Miles Heizer isn’t necessarily the kind of actor who loves being pushed out of his comfort zone. But when he received the audition to play the protagonist in Netflix’s Boots, which blends the emotional growth of a classic coming-of-age tale with the intense physical transformation of a typical military drama, Heizer knew he needed to do everything he could to land the role.
“I audition for a lot of stuff that maybe I’m not super excited about, but I just always happen to get the ones that I desperately want to be a part of,” Heizer, who broke out playing supporting roles on Parenthood and 13 Reasons Why, tells Teen Vogue on a video call from New York City. “I never dreamt that this military show about a queer kid going into boot camp would be something that was being made and so cared about by big studios, Sony and Netflix, and it was very fun for me to just pull little things from my actual experience being a gay teenager.”
Inspired by Greg Cope White’s memoir The Pink Marine and executive produced by the late Norman Lear, Boots tells the story of Cameron Cope (Heizer), who joins Marine boot camp in the summer of 1990 with his straight best friend, Ray McAffey (Liam Oh). Over eight episodes, Cameron makes a remarkable physical and emotional transformation into a Marine — all while trying to hide his sexuality, since being gay could get him discharged from the military and even imprisoned.
It’s set a few years before the introduction of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy in 1994, which allowed gay, lesbian and bisexual people to serve as long as they didn’t disclose their sexual orientation. In 2011, that policy was repealed and openly LGBTQ+ people were allowed to serve; President Trump has since instituted a ban on trans people in the military.
Below, Heizer opens up about how Cameron’s time in Marine boot camp transforms him, how he reflects on the controversial legacy of 13 Reasons Why, and how working on Boots reshaped the way he thinks about male friendships.
Miles Heizer: I think the lens that the show goes into this hyper-masculine world with was so exciting and unique for me. And getting to meet Greg Cope White, who wrote the book, The Pink Marine, that Cameron’s story especially is inspired by. He was actually the first person that I met from the production. I did all my auditions over Zoom, and then me and Greg actually flew on the same flight to New Orleans [where the show was filmed]. He’s the smartest, wittiest, quickest person and has such a unique sense of humor that’s very similar to mine. And the same with Andy Parker, who is the creator of the show. There’s this synergy, especially among the three of us, [where] we all view things very similarly and find the same things funny.
I’ve mostly done more dramatic things throughout my career. It’s my safe spot because I feel like with a lot of comedy, there’s this sort of broad appeal comedy that I don’t find myself within, and this show is so specific to my sense of humor and sensibilities. So I was so excited to go do something that was fun, and I’m not crying for the entire production. [Laughs.] Half the show is really light and completely not what you would expect from a boot camp TV show, which is what was so exciting to me about it.
MH: Well, my answer is going to shut down everything you just said because basically everyone did have that, except for me and Liam, who plays Ray in the show. [Laughs.] When we first got there, me and Liam started filming all of our flashback scenes because we had hair, and they’re like, “We have to film all of this before we buzz your heads.” So all the other boys were doing proper boot camp, and me and Liam were at the crab shack on the back of a truck drinking root beer. We really did miss out on that. That being said, when we did have time, they gave us an intensive, and it definitely brought us very close together.
Cameron goes into it pretty blindly, so I took that as my cue to go into it a little blindly just because I knew that I would probably have the same experience as Cameron if I was thrust into boot camp. Each episode focuses on one aspect of bootcamp, so we would have time cut out in our schedules where we would go learn that [skill], and we had military advisors who were on set with us at all times. There’s so many little meticulous things that you would absolutely never know — where your belt is placed, how your shirt is supposed to be tucked, all these very specific things.
MH: The way that I connect these dots is, a lot of queer people hide ourselves, especially when we’re younger. We are afraid of people knowing this thing about us because we think that we’ll be treated differently or not accepted, so we don’t really put ourselves in positions to stand out. Often, that also includes this fear of failure, because all eyes will be on you, especially in a masculine field, whether it be sports or something like the military. So I think that Cameron has held himself back from trying and succeeding at things, because he’s afraid of failing and sticking out. I was very aware I was gay from a young age, and I was sort of scared to have male friends because I had this fear that they were going to find this thing out about me and suddenly not want to be around me, or I was going to make them uncomfortable, or they were going to think that I was into them.
Cameron goes into this having done that his whole life, and he is suddenly put in a position where he has to fail and he has to stand out. The whole point of removing your [individual] identity is to create this group mentality where these are your people, and it actually could be life or death, and these are the only people that you will have to protect yourself. When Cameron’s put in this very foreign environment to him, he suddenly starts to realize, “Oh, I actually can achieve these things. I can do more than I thought, and I can receive love and admiration and respect from people that I never thought that I would.” And, of course, it comes at this cost where he’s hiding this part of himself.
