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FAB Magazine - January 7-14, 2001 They're
here, they're Queer By John Kennedy Saturday may be hockey night in Canada but beginning later this month, Monday is queer night in Canada. Showcase begins airing the American version of Queer As Folk -- the controversial and provocative show created by Russell T Davis for Britain's Channel 4 -- on January 22 (2000). The new series, filmed entirely in the Toronto area, kicks off with a three-hour episode. The show follows the lives of a group of gay men and women living in Pittsburgh. Brian (Gale Harold) is an arrogant and promiscuous advertising executive; Michael (Hal Sparks) is his best friend and a fan of comic superheroes who remains in the closet at the department store where he works; Justin (Randy Harrison) is a 17-year-old who is seduced by Brian and mistakes sex for love; Emmett (Peter Paige) is the flamboyant friend who doesn't hide his pride; Ted (Scott Lowell) is an accountant who lusts after online porn and young guys. Other characters include Lindsay and Melanie (Thea Gill and Michelle Clunie), a lesbian couple trying to raise a child fathered by Brian; Dr. David (Chris Potter), a handsome chiropractor who falls for Michael; and Debbie Novotny (Sharon Gless), Michael's eccentric PFLAG mother. The background is filled with extras culled from Toronto's gay community and plenty of familiar sights along the Church Street strip (which doubles as Liberty Avenue). The series' producers have enlisted a number of gay Canadian directors -- including Jeremy Podeswa, John Greyson and Ron Oliver -- to direct episodes. Like its British predecessor, Queer As Folk is unapologetic in its graphic portrayals of gay sex. There's plenty of nudity and frank talk about sex and drug use, but viewers who stick with the show will quickly find themselves focusing less on the sex scenes and more on the story lines and characters. Scott Lowell admits he initially had concerns about the 'graphic nature' of the show. In his opinion, though, the only gratuitous nudity so far has been a scene where a lesbian sucks on her partner's nipple. Still, Lowell says he was relieved to find out that he didn't have any sex scenes in the first few episodes. "When we were all testing everyone had their nudity [agreements] and they had all these pages of scripts attached to theirs and mine didn't have [any] attached to them," he recalls. "I said, 'Okay, Ted won't be getting that lucky, I suppose, so maybe I'll be all right.' It's kind of proven to be otherwise since then but at least back in the beginning I felt pretty safe." Lowell says he's glad he took the part and can relate to his character. "He's not the happiest person in the world but there's a part of me that's really like that," he explains. "He has that kind of sad addiction of being attracted to beautiful young things and just never getting them because he's just too average. Especially in this culture where beauty and youth is everything." Hal Sparks is the class clown. He's cheerful, charming, cute -- and openly straight. A veteran of Second City in Chicago, he moved to Los Angeles to pursue a television career. He hosted Talk Soup, a daily show on the US-based E! Entertainment Television, and appeared on shows like Politically Incorrect, Hollywood Squares, and The View. Sparks has produced comedy segments for the Disney Channel and shows up in the recently released film Dude, Where's My Car. Last year Sparks made the move from Los Angeles to Toronto, settling on a nice apartment near Chinatown. "I knew where I wanted to live but one of my big things is I'm not skimping," he explains. "If I spend too much money on my apartment that will be a good thing." Sparks says he's comfortable playing gay -- particularly since his character Michael, is in the closet at work. "He's got to come across as very straight," he says, sitting inside Wilde Oscar's on a break from filming. "I have no prejudices against gay people and I have alot of friends who are." Sparks says he wasn't interested in playing any of the other characters. "I can definitely relate to [Michael] more than any of the other characters," he admits. A member of the crew calls him back to the set. "We'll continue this in a moment. I have to go do some acting. Put that in quotes -- 'acting' in quotes." Sparks rushes across the street to shoot a scene in front of Woody's. After a number of takes he hops into a van and is whisked to his dressing room trailer at Wellesley and Sherbourne. He has decorated it with photos of friends and a poster of KISS. The VCR is surrounded by cheesy horror videos. "Where were we?," Sparks asks as he sits down on a small sofa. "We were talking about my plans to destroy the world through the assimilation of gay people into normal society via comedic means. It's all part of my great plan, you