Actors/Actresses: March 2008 Archives

I can't post my interview with Brad Rowe about his flick "Shelter" until Sunday because it is tied to publication of my newspaper column. But I figured I'd share with you some of what he told me about being in his breakthrough film "Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss" with Sean Hays a decade ago.

Plus, by highlighting this material early, it gives me a great excuse to run a buncha pictures from the movie!

Comparing the gay roles in "Shelter" and "Billy's," Brad says: "In "Billy," I was the pursued and now I as in the role of the comfortable out-of-the-closet guy pursuing the young cute guy,. it was a reversal of roes creatively."

Comparing the drama "Shelter" to the comedy in "Billy's" "The difference is, in sort of the colorful, comical farce that 'Billy's' was. You have a detatchment to the emotional side of it. Sean is trying to find love but there's a funny side to it. On this, even though there were some light moments, it's a much more dramatic piece."

On working on and promoting a gay indie film again: "It was totally easy and totally fun and I think that does translate onto the screen. With 'Billy's," I had the chance to be around some of the alternative press and promote a film like this and be in a situation that ("Shelter" co-star) Trevor Wright (w/Rowe, right) had never been in. I had a sort of mentoring role for him, almost a built-in relaitonship . My character helping him come out of the closet and in a real way, helping him in the process of doing his first gay-themed film."

I have found Alec Baldwin to be a little scary in recent years what with the screaming at his kid on the phone and all. But I feel better about him after reading a terrific Q&A with Brandon Voss that is due to come out in the March 25 issue of The Advocate. Here are some excerpts:

Q: When I interviewed your brother William for The Advocate on his Dirty Sexy Money role, I asked him who’d get the hottest guys if the Baldwin brothers were gay. He replied, “Me, because I’ve always gotten the hottest chicks.” How do you respond?
A. Well, you know, Billy’s been in L.A. and out in the sun too long, so we have to allow that he’s lost touch with reality. Billy certainly has his following now from his show, but I’ve had my gay following for a long time. Billy didn’t have a book written about him.

Q. How might your Catholic family in Massapequa, Long Island, have reacted if a Baldwin brother actually had come out?
\A. I really don’t know, because I remember when I grew up -- and this is on a serious, sad note here -- there was only one guy in my town that I knew of who was gay, and no one even really knew what that was. I don’t even remember that even being discussed when I was a kid. Then we found out this kid who had killed himself was gay, and he was my friend in high school. He was a lovely guy.
That, for me, was the beginning of understanding what life was like for people who lived a gay life, but it really became clear when I got into show business. I did a soap [The Doctors, 1980–82], and David O’Brien, who played my father, was gay. David was my dear, dear, dear friend, and I was going with him and his friends to Ambrosia and Rounds and the Mayfair over on First Avenue—I lived at 58th and First, so this was like upscale-gay central. I mean, this was no Boots and Saddle, the Anvil, Crisco Disco, or any of that militant, leather gay. These guys were bankers, insurance executives—this was rich gay. Men who were gay like ’50s gay -- they kept it quiet, they went to private clubs, and when they went out in the street they didn’t want anybody to know their private lives at all. I was hanging out with these guys, having dinner with them a couple of nights a week, and it was just the most amazing experience I’d ever had in my life.

Q. Were they respectful of your being straight?
A. Oh, yeah, they loved it. These guys either had long-term partners, or it was about hustlers for them.

Q. Who’s your closest gay friend now?
A. Probably Scott Ellis, [the associate artistic director] of the Roundabout that I did [Entertaining Mr.] Sloane with, and his boyfriend, Jeff Mahshie, who’s a clothing designer. But I have so many friends that are gay. If you’re in this business, it seems like half of them are -- maybe more.

Q. You did finally play gay in Roundabout Theatre’s 2006 off-Broadway revival of Joe Orton’s Entertaining Mr. Sloane.
A. In 1981 they did a production of it at the Cherry Lane with Maxwell Caulfield and Joe Maher, who was gay, and it was like the gayest audience I’d ever seen in my life -- to see Max Caulfield take his clothes off. So when I did that play I kind of hoped more people from the gay community would’ve come, because Orton wrote gay characters in a really clever, interesting way. But when we did it, I don’t remember that there was like a big onslaught of gay ticket holders. It was more like blue-haired subscribers to the Roundabout.

