I’m Just Going to be Me

“Stop trying to fit in all the other boxes people think you are. You’re just you, and you are enough,” says Rossford native Jonathan Bennett, whose first big break was on the ABC soap opera All My Children. Best known for his role as Aaron Samuels in the cult-classic Mean Girls, he believes that the film has done so well over time because it authentically depicted what high school was actually like. He is proud to be part of this pop-culture phenomenon that has given many of us nostalgia, laughs, and iconic one-liners we still quote to this day. “Everyone has such fond memories and such fun feelings when they think of the movie because they identify with one or more of the characters in there,” the 38-year-old actor reflects. “It’s relatable no matter how old you are or where you’re from.”

In the midst of finding success as an actor, Bennett did not come out publicly as a gay man until years after his Mean Girls days although he had known he was gay since he was 5. His partner Jaymes Vaughan has been his biggest supporter. Bennett came out publicly in 2017 by sharing a photo of Vaughan and himself on Instagram. He did have apprehension coming out publicly at first, but felt it was time to let the world know. “Everyone has a different path. There definitely was pressure and fear as a human being in Hollywood,” he says. “At one point, I realized, ‘I don’t care anymore. I’m just going to be me, and if it works, great, and if it doesn’t work, well, that’s too bad.’”

Bennett is not trying to be everyone’s role model. He chooses to live his life on his own terms, and it brings him joy if his journey inspires others. He recently had an encounter with a young girl who was an employee at the hotel he was staying at in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. She was nervous to meet him and was tense every time he came around. He decided to pull her aside and ask her if everything was okay, and she told him, “I’m the biggest fan of Mean Girls. My girlfriend and I dressed up as Regina and Cady for Halloween. When I saw you come out publicly, that gave me the courage to say, ‘Screw it. I want to come out too.’” Bennett also adds that that was when she “told her whole family she was a lesbian.”

As far as his career goes, Bennett has starred alongside Hilary Duff in the horror-thriller, The Haunting of Sharon Tate, based on the brutal murders conducted by Charles Manson and the Manson Family in 1969. It was a thrill for Bennett to portray a real-life person and tell this story from the side of the victims instead of glorifying Manson himself. Believe it or not, shooting the murder scenes was not difficult to get into for Bennett. “When you’re standing at the top of the mountain in that house, and there’s someone who is stabbing you seven or eight times and there’s blood and screaming, your adrenaline takes over, and it just really puts you in that space,” shares Bennett, who hopes to continue acting – and also to open a gym someday. He would like to travel to different college campuses as well so that he can speak about and pass on the knowledge he has learned in his life to young people.

Writer: Dylan Worcel 

Photographer & Videographer: Sandra Selva 

Stylist: Andrew Philip Nguyen 

Men’s Grooming: Amber Amos (for TheOnly.Agency - using Milk Makeup, Dr. Barbara Sturm, Noorface SKIN GLASS & Oribe) 

Editor: Eiko Watanabe 

Special thanks to Hotel Erwin (@hotelerwin - hotelerwin.com) & EPK Media (@myepk & @epkmedia - epkmedia.com)