"2 Atlantans Taking a Chance on 'Queer'' The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (Dec 2000)

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"2 Atlantans Taking a Chance on 'Queer'' from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
by Drew Jubera; courtesy of Teri Vogel; [published December 8th, 2000]

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Two Atlantans are at the center of Showtime's "Queer as Folk," this year's pay-cable breakthrough that explores the sexual lives of five gay friends in working-class Pittsburgh.

Gale Harold and Randy Harrison were virtual unknowns before being cast in "Queer." Harold, who went to Southwest DeKalb High School (he won't give his age), plays Brian Kinney, a seductive, brazenly promiscuous ad executive and the show's sexual centerpiece. Harrison, 23 and a 1996 graduate of Pace Academy in Buckhead, plays Justin Taylor, an alluring 17-year-old who experiences his sexual awakening with Brian --- an explicitly erotic scene in the first episode that set the show's anything-goes tone.

Sunday's debut of "Queer as Folk," an American version of a 1999 British series, was Showtime's highest-rated series premiere in three years, more than doubling the network's prime-time average. Its 4.5 rating compared favorably with the 5.1 rating for the Nov. 26 episode of "Sex and the City," the popular sex-centric HBO series that "Queer" is often compared to.

Harold and Harrison --- who with Peter Paige (Emmett) is one of only two openly gay actors in the cast --- passed a cellphone around on the show's Toronto set this week to talk with us before taping a scene for an episode.

Q: How'd you get involved in the project?

A: Harrison: I had just graduated from theater school (University of Cincinnati Conservatory of Music) and moved to New York when I auditioned. I had no TV or film experience. I got the sсript for the first three episodes and read them on the plane when I had to fly out to L.A. It was thrilling --- I knew it was something that would elicit a strong response. I thought, "It's about time."

Harold: I was living in L.A., working for a theater company and working on a small, independent film when I auditioned. I was totally unknown to everyone. It's a dream situation. One day I'm running out of gas trying to make auditions, the next I'm in a new city, acting, trying to maintain the moment in the most extreme conditions.
Q: You mean that first sex scene with Randy?

A: Harold: I'll never forget that. It's unfathomable how important that experience was. I was pushed to the limit. We both read the sсript, knew what it was about and both decided to do it. Once we committed, there was no time to be nervous. It was just, "Go." It was exhausting.

Harrison: The big sex scene was on the second day of shooting. We had no choice --- it was all or nothing. So we just went for it. It was great. It broke down all the walls.

Q: Do have a sense the show is breaking down walls of gay sexuality on TV?

A: Harrison: We're all aware we're part of something special. There's an amazing feeling on the set. With the type of intimate scenes we have to do, it's a real family here. You feel you can do anything. There's no hesitancy; you never have to be afraid of doing something.

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Harold: It's sustaining to be able to know the job you're doing is bigger than just temporary entertainment. We're taking a chance and stepping out, and we may burn out and fade away, but the whole nature of this project is risky. It's like being in a school for deviant expression.

Q: These gay characters are not politically correct.

A: Harold: I could care less about political correctness. It's a lie. It's not how life is. For me to even have those thoughts in my head wouldn't be in character. Brian's philosophy doesn't incorporate political correctness on any level. I know people like (Brian). But it's never been presented to mainstream America. We're breaking down all the assumptions --- assumptions are what keep people in the dark. It allows them to have ideas that are flawed, to not see the whole story. If you don't want to see this, don't watch it.

Harrison: It's refreshing as actors to have characters not tiptoeing around being a complete human being.

Q: Is your character at all like you?

A: Harrison: Not directly. I relate to being 17 and not belonging, being the baby of a group. But when I was 17, I was not doing anything (sexually).

Harold: I use some things, but (Brian) is very particular to himself.

Q: Have your families here in Atlanta seen it? What's their reaction?

A: Harrison: My folks loved it. My mother thought it was hilarious. She's totally hooked on the characters and can't wait to see what happens next.

Harold: I think my dad's seen it. My sister loved it. My mom doesn't have Showtime.

перевод yurkuna.diary.ru/p188280715.htm

@темы: 2000

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Showing and Telling with Folk Cast (Nov 2000)

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'Showing and Telling with Folk Cast' from Chicago's Windy City Times
by Lawrence Ferber; courtesy of Occam's Razor; [published in the November 22nd, 2000 issue]

перевод queerasfolkrus.borda.ru/?1-0-120-00000074-000-0...

