Jamie Clayton to Play Pinhead in the New Hellraiser Reboot

Jamie Clayton—best known for her role as Tess from The L Word: Generation Q and Nomi from Sense8—will star as Pinhead in the new upcoming Hellraiser movie, to be released in 2022.

She is the first woman, and the first transgender woman, to take on the role.

Hellraiser has long been hailed as a queer classic, with its author, Clive Barker, being gay himself. As Attitude Magazine wrote back in 2019,”(Barker) came out when he was 18 and lives in Beverly Hills with his partner. He was honoured by GLAAD in 2004, so all of his creative output, it could be argued, should be considered ‘gay culture.’ Barker’s sexuality underpins all his work.”

Horror as a genre itself has been a vehicle for the queer community for years, going as far back as the 1700s. As BJ Colangelo writes in What To Watch, “Humans have always been storytellers, and cultures around the world have been telling horror stories for entertainment purposes or as cautionary tales as long as humans have been able to communicate. Once we started writing things down, publishing novels, and creating storytelling structures, we began to establish the building blocks of every form of entertainment as we know it. For horror movies, Gothic novels set the stage, and the writers behind these stories were overwhelmingly queer.”

As for Jamie Clayton herself, she seems to be excited about the role, taking to Twitter to celebrate the news:

“Demons to some. Angels to others,” she wrote, quoting the original Hellraiser while holding the iconic puzzle box to celebrate the announcement.

As LGBTQ artists carry on the legacy of using horror as a genre to showcase queer trauma, belonging, and more, we’re excited to watch Jamie Clayton join the ranks of this centuries old legacy, and can’t wait to see her portrayal of Pinhead come 2022.

Photo courtesy of Jamie Clayton on social media