know." Actually, he's reminded, we were talking about what makes Michael so fun to play. "I think if you cut open his chest the only organ in his entire body is his heart. He's that sweet," explains Sparks. "He's borderline co-dependant most of the time but I think he comes from a really honest place." Sparks admits that he didn't do much to prepare for the role. "Researching gay lifestyle wouldn't necessarily bring me closer to Michael because I would always be coming at it from an outsider's point of view," he explains. "If I stand in a gay nightclub surrounded by guys there's no way, emotionally, I'm going to feel yearning, or what Michael feels when he's in that situation. But when I go to a regular nightclub and I come at it from the point of view that there's women there that I'm not going to get to talk to then I can have an honest response and that's what I put into Michael. The benefit of doing a character like this is it's the same for everybody -- it doesn't matter if you're gay or straight. Everybody wants somebody that really loves them." Sparks adds that kissing or simulating sex with other guys hasn't had much of an effect on him. "I didn't expect to enjoy it but I didn't think it would weird me out much. Ultimately it's a very medical kind of experience. That's the best description I can give you. It's like kissing your own hand or something," he explains. "The biggest concern is making it look real and right. I'm not grossed out by it. It doesn't bother me. This is how Michael shows love so that's totally cool. When I'm playing Michael, that's what he does. So it's not really that tough." Still, [he] admits he wasn't prepared for razor burn. "After my first kissing scene with Gale I wanted to call all my ex-girlfriends and apologize for not shaving all those times," he says. Another woman he thought about after the sex scenes was his Kentucky-based mom. "I know my mom's not going to be real happy with seeing me kiss a guy," says Sparks, adding, "although if I was gay she would be totally accepting of that." Sparks says he has fought hard with the show's writers and producers to keep Michael in the closet. He says he successfully lobbied against Michael coming out to his co-workers in Episode 12. "If we're all out then every episode becomes like a Pride march, sort of. What shades of story are we telling? What about all those people in the closet? Who's the character they can relate to? Right now, Michael's the only one, so if we're really going to tell everybody's side as best we can, I can't very well have him come out at work and have it be okay," he explains. "Now, if we want to get him fired or something like that and then he goes to another place and is even more adamantly not going to tell people... but it's much more dramatic to deal with his living a lie and his secret identity kind of thing because I think he enjoys that. So I really made a strong case for him to not come out. I think there are certain people in the gay community who are like, 'It's nobody's business until I welcome them in and I will do anything to keep them from knowing because I don't want them in my life that way.' I respect that." Sparks adds that he has a childhood friend who is gay but not out to his parents. "He's known he was gay since he was 13 so he's been in the closet with his parents for 17, 18 years, whatever. It's a long time and I don't see any point he would ever come out to them so I think there's a lot of value in telling that story." [He] is aware that for many young gay people across the country Queer As Folk will be the only exposure to gay life. Still, he doesn't think anyone should look up to Michael. "Michael lies and he does drugs and he drinks -- it's not a particularly healthy lifestyle. The gay club scene is not a really good place for anybody. It's where maleness turns in on itself and is its worst, this visual world where it never looks pass its surface. And that's a terrible place for anybody," he says. "But the nice thing about Michael is that he's seeking beyond that. Even though he lives in that world -- even though he enjoys it, even though he loves it -- he really is looking for someone to love." Peter Paige plays Emmett, the most flamboyant of the group. But on this day he's nursing the flu and trying to stay warm inside a fur-lined parka. He can't hide, though, his genuine enthusiasm for Queer As Folk, a project he pursued from the moment he heard about it at his gym. Paige has worked on stage in productions of Moliere's Tartuffe and Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream but he's no stranger to television. The openly gay actor has appeared on shows like Will & Grace, Caroline in the City and Suddenly Susan. Paige admits his eagerness to land a role in Queer As Folk cooled slightly after he was given a 25-page nudity agreement. "My manager