Although none had actually seen it, actors Gale Harold (the slutty, heartbreaker Brian), Hal Sparks (the cute yet pining Micheal) and Randy Harrison (the 17-year-old newbie Justin) at least heard of the controversial UK series Queer as Folk prior to snagging their roles in Showtime's American version. And no doubt, like their British predecessors, they will soon find themselves at the center of a storm of controversy;and fabulous ratings;when the series premieres Dec. 3. While shooting in Toronto; which doubles as the show's setting of Pittsburgh;we caught up with the three (of which Harrison is the lone out queer) in between their close-ups.

So let's talk about how much you three relate to your characters. Gale, are you or have you ever been a manipulative slut like Brian?

Gale Harold: "Everyone's a Brian at some point or another. That's why people relate to him. It's just like every archetypal character, it speaks about something all of us have inside. Whether we display that or not or can keep it up for extended periods of time is a different story but there are facets of my life, my own experience and things I've done that definitely have figured into the characterization and actions I've chosen to play."

Using "Brian" as a verb, have you ever been Brianed?

GH: "(laughs) Yeah, I've been Brianed. I think everybody has and there's a whole vast range of people who have Brianed you. You can be Brianed by your mother if you're not careful, right?"

Like Oedipus. What about you, Hal? Have you ever pined after a friend the way Michael does for Brian?

Hal Sparks: "I'm actually a little closer to Brian than most;but I don't sleep around. I'm a little cooler, not like '50s cool, but temperature. But my thing has mostly been with [several] girls I can't have. I tend to pine, you know? So it's not one person;like three different girls in my life are kind of Brian altogether. I get it, I know how it's possible, it's pretty easy. And Gale, who plays Brian, is very charismatic and likeable as Brian and it's me playing the one character who really gets him beyond that normal charisma, sexual attraction. Michael understands he's worth loving as opposed to just worth fucking. That's a great thing to play as an actor."

Do you find Gale/Brian charismatic?

HS: "Yeah, I think so. I think he's quirky and dark, he's borderline vampiric at times but in a very cool way. It's Brian doing what he has to do to survive. We all have our fights we've been fighting all our lives and that's just his way of winning."

Randy, would you stalk and get all cross-eyed over Brian the way Justin does?

Randy Harrison: "I don't know. Probably not. I'd be too smart for that;it's destructive! I was a little safer than him."

How did your youth compare with Justin's?

RH: "There are things that irritate me about Justin, there are things he does that I would never do. He's sillier, wilder, more hopefully devoted to Brian than I can ever imagine myself being to anyone. At the same time I admire him so much, he has a lot more balls than I did when I was 17. He gets in fights, he tells people off, he refuses to accept anything less than he deserves in a lot of ways and that's really empowering, to go back and sort of say things I never would have said when I was 17."

He's much less obnoxious than Charlie "I'm doin' it!" Hunnam's Nathan character in the UK version.

RH: "I think they're different characters overall. I think all the characters are based on the British but end up being completely different people in similar situations."

Hal, is Michael a totally pathetic wimp loser?

HS: "No. He's a scrapper, a fighter if he needs to be, he just never knows what he should do because he's so used to people telling him what to do."

How does your love life compare to Brian's, Gale?

GH: "Well, Brian is an archetype. He's a version of extreme reality and I think that at times I would wish for a love life like his and at times I thank God I don't have that kind of love life. Because Brian is not in control of what he's doing. I mean, he's a very controlling person, but he's out of control. It's great, it's fun for a while and I've definitely been through that, but to sustain that over years and years is ... you can't really have a professional life. I couldn't be having the life I have now and have a love life like his."

One of the most talked-about things when it came the UK version was its first episode's explicit love scene between Stuart and Nathan. And even more specifically, the bit where Stuart licks the yummy lad's butt, teaching him the joys of rimming. I was pleased to see they kept that for the Showtime version between Brian and Justin. Did you two rehearse it?

RH: "There is no rehearsal necessary for butt lick."

Were you neurotic about being fresh down there?

RH: "No, actually I was very clean. I always am for the sex scenes, you never want to smell or anything. It's true;you never know where someone's head is going to be."

How DID Randy's butt taste, Gale?

GH: "Salty. He's a fairly hygenic person I would think. Not like saltines, more like a neck. A little cumin I guess."

