The actor who had a scene with Jennifer Lopez in The Boy Next Door claims he’s been sexualised throughout his career.
In a recent interview, Ryan Guzman, 37, said that people often recognise him from a 10-year-old erotic thriller he starred in alongside JLo.
The Boy Next Door follows 19-year-old Noah (Guzman), who, as the title suggests, moves in next door to newly separated high-school teacher Claire Peterson (Lopez).
Noah starts by striking up a friendship with Claire’s son, but soon makes it clear that he’s very interested in Claire.
When the pair eventually have sex, Noah’s behaviour takes a disturbing turn after she admits her regret.
Despite it being Guzman’s breakout role in Hollywood, the actor said his experience on set was just one of the many occasions he was ‘sexualised’.
“It’s a weird thing to talk about as a man, because, you know, a lot of people get eye rolls and like, ‘you know you’re dude, you must like it’,” he recently said on the Zach Sang Show.
“Not just The Boy Next Door, on plenty of sets, you know. They’ll say the passing remarks or something, and even to this day, you know.
“But you kind of just roll with it. And if you want to give it weight, it’ll take you down.
“I just kind of take it like, ‘All right, that’s your perspective. And thank you for finding me attractive, great’. So I try to take the good from it.”
Addressing the ‘stigma’ of a man speaking about being ‘sexualised’, he added: “I don’t become blind and numb, I used to when I was younger.
“Now I become aware and I kind of, I guess, in the back of my head, just be like, ‘Okay, now you’ve kind of shown me who you are, what you are, and your intention, and I don’t have to play into it. And I can redirect the energy somewhere else, so I don’t have to live in that kind of energy.
“But thank you for sharing the information with me, allowing me to see what’s going on in your fantasies.”
The actor thinks that as a man, ‘no one cares.
“No, it’s just like, ‘okay, dude, you complain that you’re good looking. Are you kidding me? What’s going on here, next’,” he said.
“It’s a weird kind of thing to talk about.”
