Andrew Scott is considered a frontrunner to win the best actor Oscar for his role as Ian Charleson in Elsinore, which would make him the first out gay man to win the award in the Academy's nearly 100-year history. The film, a passion project for Scott, chronicles the life of Scottish actor Charleson, who secretly had AIDS while performing in Hamlet at the National Theatre in 1989 before dying six weeks later. Scott's career demonstrates that openly gay actors can successfully play diverse roles, challenging longstanding industry assumptions about casting.
Mary Jane Rathbun, known as Brownie Mary, was an American medical cannabis activist who baked and distributed cannabis brownies to AIDS patients at San Francisco General Hospital. Working alongside Dennis Peron, she successfully lobbied for cannabis legalization for medical use, helping pass San Francisco Proposition P (1991) and California Proposition 215 (1996), and contributed to establishing the first medical cannabis dispensary in the US. Her three arrests generated widespread media attention and public sympathy, ultimately leading San Francisco to permit her distribution efforts and inspiring early clinical research on cannabinoids.