Lee Pace, who came out publicly last year as “a member of the queer community,” is now going into more detail about growing up queer.

The 40-year-old actor recently spoke with Marc Malkin for The Big Ticket, Variety and iHeart’s movie podcast, about his role in last year's Tony-winning Broadway revival of Tony Kushner's Angels in America.

Pace starred opposite Andrew Garfield and Nathan Lane as deeply closeted Mormon law clerk Joe Pitt, who struggled to reconcile his attraction to men with his faith and Republican ideology. Could Pace relate?

"I’ve always felt very safe, you know? I was in the drama department in high school. I went to Julliard. I’ve been playing queer characters. My first movie I played a trans character," Pace explained. "I’ve never felt the danger of that, you know? So, to walk in the shoes of someone who that danger is so real that he can’t utter it, it taught me something about myself and about my community... We’re not all so lucky to get the free pass in life."

"As a community, we can be very unkind to each other, I feel like," Pace continued. "It’s very judgmental to kind of look at someone and [think] you oughta do it like this... there’s a more gentle way to be and I guess before I played Joe, I could look at that character on the page and think, ‘What a coward.’ After playing him, I don’t see a ‘coward.’ He had a journey. I see someone who did something that was very hard to do."

“I’ve dated men [and] I’ve dated women. I don’t know why anyone would care,” Pace told W last year when asked about his sexuality. “I’m an actor and I play roles. To be honest, I don’t know what to say—I find your question intrusive.” It was the first time he had addressed the topic since Hobbit co-star Ian McKellen referred to him as openly gay in a 2012 interview.

People were quick to criticize Pace's cagey reaction, pointing to the fact that prior to his role in Angels, Pace had played high-profile LGBTQ roles in Showtime’s A Soldier’s Girl, AMC’s Halt and Catch Fire, and the Broadway revival of The Normal Heart.

“In a recent phone interview, I was asked questions that I wasn’t expecting and found myself momentarily at a loss for the right words," Pace later tweeted. "My privacy is important to me, so I protect it. When interviewed by the media, I keep the focus on my work."

“As a member of the queer community,” he added, “I understand the importance of living openly, being counted, and happily owning who I am. That’s how I’ve always lived my life... just as it’s been important to me to portray queer characters with dignity for my entire career.”

Pace's latest film, Driven, is in theaters and on VOD August 16.