Whether they’re walking out of the closet or being dragged kicking and screaming, the subject of gay celebrities coming clean has been a hot-button issue of late.
Him, which the New York Times described as a “tasty bonbon” just opened off-Broadway at the SoHo Playhouse after a successful run in December. It delves into the topic of Hollywood outings head first, as a hunky rising star (played by Jon Fleming of Dante’s Cove fame) has to decide whether to hide or live honestly.
From the play’s press release:
In Him, hunky actor Nick Cooper has just landed his breakthrough film role and the offers from Hollywood’s A-list are pouring in. The only problem: Nick is gay and his viper of an agent wants to keep him in the closet. Nick is happy to play along in spite of the vocal opposition of his boyfriend. But all hell breaks loose when a Latina bombshell is brought in to “play” Nick’s girlfriend.
Him‘s writer/director, Clifford Streit, is a notable Hollywood gay in his own right: He produced the film version of American Psycho and helped get Sex and the City greenlit at HBO. Though he and Candace Bushnell are now at odds over his cut of the SATC pie, Streit was actually the inspiration for Carrie’s gay BFF, Stanford Blatch.
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In an interesting turn of events, there’s even talk of bringing Him to television. Hmm, maybe Darren Starr could executive produce?
Seamus
This story reminds me a great deal of real-life actor Luke Evans. Evans was a serious stage actor on London’s West End in 2002 when he came out of the closet during an interview. He lamented about how he would prefer to sail through his career without any skeletons in his closet. He even went on length to discuss his favorite gay porn. Now that his film career in Hollywood is taking off and he is under new representation, Luke has gone back into the closet. His publicist claims they are lovers. A simple google search can reveal Evans’ past, yet his PR people honestly think people will ignore it. Well, not forever. They’d have to wipe the internet clean and keep the press from asking questions. I wish Queerty would do a story on this. He’s about to appear in The Hobbit in a big role!
butters
hollywood is full of hypocrite “liberal” douchebags
Dan Avery
Seamus: We’ve covered Luke Evans—and his hypocrisy—in a number of posts. You can find them via the Search engine
Adam
Sounds very similar to “The Little Dog Laughed” by Douglas Carter Beane. I can’t see anything like this getting to Hollywood anytime soon.
Aric
I agree with Luke Evan’s publicist when he/she said the comments (The porn one) were childish and inappropriate. Who the hell goes to an interview and discusses porn? Did this interview take place in a bathroom in West Hollywood? We need to stop trying to force Actors out of the closet and let the future disgruntled beards/boyfriends do it themselves.
Seamus
@Aric: I thought his comments on porn were honest and very real. A huge number of adults watch pornography and he was an adult making comments on what he likes about porn. I don’t think there’s anything wrong about it. Is it unprofessional? I don’t think so, but that’s a matter of opinion. It certainly won’t harm his career, whereas remaining mum about his past will.
Christopher Banks
I sat at a gay film festival in Los Angeles three years ago and listened to a panel of agents (mostly gay) tell a roomful of gay filmmkaers that they recommend gay actors stay in the closet. It was all I could do not to lob the poncy croissants at them.
patrick
@Christopher Banks:
yeah thats because the target audience still tends to be racist homophobic white middle america. Hell even MTV didn’t want to play music from black stars back in the day because they didn’t want to “offend” those white racists.
Seamus
@Christopher Banks: Chris, I think it’s because the publicists run Hollywood these days. These people have determined that coming out of the closet should be a highly orchestrated event whereby an exclusive interview is given and money is made. Otherwise, it would be beneficial to stay in the closet because the publicity people have determined that mainstream American audiences can’t handle seeing a leading man romantically involved on screen with a lady if it’s known he is gay. It sounds absurd to me, but with millions of dollars in potential revenue at stake, I guess the industry doesn’t want to take the chance unless they feel it could be beneficial.
Oh, ok.
@Seamus: Well even though Matt Bomer is basically crawling out of the closet it really hasn’t hurt his career with his legion of straight female fans who basically love everything he touches.
The publicists need a new day job.
Xeb
@Aric: The interview was in relation to his role in a play about the gay porn industry. I’m sure he didn’t usually talk about porn in interviews.
Henry Holland
“I think it’s because the publicists run Hollywood these days.”
No they don’t, they’re in the middle of the food chain. The movie/TV business is run by the corporations who own the studios, they hire people to do their bidding for them. It’s felt that being openly gay hurts the bottom line because we all know that people in flyover country won’t pay their hard-earned, Real American cash to see any of “those” people act. /sarcasm
Joseph
@Henry Holland: As a demonstration of your correct sarcasm, enough of those flyover people — and people in other countries, too — handed over their hard-earned cash to see an openly gay man play a straight, married father-to-be in “The Smurfs” to the tune of $563 million.
Seamus
Americans paid millions to watch Rock Hudson, James Dean, Sal Mineo, Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift and Lawrence Olivier- all of whom had affairs with men.
patrick
QUEERTY DOES NOT BELIEVE IN FREEDOM OF SPEECH
Pickles
Queerty is not required to provide everyone with the opportunity to speak.
Queerty is not the government. Any blog can remove, edit or do whatever they want on their own blog. They can ban users as they see fit, etc.
Queerty is not a public accommodation.
I don’t know if Queerty monitors comments as much as folks think.
But even if they do, it’s their right.