had a nervous breakdown and said, 'I don't think you should do it.' He said, 'I feel like something's about to happen for you and I'm afraid that if you do this show I'm not going to be able to take you over to a network...I'm just afraid of the ramifications of this,'" recalls Paige. "I thought about that really seriously and finally I was like, you know what? The writing's too good. I believe in the project too much to pass it up. I just knew that to watch somebody else do this role that I knew I could do would be too much." Viewers who watch Paige do the role will have to wait at least eight episodes for Emmett to really take off. "I'm around, I have some misadventures, but starting episode nine Emmett folds into the story much more prominently," he promises. 'There's some big, big surprises down the road for Emmett." Paige says he loves his character. "He is the most outrageous of these boys, the most over-the-top. He's very much a real person and that's always been my first priority but he's the queen of the bunch and he's not self-loathing. I just think that's revolutionary," says Paige. "As a rule, in television and film the gayer a man is the more he has to hate himself. The more effeminate he is the more he has to despise himself and the more likely he is to die or be alone or all those things. What I love about Emmett is that he's just gay as a goose and doesn't hate himself for it." Interestingly, Paige was originally considered for the role of Ted (now played by Scott Lowell) -- a character almost completely opposite to Emmett. "I feel badly for Scott," he admits. "Ted hates himself, hates his body and never gets laid. I just think that's got to be rough." Though Emmett is often the source of comic relief on the show, Paige says he is careful not to play him too fey and risk creating a cartoon character. "With all respect to Will & Grace and Sean Hayes, who I've worked with, I didn't want to be Jack. Jack's already on TV and I don't know anybody like Jack. I don't know real people like Jack. I know some really nellie people but I don't know anybody who is that relentless," he explains. "I know a lot of guys like Emmett, who are queeny and can be campy and are more often than not effeminate but they also go home and put on their pyjamas and carry on real conversations and have real feelings and get their feelings hurt, you know what I mean? I just didn't think it had to be two-dimensional creation." Paige also doesn't pretend that Queer As Folk reflects gay culture. "What is that anyway? In this day and age there's such a huge breadth to the scope of people who identify as gay," he says. "But do I think this accurately depicts a part of culture? Hell yes! Been there. I know these guys. I was these guys, my friends were these guys. I often say that I present myself to the world probably most like Michael. I certainly have some Emmett in me, I certainly feel like Ted most of the time and I've been Brian. And when I was 17, I was Justin." Paige admits that he watched the first four episodes of the original British series only one day before his first audition. "I just wanted to sort of get the tone of the show. I thought it was great. It rocked my world. It made me uncomfortable, it made me excited, it was amazing." He says that besides the obvious differences between the series, there's a pervasive spirit of hope that sets the North American version apart. "I mean, as Americans we have this sort of sense of entitlement that the rest of the world doesn't right now. We are the Holy Roman Empire, you know what I mean? There's an optimism that comes from being a part of that," explains Paige. "The potential that these sets of characters believe is present for their own lives is different." Like Sparks, Paige is aware that he may become a role model to young people who tune in. "Obviously that's a wonderful thing and certainly any visibility is good. I mean, I remember being a young gay boy and seeing Ru Paul on MTV and just being like, 'It's a drag queen! It's a man in a dress on TV!' I remember calling my friends up in 1992 -- not very long ago -- and saying, 'Oh my God, Ricki Lake's got gay people on!' That's eight years ago and here we are telling these really complicated fully human stories of these people's lives," explains Paige. "I certainly think it's much more than entertainment. I think it's political by its very nature. To me it sort of fits into the gay rights movement the same way that Shaft fit into the black civil rights movement -- that after years of playing minstrels and slaves there were the sort of Sidney Poitier martyr years and then all of a sudden there's Shaft and there's this guy who's just like, 'Fuck you! This is it, this is who I am, this is what I'm about' and that lack of apology is, I think, what's so exciting about the show." Back to covers Back to articles |