Was there any sexual material in the sсript that made you blanche, Hal?

HS: "Only in regard to how it portrayed Michael. Whatever Michael has to do sexually to show who Michael is I'm cool with, but I wasn't cool with some sexual things because they didn't seem in line with who Michael was. There was a scene where a guy picks up Michael and they go back to his apartment and the guy who was playing him was very pushy and tough with me. I had to say to him 'Michael wouldn't go home with you if you acted like that. It would scare him.' It was more like prison than a come on! I went 'all you have to do is be a little charming and sweet' and that's what happened. But there was no way in hell that if a guy came up and was rough and tumble with Michael he'd even think about it, because he can just go home and jerk off. He's that type;'I don't need this.' What he needs is someone who he can at least pretends loves him."

I want secrets. Randy, tell me a secret.

RH: "I have a tattoo that they have to cover that sometimes, you can sort of tell where it is."

Were there any embarrassing moments or bloopers?

RH: "There's one scene where I catch a football and the guy once threw it directly in my face and hit me and I didn't catch it. Very Brady Bunch."

Have you ever seduced a little, itty bitty young 'un like Justin, Gale?

GH: "I don't know if I want to get into that. I've got to save something, you know? As far as I'm concerned that's not a yes or no question. There's so much more to be done, right? So much more life to live I don't want the boundaries to get all hard and fast."

Well, how about this question;are you a monogamist or sleaze?

GH: (pause) "You think I'm going to answer that question after not telling any tidbits? I can't give that up, it's too early. I'm not playing my hand that soon, no way. I'm saving it. There's no fucking way. We'll talk again."

Peter Paige told me of the cast's "no fucking" rule. However, he did admit that extras have been getting busy during backroom scenes. Have you witnessed love and drama on the set?

GH: "I've seen it, just be assured that any time there's a hot sexual environment;where there's smoke there's fire."

And what do you folk hope or expect queer viewers to get out of the show? And do you expect any ogling?

GH: "Something that's real, that's meaningful, that lets people see aspects of their own life portrayed in a real way, every level of it. Celebration of life, freedom, and love and the pain and struggle."

RH: "I'm just excited for people to see the show because I think it's really good. I'm proud of my performance."

HS: "We feel like we're doing really good television and that the characters are real and performances are strong. But will this be acceptable to a wide audience? That's open to great debate. You'd like to think so, you'd like to think that people have become more open minded with the progress Will & Grace has made and all that, but this is a tall order for a lot of people."

@темы: Queer as Folk, 2000

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'Queer as F*ck' from XY Magazine (Nov 2000)

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'Queer as F*ck' from XY Magazine xymag.com/blog/
by Benjie Nycum; courtesy of dicaprio69; [published in the November 2000 issue]



Justin is 17, He goes to a private school in Pittsburgh. He has wild sex with 29-year-old Brian-- on television. And that's just the beginning of Showtime TV's new series Queer as Folk.

Queer as Folk is a scorching hot new series based on the runaway successful British version. Now the show's been made America, moved from Manchester to Pittsburgh, and everybody's favorite blonde hottie 15 yo Nathan Maloney has become 17yo Justin. The part is played by the real-life Randy Harrison, who-- though he's 22-- could easily pass for 15. In the first episode, to air Dec 3, Justin has his first sexual encounter with the 29yo Brian, which changes his life. He's smitten and develops an emotional attachment, but both of them are really after the sex. And unusually for American TV, they get it. This attachment is complicated by Brian's friend Michael [who always loved Brian.] Of course-- we saw this coming didn't we?-- Michael starts to reset Justin, and one can only image the delicious drama unfolding from there.

If you're familiar with the British show, this will all be familiar. But remembering from the British version that Brian character [Stuart] is sometimes a total dick, I ask just how it might be possible for Justin to fall for him so completely. "Well it's a great study in the mechanics of desire" Randy says. But unlike the British version, in the American version the actor is gay. Randy came out to friends and family when he was 16 . "I wrote my parents a three-paged letter and left it on the kitchen table before they woke up one morning," he says. "Then I left, came out to my girlfriend of three years, and returned that evening to deal with my parents. I thought it was important that they had some time to deal with it individually before I stepped in. It turned out they were completely supportive. My dad said he'd never been more proud of me."

