Kevin Zegers: Two gay roles, two gay teases, two dicks, and a lot of beefcake

 


Born in 1984, Kevin Zegers was a child star well known for the Air Bud series, about a basketball-playing dog; and Treasure Island, where he played Jim Hawkins to Jack Palance's scary Long John Silver.  

Nico the Unicorn (1998) is not a heroic fantasy, as the title suggests, but about a oddball outsider boy, crippled when his leg was shattered by a drunk driver, whose horse gives birth to a unicorn.

He took his shirt off in Komodo, 1999, beginning a long beefcake career.

Teen magazines gushed, and shirtless photos began to bounce around the internet. 


He impressed one fan so much that they devoted a website to him, back in the 2000s when such things were uncommon.  There were hundreds of pictures, and article on topics like "Kevin's Biceps."

Wait, it's still there.  This photo illustrates an article telling us that at age 14, Kevin could bench press 200 pounds.  If true, that is quite impressive: the average for a 14 year old is 65 pounds.





During the 2000s, Kevin moved easily between lighthearted child fare, like the contining Air Bud series,  and teens having troubled lives or meeting monsters. In Four Days, 1999. a bank heist goes wrong; in Sex, Lies, & Obsession, 2001, his dad has a sex addiction. Wrong Turn, 2003, is a teenkill. Dawn of the Dead, 2004, is about zombies; The Hollow 2004, is about the Headless Horseman.

But he managed to take his shirt and pants off in almost every thing, such as when sex with his girlfriend made him sick on an episode of House MD.


Kevin's big social-commentary movie was Transamerica, 2005.  He played Toby, a teenage drug dealer and hustler.  After his mother commits suicide, he takes a road trip with a "Christian missionary" who turns out to be a trans woman Bree. 

 


He tries to seduce her, with a butt shot, whereupon she reveals that she is his biological father. They have some rough times, but the movie ends happily with Toby working in gay porn and reconciling with Bree.

Today most trans people dislike it: "absolutely horrible from beginning to end"; Bree "reinforces just about every single worst stereotype about trans people."  But in 2005, it was lauded for its "sensitive" portrayal of gay and trans people.

More after the break



Transamerica
did not make Kevin a superstar, but it did get him a gender-swap movie, It's a Boy/Girl Thing, 2006; a romcom, The Jane Austin Book Club, 2007;  and Normal, which I didn't see and can't figure out from the plot synopsis.  An auto accident and sex with your stepmother?  At least we get another Kevin butt shot.




His tv career began with a 10-episode story arc on Gossip Girl, as ultra-rich, ultra-entitled Damien; and 12 episodes of Titanic: Blood and Steel, about the building of the doomed ship, and a rich girl-poor boy romance.  Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

Kevin played a gay character again, Alec Lightwood, in The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones, about shadowhunters fighting demons, vampires, and werewolves in contemporary New York. He said that "I actually don't think it's that big of a fucking issue anymore.  Certainly not with me, and not with the generation that read the books." 


Notorious sounds like it's about drag queens, but it's a will-they-or-won't they "you're arrogant!" romance.

I also figured that Another Kind of Wedding would be about a gay wedding, with Kevin kissing this guy in the elevator.  But according to the trailer, it's a man and a woman getting married, and Kevin plays his brother, the bride's ex-boyfriend.  The guys haven't been kissing, they've been fighting.  How the heck is that "another kind of wedding"? 


I haven't seen any of Kevin's more recent work, Rebel, Corrective Measures, and The Rookie: Feds, but ten to one he takes off his shirt. 




Now if he were a bit more forthcoming about his dick.

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