The really cool part about it is he looks up to this Sullivan [the stern training officer, played by Max Parker, who is also closeted] as this archetype of what he wishes he could be, and by the end of the show he realizes that they have a lot more in common than he thought they did. In fact, Sullivan might actually be the example of the complete opposite of how he wants to end up. I think the show ends at this really interesting place of Cameron realizing, “That’s actually not what I want to be.”
MH: For a lot of us, our experience really did mirror the show. We are such a direct replica of the setup. Everyone came from different parts of the country, different parts of the world, very different backgrounds, and we had this phantom boot camp experience of stripping ourselves of our individuality. We all had shaved heads, we’re all wearing the same outfits — it takes away any of your outward self-expression, and you’re left with your core, which is just you as a person. We really did meet each other at that time and spent all day every day together. I think if you have enough time, you’re just inevitably going to find something to connect with people on, and it was definitely a unique experience to do something where it’s all boys.
I had never really been in a setting or a scenario like that, so I definitely went in a little nervous just because I’m used to being around gay guys or girls, and I had never been put in that position. I don’t think Cameron had either. So I had a little anxiety just not knowing how we would all mesh together, and of course, I was incredibly pleasantly surprised right off the bat. These are the sweetest boys, and so many fears I had were completely laughable — I can acknowledge that now, of course. But yeah, we actually ended up forming this very similar brotherhood to the show. Every day someone was inevitably going to be having a hard time or a low day, and we all were there to lift each other up and keep each other going.
MH: I think we’re all so trepidatious because the nature of shows continuing [or getting cancelled], it’s this weird world that I think none of us know anything about. I know that we all want it, but everyone’s not really letting themselves go there until they get the go-ahead for that. For me, going back to what I just said, seeing Cameron carve out this new path that he doesn’t actually have an example for would be very interesting. I would love to see some romance for Cameron. That would be fun, especially given the setting.
MH: Weirdly, one of my favorite parts of the show is that it really is not about his sexuality or his romantic life. It’s so different from that. But yeah, sadly, I think people might be expecting that or hoping for that — and they’re going to be disappointed.
MH: It’s so funny — I feel like 13 Reasons Why was yesterday. It feels so recent to me in some weird way. I don’t think any of us making the show expected it to hit that hard. It was very surreal. In retrospect, that was actually a very uncommon experience, and I know there was controversy surrounding it, but I feel like it was this jumping-off point for this huge conversation about mental health, especially among young people, and having trigger warnings added to TV shows. I think it made this actually really powerful impact that I’m very proud to have been a part of.
There was definitely this interesting thing where [for] the people that make the show, it’s their show for the entirety of production and post-production. And there is this weird turn when it comes out, and suddenly, the actors are the face of it, and it almost becomes our responsibility to comment on it, especially when it comes to controversy. Thankfully, Brian Yorkey, the creator of the show, actually was pretty present with all that, and he handled the majority of the really hard-hitting questions.
Certainly the learning point would be just ahead of time to think things through thoroughly so that you might have an idea of what the questions may be. Obviously, if you read something and you’re like, “This feels controversial and is not something that I want to be a part of,” then you just avoid that. But I definitely did not feel that with that show. And truly, looking back, it was one of the first things that really opened up this massive conversation that I think was actually really beneficial.
MH: I feel like this shift in the industry has been fast, but it actually has been over a pretty short period of time. So, to be in this position is so mind-blowing to me, especially when I think back to growing up and how much fear I had about being out and being in the entertainment industry, and what that might look like. What this show did for me — having it be set in this different time period; getting to spend time with Greg and Leon, one of our military advisors who’s gay and was discharged when he was caught being gay — is it definitely gives me a lot of reverence for the queer people that came before us, all of these LGBT people that were fighting for gay rights at a time where it was legitimately dangerous, illegal, extremely difficult. Them taking on that fight for us so that we can live in a world where Boots even exists is so not wasted on me, and I think that it gives me even more respect for those people than I already had.
There’s still a lot of progress to be made. Obviously, politically, it does feel like we’re moving backward in a lot of ways, but my deep feeling and hope is that the vast majority of our country doesn’t necessarily agree with these policies that a specific administration holds. I believe that for military service as well. I think a lot of service members have so much mutual respect for each other and do not care about your sexuality or your gender. I think that that’s probably the overarching feeling. And even with these policies, I’m hoping that someone else can come in and hopefully get things back on track. I think that especially the more that gay and trans people are represented in media and shown as just normal people who want to watch TV at their house and have a nice night, the more people will hopefully start to see there’s no use in telling people what they can and can’t do if we’re not harming anybody.
All episodes of Boots are now streaming on Netflix.