In fact like his character, Randy went to a conservative private school, "where it didn't seem worth it to rock the boat by making some huge declaration." He knew he'd soon be out of there, so he only came out to close friends: "All the friends I told reacted ideally," the says, "but then I'd never have gotten close with anyone who would have rejected me. "I'm very slow to trust." Randy is a graduate of the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music where he studied theater for 4 years. He has been acting since he was 7. "It was always something I loved. Even my mom was worried I'd become a stage kid, but the fact is I love acting, and I get depressed when I'm not doing it," he says.

Though he hasn't seen the British Queer as Folk, when he heard about the series, he knew he wanted the part. "I immediately knew I was perfect for it, even though Justin is quite a different person," he says. He got the part after two auditions. But he's not going to watch the UK version until after taping is done: that way he thinks he can keep his Justin role as fresh and unfiltered as possible.

A big question on people's minds: will gay teens relate to Justin? "Yes, I think they will," Randy says. "I think It will be an enormous comfort to suddenly see a gay teen depicted on television with such candor and complexity." But he's also careful to mention that Justin isn't intended to represent all gay teens. "Justin is NOT a depiction of all gay teen life. He's just one 17-year-old gay boy and it's just his one specific story. He's not intended to represent the 'typical gay teen experience.' The writers wisely steered clear of 'representations', choosing instead to focus on these specific human beings and their individual lives."

The British Queer as Folk raised age-of-consent eyebrows [to say the least] and since Showtime's version will show a 17 year old having sex with a 29 year old, that same reaction is assured here. Randy doesn't care. "Frankly, I've never know the age of consent to prevent an adult and a minor from having sex of there was a mutual attraction and consent, within reason. It will definitely leave many people thinking about age of consent laws. Can we really determine an age where one becomes capable of dealing with the implications of sexual interaction? Do we ever really handle sex like adults?"

There will be 22 episodes of Queer as Folk and Randy has been making one episode every 7 working days . That rigorous schedule doesn't allow him to get to his New York home very much to enjoy the company of his boyfriend. "It's very hard to manage my personal and working life, especially living so far away," he says. But at a time when gay actors are less and less afraid to be typecast as gay characters for the rest of their lives, he isn't too concerned. He's sure this was one really good career move for him. We can already tell he's going to be sensational.

Will the very controversial Queer as Folk catapult him into gay teen hero status? Randy won't guess. But, he says, "I'm not not excited. I just want to be a good actor and I'm really proud of the work I'm doing. Queer as Folk shows important things to a big audience and it's about time these characters existed on television. And I'm just really happy about that.











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@темы: 2000

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'Boy Meets Queer World' from TV Guide (November 20th, 2000)

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(Nov 2000) 'Boy Meets Queer World' from TV Guide
by Michael Ausiello; courtesy of Tony; [published in the November 20th, 2000 issue]

Theater-trained actor Randy Harrison makes his television debut with Showtime's provocative new series Queer as Folk — and what an initiation it is. In the pilot episode, airing Dec. 3 on the cable network, the newcomer's 17-year-old alter ego, Justin, loses his virginity with a 29-year-old in a scene so sexually explicit that even the predominantly gay audience at last week's premiere screening in New York were squirming in their seats.

"It actually wasn't as much of an adjustment as I thought it would be," Harrison tells TV Guide Online of his transition from the stage to the small screen. "The cast is amazing and it's such a great environment up in Toronto (where Queer is shot). We all get along really well, which you sort of have to given the intimate nature of a lot of the stuff that we have to do. It's been really idyllic."

Although Queer as Folk delivers on its promise to be as racy as the British series on which it is based, Harrison points out that the show is not all skin and no substance. "If it were badly written, then I wouldn't have wanted to do it," he admits, "but the characters are so well written you want to play them."

Case in point: While the much talked about one-night stand between Justin and resident man-eater Brian (Gale Harold) may be graphic, it triggers a major awakening for Harrison's sheltered character. "It completely shakes him up," he says. "He's sort of thrown into this whole new world and quickly learns to adapt and play the game. It's really great to watch him become empowered and become more confident."

@темы: 2000

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'Daring to be Queer as Folk' from The Advocate ( November 21st, 2000)

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'Daring to be Queer as Folk' from The Advocate
by Dennis Hensley; reprint text courtesy of Kevin Hewell; [published in the November 21st, 2000 issue]
An exclusive uncut & uncensored look behind the scenes on location with Showtime's big, bad, gay bombshell.

