Tyne Daly on her first lesbian film role in “A Bread Factory” and on her closeted actor father

The great Tyne Daly, a Tony winner and six-time Emmy winner, is playing a lesbian character for the first time in her long career in the new film A Bread Factory.

Daly portrays one half of a lesbian couple fighting to maintain their community performance space in the face of celebrity and corporate forces that have invaded their small town.

“I don’t think you make any specific adjustment to play a lesbian or a gay person … I don’t know what the big deal is,” Daly tells The Advocate. To the idea that gay characters should always, or usually, be played by gay actors, she says, “Pooh.”

“If I’m not allowed to use my imagination, then I’m not in my craft.”

Her craft runs in the family.

Daly’s brother is Tim Daly who is best known for his starring roles in such hit shows as Wings, Private Practice and Madam Secretary and their father was the late actor James Daly (pictured below with co-star Chad Everett) who starred in the long-running show Medical Center.

On Father’s Day in 2016, Tyne and Tim discussed publicly for the first time that their dad was a closeted gay man.

“He was in hiding his whole life, which was sad, and we were the closeted family,” she says.