Catching up w/Gregory Michael of "Dante's Cove"

Season three of the campy gothic soap "Dante's Cove" doesn't even begin filming until April meaning we won't be seeing the new adventures of the sexy cast until summer. But I caught up with Gregory Michael, Charlie David and John Fleming - three of the show's hottest male stars - at the Ribbon of Hope Celebration recently and each made time for a chat with "Out in Hollywood" as did their co-stars Nadine Heimann (Van) and Gabriel Romero (Marco).

Gregory and Charlie play Kevin and Toby, the show's main romantic couple, who are constantly being pulled apart by outside forces including Adam (Fleming) who has loved Toby since high school and Ambrosious (William Gregory Lee, pictured with Michael, above), a powerful warlock who only has eyes for Kevin. Gregory compared Kevin and Toby to "Ross and Rachel on 'Friends.' You want them to be together. But Ambrosias is looking mighty fine over there!"

Read my interviews with the stars of "Dante's Cove" in the coming days:
ARCHIVED: Tracy Scoggins
TODAY: Gregory Michael
MONDAY: Jon Fleming
TUESDAY: Charlie David
WEDNESDAY: Gabriel Romero
THURSDAY: Nadine Heimann

During the break from the show, the 25-year-old Gregory is focusing on his music career and performing gigs with his band, Auxburn. They hope to release a CD of their music next year which he describes as "John Mayer meets Coldplay."
Since Gregory is straight in real life and had a recurring role on "As the World Turns" prior to getting cast in "Dante's Cove," he did consider possible career ramifications of playing a gay man - especially one who is involved in graphic lovemaking scenes with another man. "I'd be lying if I said I didn't think about it. I did. We did it before 'Brokeback Mountain.' But I played a date rapist on 'As the World Turns' for two years and I'm not a date rapist. It's another job to me and I'm getting recognized and there are a lot of possibilites on the horizon."
He believes "Dante's Cove,"which airs on the here! TV pay channel, has come along "at a time in our society where [sexuality] doesn't matter to people and I think it's wonderful."
So for a straight and single man, how is he so convincing in all of those love scenes?
"I'm definitely straight," he says, laughing. "But Charlie is just amazing and good."