Stars: September 2006 Archives

Emmy and Tony award winning actress Cynthia Nixon, beloved for her six seasons on "Sex in the City" as the deliciously witty Miranda, finally talks a bit in detail in New York magazine about falling in love with a woman. She didn't do the Ellen or Lance Bass thing with magazine covers announcing it etc. It's not like the media didn't try, but Nixon is just the low-key type.

"I feel: I feel like there was an enormous temperature spike, where I was on the front page of two daily papers, there was paparazzi outside my house. My girlfriend (Christine) had English press on her parents’ lawn. Every person she went to high school with got a phone call. They bought her yearbook. They almost put me on the cover of People magazine. And then it died. Because there wasn’t really anything to say. I can’t remember in what context they tell people this, but if someone is chasing you, stop running. And then they’ll stop chasing you.�

The magzine notes that Nixon has done something "perversely radical: She’s made her own coming-out story boring."

"I never felt like there was an unconscious part of me around that woke up or that came out of the closet; there wasn’t a struggle, there wasn’t an attempt to suppress. I met this woman, I fell in love with her, and I’m a public figure.�
Nixon told the magazine that someday, she says, she needs to sit down with Christine and watch a marathon of "Sex and the City," which her girlfriend has barely seen.

Just finished reading a really fascinating interview with Ian McKellen on AfterElton.com that is just terrific and written by Michael Jensen who I got to hang out with a bit at the NLGJA conference in Miami a few weeks back. Michael really goes in-depth with one of our most prominently gay actors who in recent years has had key roles in the blockbuster franchises "Lord of the Rings" and "X-Men." He was also nominated for a best actor Oscar for his memorable performance in "Gods and Monsters."

Here are some exceprts from what is a lengthy and insightful interview:

On being a famously out actor:
It was surprising thing to me that when I came out, I was suddenly sought out by the media at large to be the representative of many millions of other people. And I never pretended that was the perfect thing for me or anyone else to be thought of [as the representative of millions]. I'm not. I just happen to have a public profile which gives my views more importance than they deserve.

On Brokeback Mountain:
Had Brokeback Mountain been named Best Picture of the year, I don't think that would've meant Hollywood was suddenly at ease with the idea there are gay people in the world. Hollywood is very ill at ease with the idea that there might be gay people in their midst. Nobody in their right mind would look to Hollywood to advance society in any way. Hollywood deals with fantasy and not with the real world at all.

On actors being out:
Are there any specific obstacles which disadvantage gay actors as opposed to gay teachers or gay firemen? I'm not sure that there are. There has been many an actor picking up the Tony in New York who thanked their same-gender partner from the stage. Yet on the other side of the continent in Hollywood, it's not thought to be appropriate to come out. Now, who thinks it's not appropriate is the question you're really asking. It might well be the individual to a certain extent.

I'm sure the advice to young actors is 'Don't come out, [or] you'll never be a young film star playing romantic roles.' How many actors are like that at any one time? A half-dozen? It's not the greatest imposition in the world to say you cannot be a Hollywood romantic lead in his 20s if it's known you are gay. Get another job. Became a character actor like me. Become a director. Become a screenwriter. Become an agent. A designer. Become a producer. There are plenty of openly gay people in all of those jobs. What's so enduring about being the next Brad Pitt?

I've never been welcomed with anything but open arms in Hollywood. When I held hands with my boyfriend at the Oscars, nobody seemed to turn a hair. I think I had in my pocket at the time my Oscar acceptance speech saying I was proud though a little bit disappointed to be the first openly gay actor who'd ever won an Oscar. I didn't get to make that speech because it was the year Hollywood discovered there were black people in the world. You've got to laugh, really. The poor actor who feels he is never going to be a leading romantic actor in his youth, go do it somewhere else. Go do it on Broadway.

For the complete interview, click HERE and enjoy!

Was surfing through some sites tonight and just came across this quote posted on PerezHilton.com from actor Rupert Everett who seems to be feeling really sorry for himself these days:

"Unfortunately, I am single. But I'm too exhausted for anything else and being gay is a young man's game. Now no one wants me. Being gay and being a woman has one big thing in common, which is that we both become invisible after the age of 42. Who wants a gay 50-year-old? No one, let me tell you. I could set myself on fire in a gay bar, and people would just light their cigarettes from me. I don't want to be carried out of a club wearing a tie-dye T-shirt and a cap on the wrong way round when I'm 70, but I would like to settle down a bit. Maybe with a partner."

