ALONGSIDE BROTHER MAX, CHARLIE CARVER WAS A TROUBLESOME TWIN IN TV SHOWS DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES AND TEEN WOLF. HE’S SINCE GONE ON TO ACHIEVE SOLO SUCCESS, APPEARING WITH ZACHARY QUINTO AND JAMES FRANCO IN I AM MICHAEL, AND PLAYING A ROLE IN THE LGBT+ HISTORY EPIC WHEN WE RISE. NOW, FOR THE FIRST TIME, HE TALKS EXCLUSIVELY TO ATTITUDE ABOUT HOW LAST YEAR’S HEARTFELT “COMING OUT” LETTER WAS INSPIRED BY EVENTS CLOSE TO HOME…

WORDS: CLIFF JOANNOU // PHOTOGRAPHS: LEIGH KEILY

FASHION: JOSEPH KOCHARIAN

LOCATION: ANDAZ WEST HOLLYWOOD, HYATT.COM

CHARLIE CARVER

Charlie wears tee by Balmain at MR PORTER, joggers by adidas, necklace by Pieter

It’s just a few minutes into our interview when Charlie Carver, 28, gently drops into the conversation the revelation that his father — the respected physician, historian and author Robert Martensen — was gay. This is the first time he’s spoken publically about it. I ask if he’s happy to continue and he nods. After all, Charlie’s own “coming out” story is inextricably linked to his father’s.

Charlie’s parents split shortly after he and twin brother Max were born in San Francisco in 1988. Following the separation, his mother, Anne, moved her sons to the tiny town of Calistoga in the Napa Valley. “She had her ‘under the Tuscan sun’ moment where she bought a little farmhouse, sort of started fresh,” Charlie explains. “It happened to be on land with really incredible grapes. So after she met my stepdad, they started grape growing, a vineyard wine business.”

As his mother literally and figuratively began to cultivate new roots, his father would find himself moving around in the coming decades, taking on such roles as a professor at Harvard and director of the Office of History at the National Institutes of Health, in Maryland. “I definitely grew up in a very accepting household. But part of why my parents split up was my dad came out of the closet.”

It wasn’t until Charlie was 12 years old that he learned about this aspect of his parents’ divorce. “That was actually very difficult for me. In the way that sons and fathers can have beef regardless of [sexual] orientation, it was just something where I wanted to be able to define myself, set my own rules, and I felt like I had all of a sudden someone who I was gonna be forced to become, and I didn’t wanna be like him.”

”MY DAD WAS AN AWESOME MAN. HE GOT TO SEE ME FOR WHO I WAS AND TO GIVE ME HIS BLESSING IN A FORMAL WAY. HE’S ALWAYS SORT OF WITH ME”

Although Charlie was yet to come out to anyone, the idea of suddenly having his father’s personal and family history interfering with the formation of his own identity was hard to take. Like many young men, Charlie wanted to forge his own path. “It was difficult for a couple of years,” he says of his relationship with his father. “Then it was really close, really special.”

While Charlie had a feeling that he was different, it was his father’s coming out that suddenly gave those strange feelings a definable context and made Charlie realise that he, too, was gay. “Before you know what sexuality is, you know. You feel different at a young age, and so that was sort of a moment where it was all articulated and forming. Like, ‘Oh God, that’s what this is’.”

Charlie’s initial reaction to the news of his father’s sexuality was to be angry with him for not coming out sooner. “I resented him because I was just so sorry for my mother that she had to go through that. I wished I’d known as a boy. Having grown up in San Francisco, I fundamentally didn’t understand why he’d kept it secret because it just spoke to a level of shame. It must have been very difficult for him but [it] kind of got transferred on to us.