Orville Peck Explains Why Street Fighter’s Vega Has Always Felt Like a Queer Icon

Orville Peck has fulfilled a childhood dream by playing Vega in the new Street Fighter film, but the openly gay country star’s connection to the masked fighter goes far beyond making his feature film debut.

Growing up in South Africa, Peck played the video game with his older brothers and was drawn to characters whose appearance and personalities challenged traditional ideas of masculinity. Vega, with his long blond hair, porcelain mask and flamboyant fighting style, was a natural favourite.

“I always played Vega or Chun-Li,” Peck told LGBTQ+ publication Them. “That’s the rules as a gay boy, I think.”

The singer has described how he recognised something of himself in sexually ambiguous fictional characters while growing up. Now, he is stepping into the role of one of gaming’s most distinctive villains, bringing his own interpretation to a character who has been embraced by many LGBTQ+ fans.

Orville Peck’s childhood connection to Vega

Peck’s casting is a full-circle moment for someone who grew up loving the franchise. In an interview with Pride Source, he recalled being a young gay boy from a low-income background in South Africa and finding himself at the premiere of a major Hollywood film playing a character he had known since childhood.

He also spoke about his childhood love of the X-Men character Gambit, whose bisexual energy appealed to him. For Peck, fictional characters could offer a way to recognise aspects of himself before he necessarily had the language to express them.

That connection is part of what makes Vega meaningful to him. Peck has described the fighter as an honorary queer icon, even though the character’s sexuality is not definitively established.

The film also retains Vega’s feminine elegance rather than toning it down. In his conversation with Them, Peck discussed a scene in which American fighter Guile reacts to Vega’s appearance, calling him a “freak” and telling him to become a family man. Peck interpreted the moment as an opportunity to explore the discomfort that can arise when conventional masculinity encounters someone who does not fit its expectations.

The result is a character whose flamboyance remains central to his appeal, rather than something the film attempts to explain away.

Is Vega queer, bisexual or asexual?

Peck has offered an intriguing interpretation of Vega’s sexuality, although he has stopped short of giving the character a definitive label.

Speaking to Attitude at the Virgin Atlantic Attitude Awards 2026, he described his version of Vega as “sort of asexual”, explaining that the fighter is so obsessed with his own beauty that nobody else could ever measure up.

In his Pride Source interview, Peck elaborated on that idea, describing Vega as consumed by superiority and so repulsed by everyone else that he has little capacity to think about other people sexually. He compared the character to an incel, while suggesting that attraction is barely on Vega’s mind.

Yet Peck’s interpretation is not simply that Vega has no interest in other people. When asked whether the character might be open to attraction regardless of gender, he suggested that Vega would not necessarily be bothered by it.

That distinction makes Peck’s portrayal more interesting than assigning Vega a straightforward identity. The character can have a strong queer appeal without being confirmed as gay or bisexual, and his vanity and theatricality can resonate with audiences in different ways.

In his interview with Queerty, Peck also discussed the film’s playful treatment of masculinity and the attention Vega attracts because of his appearance. The character’s elegance, confidence and exaggerated self-obsession make him stand apart from the franchise’s more conventionally macho fighters.

A gay performer in a major action film

Peck’s role also carries significance beyond the character himself. The singer has built a distinctive career in country music while being openly gay, bringing his own masked stage persona to a genre often associated with traditional masculinity.

Speaking to SGN, Peck reflected on the importance of LGBTQ+ visibility in action films. He hopes his casting will help younger audiences see that gay performers can take on these roles without their sexuality needing to become the entire story.

“I hope it happens more,” he said, discussing the relatively small number of openly gay men cast in this type of film. He added that queer people should be able to do the same things as everyone else, without others placing limits on what they can achieve.

Peck’s acting experience has already taken him to Broadway, where he played the Emcee in Cabaret. He has explained that he enjoys heightened character work and the challenge of finding the motivations behind villains, rather than playing them as simple caricatures.

For Vega, that meant exploring the fighter’s belief in his own superiority, his feline movements and his need to be admired. Peck also undertook extensive fight training for the film, drawing on his dance background to help bring the character’s stylised movements to life.

He even deliberately worked on his physique to match Vega’s appearance in the games, telling Pride Source that he wanted the character’s distinctive look, including his muscular legs and matador-style tights, to be reflected on screen.

It is a performance that combines physical preparation with a personal connection to the material, giving Peck the opportunity to bring a childhood favourite to life on his own terms.

What is Street Fighter about?

Directed by Kitao Sakurai, Street Fighter is set in 1993 and follows estranged fighters Ryu, played by Andrew Koji, and Ken Masters, played by Noah Centineo. Chun-Li, portrayed by Callina Liang, recruits them into the World Warrior Tournament, where a deadly conspiracy threatens to turn the competition into something far more dangerous.

Peck stars as Vega alongside Jason Momoa as Blanka, Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson as Balrog, David Dastmalchian as M. Bison and Cody Rhodes as Guile.

Based on Capcom’s long-running video game franchise, the film brings its colourful fighters, rivalries and signature combat to the big screen.

For Peck, playing Vega is both a major career milestone and a personal full-circle moment. The character who caught his attention as a young gay gamer has now given him a route into Hollywood action cinema, while offering LGBTQ+ audiences another openly gay performer in a prominent role.

Street Fighter is in cinemas from 16 October.