Well, I guess it's good to know that famous, handsome movie stars have some of the same problems as the rest of us!

Some actors, including Tom Cruise, have sued when a publication says they are gay. Not "Star Wars" actor Hayden Christensen whose sexuality has been much speculated about. When asked by Vman magazine why there is so much talk about whether he dates men or women, Christensen's answer was quite surprising: "To be honest, I think it's because I encourage it."

Christensen, so good in "Shattered Glass" and "Life as a House," added the following: "It's fun, entertaining, and a bit of a joke. Because, who cares what people think? And because I think it's sort of cool. You see pictures of Bowie wearing eyeliner and looking a little effeminate—to me masculinity is the ability to flirt with the effeminate. I will do things that are a little less masculine. There's plenty of rumors about every actor everywhere being gay. When people catch a picture of Sienna [Miller] and me, they can speculate, and I don't do anything to dismiss the speculations because rumors are more fun than reality. The less people know about you as you, the more they believe you as a character. And I guess I was sort of setting myself up with Star Wars, as far as people not accepting me as other things, so I made a point of not doing much press, not letting people know much, just because it helps me as an actor. The people I actually relate to know what I am. I think eventually people will clue in because there's less I will be able to keep private, but I've been pretty good at it so far. So if they want to speculate that I'm gay, let them. Honestly, I enjoy it more when people speculate."

When Charlize Theron said at this year's GLAAD Awards that she and her boyfriend Stuart Townsend wouldn't get married until gay marriage was legalized, it was a very moving moment for those of us in the audience. The Oscar winner, who played a lesbian serial killer in "Monster," seemed sincere and it made for a beautiful evening.

So now comes an even bigger star than Charlize: Brad Pitt, also coming out in support of same-sex marriage.

In an interview with "Esquire" magazine released this week, Pitt says he will not marry Angelina Jolie until restrictions on gay marriage are lifted. Jolie gave birth to their daughter Shiloh in May and Pitt has adopted her two adopted children.

"Angie and I will consider tying the knot when everyone else in the country who wants to be married is legally able," Pitt, divorced from Jennifer Aniston last year, tells the magazine.

Rupert Everett, who gay audiences discovered long ago in "Another Country" and the rest of the world took notice of in "My Best Friends Wedding," says in an interview with the UK's Daily Mail newspaper that it would have been "too exhausting" for him to be a closeted actor. But being out has had its drawbacks especially if you compare the kind of offers he gets compared to that other debonair Brit, Hugh Grant.

"The difference is, one of us is straight and one is gay. The straight one gets to walk down a red carpet with a beautiful girl and everything works out and the gay one has to back-pedal and do independent movies," Everett says. 'To be a movie star you have got to have a good-looking girlfriend and for Hugh, Elizabeth Hurley helped. It is a trophy job."

Everett says his decision to be openly-gay continues to limit his options professionally.

"'Without doubt, gays are discriminated against in show business," he says. "For example, Eric Fellner [the producer at Working Title responsible for Love Actually, among other films] was talking to my agent the other day and my agent said: "Why don't you ever give Rupert a job?" and Eric said: "Oh God, I'd love to, it's just I can't think of anything to put him in."
'Yet everything Hugh Grant does, I could be in. I am not saying I am better than Hugh Grant or Colin Firth but I am the same.'

Look for more dish like that in Everett's just published a tell-all memoir, Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins: The Autobiography, which includes the skinny about his relationships with Julia Roberts, Sharon Stone, and Madonna, among others.

...Speaking of the new James Bond (see previous post), some die-hard Bond fans have been critical of the casting of Daniel Craig as the secret agent, following in the footsteps of Pierce Brosnan, Sean Connery and Roger Moore, among others.

But one thing fans, gay and straight alike, won't be complaining about is Craig's attitude toward appearing in the buff: "In today's world we expect female actresses to go naked so why not men? I have told bosses I'm prepared to do a full frontal scene. I'm not shy and Bond wouldn't be shy about it either," Craig tells the UK's "Daily Mirror."

Craig, so good in a series of diverse roles including last year's 'Munich," is aware that his newest role has made him into something of a sex symbol to gay men.

"I was out recently and all these gay guys were over me like a rash," he says. "But they never ask about the Bond plot."