Where Are the Stars of the Original ‘Queer as Folk’ Now?
American TV viewers have already seen one Queer as Folk: the Showtime drama that aired five seasons between 2000 and 2005. But Peacock’s new take on Queer as Folk, which starts streaming on Thursday, June 9, is a re-imagining not of that show, but of the original Channel 4 series that predated the Showtime version by more than a year.
Airing just 10 episodes over the span of a year, Channel 4’s Queer as Folk starred Aidan Gillen, Charlie Hunnam, and others as gay men living large in Manchester, England in the late 1990s.
Gillen and Hunnam both moved on to larger shows in the United States, as you’ll see below, while their costars stuck around on U.K. television — and, more often than not, worked on British soaps. Here are updates on all the original Queer as Folk stars who appeared in all 10 episodes.
Queer as Folk, Season Premiere, Thursday, June 9, Peacock
Aidan Gillen (Stuart Allen Jones)
Gillen might be the most visible of the Queer as Folk alums, given his role as the duplicitous Petyr “Littlefinger” Baelish in the HBO smash hit Game of Thrones. In the years since, Gillan has starred in the History drama Project Blue Book and the Paramount+ crime thriller Mayor of Kingstown.
Craig Kelly (Vince Tyler)
Kelly returned to British television in a big away in 2009, starting a long-standing role as businessman Luke Strong on the ITV soap Coronation Street. More recently, he appeared in episodes of the BBC drama The Mallorca Files and the BBC anthology Moving On and starred in the 2019 thriller Trick or Treat, and he’s currently shooting the crime film Enter the Furnace.
Charlie Hunnam (Nathan Maloney)
Hunnam is best known for leading the cast of the FX motorcycle gang drama Sons of Anarchy, playing Jax Teller on the show. He has since segued into big-screen fame with roles in the films The Lost City of Z, Triple Frontier, The Gentlemen, and the upcoming Rebel Moon.
Denise Black (Hazel Tyler)
Black also appeared on Coronation Street, returning to the show in 2007 and again in 2017 to play hairdresser Denise Osbourne, a character she started playing back in 1992. And from 2013 to 2017, the actress joined the ensemble of another ITV soap, playing down-on-her-luck grandmother Joanie Wright on Emmerdale. Since then, she has guest-starred in episodes of Unforgotten, The Irregulars, and Father Brown.
Andy Devine (Bernard Thomas)
Coincidentally or not, Devine — who died earlier this year at age 79 — also had roles on Coronation Street and Emmerdale. On the former, he played radio deejay Jason Ross in a few episodes in 2000. And on the latter, he played the vagabond Shadrach Dingle between 2000 and 2010.
Esther Hall (Romey Sullivan)
Hall’s post-Queer roles include the priestess Lyde on the HBO period drama Rome and Elaine Hart, Ben Miles’ onscreen wife, on the Peacock drama The Capture. Her guest-starring roles in recent years include parts on the TV shows Killing Eve, Temple, and — yep! — Coronation Street.
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