*This contains mild spoilers for the Netflix show, Boots*
Boots, Netflix’s long-awaited adaptation of the book, The Pink Marine, hit the streamer this week, more than two years after it was filmed.
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Greg Cope White’s memoir is about his time spent as a Marine, before the advent of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’.
Boots, a comedy-drama adaptation of the book, features Miles Heizer in the central role as Cameron Cope. You may know him from 13 Reasons Why, Parenthood, and the movie Love, Simon.
However, one of the other stars of the show is out-actor Max Parker. He plays strict drill Sergeant Robert “Bobby” Sullivan.
Parker exclusively told Queerty how much landing the role has meant: “I never imagined myself as an out gay actor in New York doing press, and I’m about to see our billboard in Times Square.”
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“I had eight rounds of auditions – I was clearly the wild card!” Parker said of landing the part to Attitude.
It’s not giving too much away to reveal that Sgt. Sullivan, like Cope, is hiding a few secrets of his own. It leads him to ultimately mentor Cope as he wants to see him succeed in the military.
We’ve written about Parker before, but he’s still relatively unknown to US audiences. His most notable claim to fame is a recurring role in the British soap opera Emmerdale.
Boots brings him to a much wider and thirstier audience.
Who is Max Parker?
Parker was born on February 7, 1992, in Manchester, England. He studied drama in London and graduated in 2013. He almost immediately began to pick up theatre work in West End shows.
Parker landed his first major TV work in 2018 with a recurring role in the long-running BBC drama Casualty (a medical procedural similar to ER in the US). Then, in August 2019, he joined the cast of Emmerdale, playing a character named Luke Posner.
Parker’s role lasted until 2021.
He went on to appear in Peacock’s fantasy horror series, Vampire Academy, and the Netflix show Blood, Sex & Royalty.
Parker came out in 2021, when he confirmed he was in a relationship with his Emmerdale co-star Kris Mochrie, who played his brother in the show!
The two men announced their engagement in 2022 and married in August of this year. They’ve had to postpone taking a honeymoon as Parker has been busy with promotional duties for Boots.
Making Boots
Parker often shares images of himself and his husband on his Instagram.
To the delight of fans, he’s also not shy of showing off plenty of shirtless images – as you can see below. You also get to see plenty of Parker’s ripped physique in Boots.
The reason Boots has taken so long to hit the screen is primarily the writers’ and actors’ strikes that crippled Hollywood for several months.
“We filmed the show for about three months in 2023. And then before I’d even started — I come in towards the end of episode one — all the writers were on strike,” Parker explained to Out.
He told Attitude the strikes led to a lengthy shutdown of the production.
”We basically had nine months off. I filled the time – got a dog. Some of the military advisers were in the military at the start and retired before the end. Some of the supporting artists actually joined the military because they were inspired by doing background in the show. A huge, two-year journey. It was supposed to be a five-month shoot.”
As a Brit of a certain age, Parker didn’t know about ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ (the Clinton-era guidelines by which gay people were allowed to serve in the military), prior to his involvement with Boots.
“When I got the job, it was scary, because I’m not from a military background myself. I’m not familiar with the culture. And it’s a history lesson, in a sense, as well. So there’s a lot of homework to be done. And then, obviously, I only learned about the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ bill from doing the show.
“That’s why this story’s important to tell. It educates people as well as being a fun and harrowing show.”
“My first job in America”
As for his raised profile from Boots, Parker told Gay Times this week, “This is my first job in America — well, breakthrough, I think, in America. Before this, I guess nobody really knew who I was, so I’m quite excited to see what happens after it comes out.”
Boots is streaming now on Netflix.
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