Q. In 2003 you were quoted by New York magazine’s Intelligencer as saying, “Basically, I’m gay, except for the sex-with-men part.” What did you mean by that?
A. To me, guys who are excessively masculine are like Hulk Hogan or guys who play in the NFL—where it has to do with some sort of application of physical force in the work they do. Other than that, all of that seems like a blur to me now. If I had the discipline and the will, I could see myself having played professional football or being an interior designer. I’m someone who likes to decorate a room and go to a boxing match. I really don’t give a shit. People don’t see lines drawn on the floor anymore as to how they should live. To me, the only sexual line now is the type of person you sleep with. The only thing about sexuality today that’s overwhelming to me is people who want to have sexual-reassignment surgery. It’s one thing to say “I’m a guy, but I don’t like women,” and another thing to say, “I’m a guy, but I want to be a woman.” I’m like, Wow. The transgendered thing totally blows my mind.

Q. Did you get hit on by men while you were a busboy at Studio 54?
A. To some extent. But by ’79, when I worked there, the people who were most well-known for inhabiting that place were gone. It was not at all what it used to be. But everybody who worked there, it seemed, was gay, and all we did was get high and drink and dance. I’m trying to think… [long pause] I’m trying to think if I’ve ever almost considered having an affair with another guy, but I always come to the same answer: I’m just not attracted to men in that way. I like women, but sometimes I wish I didn’t. [Laughs] Sometimes I think my life would be a lot easier if I didn’t. I’m not made that way in terms of sexuality, but I can definitely see how men fall in love with other men, and there are men that I have loved as much as, if not more than, any woman I’ve ever known.

Q. Are you aware of your brother Stephen’s recent rant against gay marriage on Howard Stern—after starring in Threesome, no less?
A. Well, in the modern political world, people like that -- whether or not I’m related to them -- only help us raise money. They want to ban gay marriage because those people are incapable of having a biological family—that’s their only argument—but what about a man and a woman who are infertile, or a man and a woman who choose not to procreate? You can ban gay marriage, but if you’re going to make it fair, then you have to ban marriage for everybody else who won’t produce children. But they never make it fair, and they just single out groups of people that they hate.

Conchata Farrell probably gets more laughs, per syllable, than any other actress working in television comedy.

As sarcastic housekeeper Berta on CBS' "Two and a Half Men," the veteran actress has a way with a zinger that serves as a reality check for the title characters she cleans up after played by Charlie Sheen, Jon Cryer and Angus T. Jones.

"Berta is the voice of the audience, she's the one who goes, 'Can you believe these silly rich people?'" Conchata told me last week. "I take that seriously as a responsibility."

It's a character that wasn't even supposed to be a part of the show originally.

"When I landed this gig, it was only supposed to be a two-part episode," Conchata said. "I went in to do two and I made eight and they made me a regular the next year. It just felt like home."

The actress, a two-time Emmy nominee for "Men," does wish she had a bit more screen time: "I absolutely love this role but if I had anything to wish for, it would be maybe that I had a little more to do," she said. "But I always get really good stuff and the show is 'Two and a Half Men,' it's not 'Berta.'"

"Men" is now in its fifth season and shows no signs of fading. Conchata thinks she knows exactly why: "I think we're raunchy as hell and I also think we're very funny. It's not brain surgery but we are like witty funny, it's not only the buffoonish stuff. It's smart funny. I think people go home and if they've had a bad day, there's nothing better that you can do than make them laugh."

Conchata has played many comedic and dramatic roles over the years - most notably the pizza restaurant owner in "Mystic Pizza" and her Emmy-nominated recurring role in "L.A. Law."

But "Men" has brought Conchata the television stardom predicted for her more than 30 years ago when she starred in Norman Lear's short-lived sitcom "Hot L Baltimore" about residents of a seedy hotel which was considered quite racy for its time. Conchata also performed in the Broadway play on which the series was based.

Her character of April had a distinctively robust laugh that has been long remembered despite the show running less than one season: "Norman loved that laugh and he wrote it in every show."

For years, people would ask Conchata to do the laugh.

"But I don't do that anymore," she said. "I put April away."

Thank goodness the same can't be said of Berta!