Exclusive: Jane Lynch on Gender-Defying Roles, Hollywood’s LGBTQ Evolution – NBCNews.com

Jane Lynch poses with her Emmy for "Hollywood Game Night" at the 2015 Creative Arts Emmy Awards in LA on Sept. 12, 2015. Danny Moloshok / Reuters file

I think we've gone backwards, a little. But never in Hollywood. Entertainment is very inclusive. Whoever does the best job gets hired. And there's a lot of gays and lesbians in every level, every job from crew to writing and acting.

Ellen [DeGeneres] took one for the team when they canceled her show (ABC pulled "Ellen" in 1998 shortly after the comedian came out publicly as a lesbian), and look where she is today. It wouldn't happen today.

I always wondered if I would have to be closeted. I would lay in bed as a young person thinking, "What if I become famous? Do I hide this thing?" But I never had to. I never had to make that decision because of the people who came before me like Ellen and Melissa [Etheridge] and K.D. [Lang]. I was never in the closet. It wasn't an act of courage I just didn't have to be.

As television and movies open up more LGBTQ roles, though, does that expand your opportunities or is it limiting? Are you concerned about being typecast?

I never look at my work in those terms ever. I don't step outside and objectively evaluate it. What's great about Hollywood in its representation of gay characters and trans characters is that it finds its way into middle America. It creates a wave of acceptance.

I would have loved it as a kid. A "Glee" would have made me very happy.

Do you remember the first gay character or person you saw on TV?

I didn't know Paul Lynde was gay, but I loved him. I didn't have "gay" to attach to him, but I remember feeling a kinship with him on some deep level that I didn't even know what it was.

A lot of people want to know whether Sue Sylvester was secretly a a lesbian. I mean, those track suits...

Do they?! No, she's not. She's not one way or the other. She had boyfriends. Another neutral kind of person who, wherever the power was, whatever she had to do she went that way. But she never expressed an affection for a woman, she never had a relationship with a woman. She had plenty of boyfriends. I don't think she was in the closet. I don't think that was an issue.

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Exclusive: Jane Lynch on Gender-Defying Roles, Hollywood's LGBTQ Evolution - NBCNews.com