I know it comes as no surprise that I'm always happy to see when one of my favorite actors - gay or straight - takes on a gay role. This is the case with Tom Everett Scott who I have admired since his big-screen debut in "That Thing You Do" about a decade ago. Now Everett Scott is on Broadway playing a closeted rising movie star who falls in love with a young male hustler in the Broadway production of "Walks the Dog" which opened earlier this week. His character is considering coming out but his tough-as-nail agent, a lesbian, is strongly against it.

The actor, who stars in the TNT drama "Saved," was interviewed by my friend Christopher Lisotta for the cover story of MetroSource LA. The Dec./Jan. issue just hit the stands and here are some excerpts:

When director Douglas Carter Beane offered Everett Scott the part, he says he called the actor up and said: "Buddy, you're going to have to kiss a guy and get naked. And he said, 'All right.'"

Everett Scott says the character "is still bound rto the idea that he can't be a superstar - a movie star - male- and come out. When the character the agent says it's not going to happen because no women will want to sleep with you and men will feel weird, that really says something about how people hold up actors. Mitchell, his dream is to be that image, regardless of whether it's true or not. And falling in love with Alex is who he really is. It's an identity question."

Tom, a married father of one child, had played gay before in the television movie "Surrender Dorothy" opposite Diane Keaton but kept his clothes on for that one. On stage, he plays opposite Johnny Galicki who is cast as the hustler, Alex.

"I don't know any closeted movie stars and I wouldn't know where to begin asking about this," Everett Scott tells the magazine. "...It is really the writer's job to create a context and it's really my job to create a reality of that context. So if I'm supposed to fall in love with Johhny Galecki on stage, that's really just as much a challenge as falling in love with an actress on stage...There are lovely, wonderful things about Johnny that I am sure I will strart to really appreciate and admire and go from there."