Actors/Actresses: February 2007 Archives

I wish I could say it was to Out In Hollywood and the Los Angeles Daily News but Neil chose to speak to Entertainment Weekly writer Whitney Pastorek instead. Whatever. I'm still not sorry I bought that boxed set of season one of "How I Met Your Mother" and praised his performance in "Harold and Kumar go to White Castle."
"Someone once said that their life was an open book, but they just didn't want to read it out loud. Everyone at work knew who I was dating and I didn't try and pretend I wasn't the person I am."
Harris announced he is "a very content gay man" after comments credited to a former publicist [falsely Harris says] who had reportedly insisted the actor was not gay. Harris, who had never discussed his private life, clarified the matter in a statement and went on with his work and his life.
As happy as Harris is to be out, the magazine writes that he would be even happier to stop talking about it: "As much as I respect advocacy, I don't feel that my job description is 'advocate.' My job description is 'jester.'"
And jester he is as wild bachelor Barney on "Mother" and in the sequel and "White Castle." He says he plans to play Barney "as long as they'll have me."
The actor, a triumph on the Broadway stage in "Cabaret" and "Assassins" and in the L.A. production of "Rent," sees directing in his future and, he hopes, a role in a Christopher Guest movie: "That would be the career pinnacle."

That John Barrowman is a naughty boy. At his wedding to Scott Gill a few months back, he lifted his kilt to prove to onje of his co-stars that he was wearing NOTHING underneath. And now the handsome actor, who has played bisexual Captain Jack Harkness in "Doctor Who" and the spin-off "Torchwood," gave an interview with the family magazine Dr. Who.
Barrowman felt the need to boast that his "winky" was "really too big," according to Sky.com, powered by Sky News. He went on to talk about "Torchwood" director Ashley Way, saying: "He's a real hotty. I like him. He has a nice bum" and also spoke of how he fancied former Doctor Who Christopher Ecclestone and "sexy" current star David Tennant. He even recalled a recent daydream where he woke up... "ahem, aroused," Sky.com wrote.
Some of the magazine's readers were outraged! One of them, Robert Mitchell from Brighton, said: "The magazine is called Doctor Who Magazine not Gay Times."
The editor of the mag, Clayton Hickman said: "We consider the magazine for older readers, but some of this content may have overstepped the mark. Apologies."
I dunno, except for the "winky" comments, the rest is pretty tame. Everyone should just calm down.

Spoke this week with young actor Jonathan Trent. He plays the young but troubled Joey in "Boy Culture." He does a terrific job as one of the leads in the film which screened during Outfest last summer (on awards night) and is set for release March 23.
“Joey is the child or the baby in the threesome. He’s this young kid that is very insecure and scared and lonely so he flaunts his sexuality to get what he wants," Trent says. "A lot of people do that when they don’t know what else to go on. They use what they feel they have. For Joey, it was all about his sexuality. He’s charming in a slutty way.”
For the 22 year old straight actor, playing a gay man was not a big deal, he just wanted to get it right:“When I was in high school, a lot of people thought I was gay. I wear my heart on my sleeve and I’m not afraid to show my emotions. That gets misread. I could care less. It doesn’t really matter if I’m gay or straight. But taking on a gay role is a whole different thing. Joey is an over-the-top character, loud and big and full of energy. I knew that going into it. I didn’t want to be offending. That was the main worry, coming across as believable.”
Trent, who is now shooting an episode of CBS' "Cold Case," also appeared in a 2004 indie film "Smile" with a cast that included Linda Hamilton and Sean Astin. It was one of his first professional jobs after the acting bug bit: "In high school, a friend took a camera and made a story about a kid who’s color blind and I was the kid. That was around the time I started realizing it was something I wanted to do with my life."
During the 18-day location shoot of "Boy Culture," Trent bonded nicely with co-stars Darryl Stephens and Derek Magyar who he didn't know previously: “What was cool about that was we were up in Seattle and when you go out of state to work, you’re not with your friends or family. We spent a lot of time together, the three of us. They got us a gym membership and we hung out every day and bonded and it’s still really strong.”

