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The perfect dad.
Liev Schreiber has opened up about his daughter with Naomi Watts, Kai, 16, for the first time since she proudly came out transgender.
“Kai was always who Kai is,” the “Spotlight” actor told Variety on Thursday. “But I suppose the most profound moment was her asking us to change her pronouns.”
“To be honest with you,” he added, “it didn’t feel like that big of a deal to me only because Kai had been so feminine for so long.”
Kai, who made her runway debut as a model for Valentino during Paris Fashion Week in March, is set to join her famous father and his wife, Taylor Neisen, in New York City on Friday night for the Ali Forney Center’s A Place at the Table Gala.
The center provides housing and other means of support for more than 2,200 homeless members of the LGBTQ+ youth – and while Shreiber’s daughter does not face the same struggles as those young individuals, that doesn’t mean they still can’t help the community that she is a part of.
“This isn’t just about representing the trans community,” the actor explained. “This is actually a community of people who don’t have great resources, who don’t have access to help, who aren’t being protected and looked after by their families.
“These are people who are being rejected. These are people who are experiencing the harshest version of humanity that we can offer, and some of them are not surviving it,” he continued. “We got to bear that in mind when we go out there and glam ourselves up and get ready to be seen, you know?
“That what we’re doing is actually raising money for a community that desperately needs it,” Schreiber added.
As for how his daughter is striving since coming out, the “Scream” actor said Kai is a “fighter” who is not afraid to embrace her new role as a trans fashion icon.
“Kai is such a fighter,” he said. “It’s important that she goes, ‘Hey, I am trans,’ and, ‘Look at me,’ and, ‘F–k you. F–k off.’”
However, Shreiber was hesitant to give advice to other parents who, like him, have had their children come out as transgender.
“I don’t know the answer for your kid,” the “Ray Donovan” star explained. “I don’t know what it’s like for you to be a trans dad. I don’t know how you were brought up. I don’t know what religion you encountered or what your spirituality is. And for me to tell you what I think about my kid feels like an overstep.
“I guess if I would say anything to someone who’s having trouble with their trans teen or their adolescent trans kid, it’s ‘Teenagers are a f–king headache. They’re hard,'” he continued with a laugh. “It doesn’t matter whether they’re trans or not because you’ll come out of this.
“But a trans teen is going to be a teen,” Shreiber added. “They’re such a pain in the ass so much of the time, and Kai is as feisty and outspoken as they come.”
“The Perfect Couple” star concluded his interview by touching on the renewed political attacks against the trans community. But despite the assault on trans rights, he remains hopeful.
“I don’t like to dwell on it too much,” the “Asteroid City” actor said. “To some degree, I feel like I don’t want to overcook that fear or that anxiety. There’s enough in the world to be anxious and afraid about.”
Schreiber is not the first proud dad to speak out in support of his child after they’ve come out as a transgender.
Hollywood legend Robert De Niro, 81, also spoke out in April after his 29-year-old daughter, Airyn, came out as trans.
“I loved and supported Aaron as my son, and now I love and support Airyn as my daughter,” the “Raging Bull” star told The Post last month. “I don’t know what the big deal is.”
“I love all my children,” he added.
English (US)