhood family trauma. Followed by that, in 2016, he prominently portrayed the role of Taylor Blaine in the 'Emmy Award’-winning ABC drama series American Crime Season 2. He returned for the third season of the series as Coy Henson in 2017.
Furthermore, in 2020, he started starring as Tyler Locke in the Netflix fantasy horror drama series Locke & Key. The series consists of two seasons, whereas its third season filming was wrapped in 2021, to be released in 2022. In the 2021 interview with the advocate, Jessup explained the integral narrative of his character Tyler from season 1 to season 2. He mentioned that Tyler's persona and romantic alignment get directed differently. He said, "In season 1, Tyler was not doing great because he carried around a lot of guilt regarding his father's death. But he was able to work through that. In season 2, he's able to have a bit more fun with his new girlfriend."
Age and Early Bio
Connor Williams Jessup was born on 23 June 1994 in Toronto, Canada, to Branda and Bill Jessup. He has one sibling, a brother named Liam who is a rapper and goes by his stage name, Eljay.
Gay
Jessup came out publicly as gay on his 25th birthday on 23 June 2019 through a lengthy Instagram post. He revealed in the caption that he learned about him being gay at age 13 but kept it secret for many years, not because of the fear of acceptance but his own shame.
He believed that he did not need to share intimate details with strangers. However, he finally decided to speak publicly about his sexuality because he had 'conspicuously not said it before.' Further explaining the reason for coming out, he wrote, 'Most painfully, I've talked about the gay characters I've played from a neutral, almost anthropological distance, as if they were separate from me. These evasions are bizarre and embarrassing to me now, but at the time they were natural.'
He shared that he doesn't want to remain 'complicit, even peripherally, in the idea that being gay is a problem to be solved or hushed.' He added that he was a proud gay, stating, 'I'm grateful to be gay. Queerness is a solution.' He also shared encouraging words for other people of the LGBT community struggling with their identity.
Furthermore, while promoting his role on the series Locke & Key in 2021, Jessup also talked about his first queer roles in the movie Closet Monster and the series American Crime. He said that as he was not openly gay while playing those characters, he categorized his experiences and moved on with his life. However, he added that he did not need to closet his character thoughts as he fully accepted his sexuality.
Partner
Connor Jessup and Miles Heizer, his partner, dated for about 18 months before making their relationship public in February 2020. In the 2020 interview with the attitude magazine, Jessup credited their love and Heizer's support in positively coming out of the closet. He said, "...that the other factor that led to me deciding to come out, and I guess maybe one of the sparks at the beginning of the fuse, was that I fell in love. When you're happy, you want to be happy publicly, and it made me think about the whole construction of my life in a way that I had been avoiding. I probably wouldn't have [come out] if that hadn't happened."
Miles Heizer is also an actor prominently known for his portrayal of Alex Standall on the infamous Netflix series 13 Reasons Why which was renewed for its fourth and final season in 2019. In addition to that, he also appeared as Drew Hold on the NBC show Parenthood.
Heizer, who was also born in 1994, came out as gay when he was only 19 years old in 2013. In an interview with L'officiel, he said that attending pride parades made him feel free and closer to his sexuality. He also added that his second pride parade was with Jessup in Toronto, Canada, where they marched with LGBTQIA + members from the film industry.