Out In Hollywood's 2006 "Man of the Year" Chad Allen was intervierwed by Newsweek's Samantha Henig for the magazine's Web site about his new movie "Save Me" and about being in last year's "End of the Spear."
Here are some excerpts:
When the openly gay Allen was cast as a Christian missionary in “End of the Spear,�? a 2005 movie produced by an evangelical film company, members of the religious right fumed about the choice. But he has received a warmer response from evangelical Christians to his new film, “Save Me,�? in which he plays Mark, a drug-addicted, promiscuous gay man who is sent by his disapproving brother to “Genesis House,�? a live-in therapy program that aims to “cure�? gay men of their “brokenness,�? through Christianity. Mark does find God at Genesis House, but he also finds love. The film, which was recently shown at the Sundance Film Festival but does not yet have a distributor, tackles the controversial practice of “ex-gay�? ministries. It chronicles Mark’s struggle to reconcile his newfound belief that living in the Lord’s image means being heterosexual, with his romantic feelings for Scott, a fellow Genesis House resident, played by Robert Gant of “Queer as Folk.�?
Allen speaks about what he learned from the uproar over “End of the Spear,�? the reaction to his latest film, and his own quest to reconcile his religious faith with his sexual orientation.
NEWSWEEK: When “End of the Spear�? came out, you got a lot of heat from evangelical Christians for being a gay actor playing a Christian missionary. Was your decision to do “Save Me�? at all a reaction to that?
ALLEN:: No, we were already working on “Save Me�? then. But honestly, without the reactions to “End of the Spear�? and how that changed the way I look at this entire issue and who I am, I couldn’t have participated in “Save Me�? the way that I did. When I went to make “End of the Spear,�? I expected to meet a group of hateful, bigoted, at-best ignorant individuals, and I didn’t. I met a group of smart, God-loving, God-following individuals, who were doing what they thought was the most loving thing to do, when they suggested to me that God wanted me to be different. That really affected me. I went back to work on “Save Me,�? and I remember sitting around with the rest of the producers and saying definitively, “We have to make a movie that shows evangelical Christians as smart and loving. We just need to have a conversation about love.�?
NEWSWEEK: It didn’t offend you to be told that God wants you to be someone you’re not?
ALLEN: t didn’t offend me. But I knew that it was incorrect, in so far as I knew that wasn’t what God was revealing in my own heart. I firmly believe in the importance of having this conversation about God and gay. I think that “End of the Spear�? opened up that conversation, and “Save Me�? is the perfect follow-up to it.

NEWSWEEK: How did “End of the Spear�? open the conversation?
ALLEN: There was a firestorm about my being involved, and what we got a lot of at first was the hateful, judging, scared reaction. But what followed for me was more truthful: I got hundreds, if not thousands, of e-mails and letters and messages from Christians who were saying things like, “This has opened my eyes.�? In fact, the filmmakers said to me, “We didn’t know what was going on, we just didn’t know what was happening to people like you in the name of Jesus Christ, and we’re so sorry.�?

NEWSWEEK: How would you describe the reaction so far from the evangelical Christian community to “Save Me,�? which recently premiered at Sundance?
ALLEN: While I’m sure that reactions were mixed, a vast majority of those that I spoke to came up to me not only loving the film but so excited about how they can use this film to further this conversation within their own communities.

NEWSWEEK: Are you surprised that they seem to have embraced you this time around?
ALLEN: I’m shocked. I wish I had a little more faith—part of me is still slightly hesitant since the movie hasn’t gone out to a very wide audience, but I have been blown away by the reaction. I expected to have to work much harder to get people, especially conservative Christians, to see this film and understand what it is that I wanted to say with it and what all of the producers wanted to say.

NEWSWEEK: Your character in “Save Me�? struggles to reconcile his Christian beliefs with his homosexual desires. Which parts of that struggle ring true to you?
ALLEN: Pretty much all of it. It wasn’t like I set out to tell my story, but where the script ended up is a struggle that I relate to almost in its entirety. My character starts out finding himself loveless and godless. I went through that. There was a time in life when I was absolutely desperate and addicted and void of love. My character’s entire process of finding God and finding love, while truncated, is truthful for me. That’s what it looked like, except mine was over the course of six and a half years, not two hours.

NEWSWEEK: What do you say to believers, like those portrayed in the movie, who use the Bible to condemn homosexuality?
ALLEN: My understanding of those seven Biblical passages that supposedly speak about homosexuality is that none of them speak about homosexuality as we understand it today, in a loving, committed relationship. They speak about pedophilia, they speak about rape, they speak about violence, but they don’t speak about this.