Portia De RossiPortia De Rossi has revealed she nearly turned down her new role in Nip/Tuck because she was worried about being typecast as a lesbian.

The former Arrested Development star was worried that her real-life relationship with Ellen DeGeneres may cause producers to overlook her for heterosexual roles. She said recently: “My relationship with Ellen is so public, and I thought, ‘Am I going to play a romantic lead again?’”

“I had that one moment of, ‘Does this mean I’ll be typecast as a lesbian?’ And Ellen turned to me and said, ‘So what?’ And I thought, ‘Oh yeah, right, so what?’”

“I was offered [heterosexual] romantic lead roles, and I turned them down because the lesbian seemed more interesting to me.”