If you're a gay man or lesbian, it's not all that unusual to find yourself dating someone your best friend doesn't approve of. Most of us have been there at some point.

It's quite another thing, however, to be on the Toronto set of Showtime's "Queer As Folk" and see that particular social ballet played out before your eyes - with great looking actors spouting the kind of smart-ass lines you wish you could have thought up when it happened to you.

Perhaps Daniel Lipman, one of the show's executive producers, isn't just serving up a sound bite when he calls this "Queer As Folk" - the hotly anticipated American adaptation of the groundbreaking 1999 British miniseries - "a true show for the millennium, a series of this century, not of the last century." Still, American "Queer As Folk" fans are finding it hard to believe anything on American TV could rival the sexual and emotional frankness of the English original. Can Showtime cut the mustard? In a gay press exclusive, THE ADVOCATE went on the set to find out.

The scene now being filmed is set in the modest, comic-book strewn Pittsburgh apartment of Michael, a sweet-natured but put-upon assistant department store manager. As the scene opens, Michael (played by former "Talk Soup" wiseacre Hal Sparks) is facing his bathroom mirror, nervously prepraring for a date with Dr. Dave (Chris Potter of "Silk Stalkings"), a humpy chiropractor Michael fell for while lying facedown on his examining table.

"I'm putting a little rouge on my penis to make it look longer," quips Sparks, the show's unofficial morale-booster, just before the cameras roll. "A nice horizontal stripe."

"Action" is called; there's a knock at the door. Michael's over-the -top roommate, Emmett (Peter Paige), skitters off to answer it, and in struts the wrong guy - Brian, Michael's best friend and the show's resident shit-stirrer (played by sexy newcomer Gale Harold). Instantly the tension rises. Michael has long carried a torch for Brian, and Brian uses that to keep Michael where he wants him: beholden yet unfulfilled. Brian's no sooner plopped himself down on the sofa and doffed his designer sunglasses than he starts making trouble by helping himself to the chocolate éclairs that Michael bought especially for his outing with Dr. Dave.

"Insert it into your mouth in a phallic way, Gayle," coaches the episode's director, Canadian film vet David Wellington, between takes. "Make it a performance." Harold takes the note gamely and in subsequent takes looks longingly at the éclairs before swallowing them whole. Linda Lovelace would be proud.

"This is such a blast," Harold chuckles after the scene is wrapped. "I get to be the ultimate antihero every day. Like in the scene today, I was only there to cause problems." Like his U.K. equivalent, Stuart, Brian is an Olympic-level bed hopper and completely unapologetic about it. Asked how many different sex-scene partners he's had so far, Harold laughs and says, "That's a hard question." He counts on his fingers for at least a half a minute, then gives up. "Somewhere over 10."

"That's Brian, the bad boy who never grows up," laughs Lipman a bit later in the show's production office. (The set is now off-limits while Sparks and Potter shoot a love scene between Michael and Dr. Dave in Michael's childhood bedroom.) "We all have friends we're not too wild about, but why do we like them? Well, because we understand." Still Lipman is quick to point out that "Queer As Folk" has more to offer than men behaving badly. "We have a whole tapestry of different kinds of gay characters," boasts the producer, who along with his work and life partner, Ron Cowen, created the series "Sisters" and the AIDS-themed TV movie "An Early Frost", both of which won Emmys. "There's a domesticated lesbian couple with a child; Brian and Michael, who are about to turn 30, which is a certain kind of death in this world. There's Ted, who is 33 and running after guys who are inappropriate for him; Dr. Dave, who is in his late 30s and very relationship-oriented. There's Michael's mother, Debbie, played by Sharon Gless, who is so overly supportive you want to strangle her. There's also Michael's uncle, who's in his late 40s and has AIDS and [has been revitalized] because of the cocktails and has to deal with his life; and of course, Justin, a 17 year-old gay young man who is not in conflict about his sexuality. This is not an after-school special where he's walking on the beach in scenes of emotional conflict..."

Lipman trails off when he realizes that his visitor has just become distracted by a sign on the office wall that reads: "QAF Productions LTD. Please! No Dildos Allowed Within 20 Feet Of The Fax Machine."

"In one episode there's a scene involving 33 dildos," Lipman explains, then holds up his right hand as if pleading guilty. "We were having a meeting, like we would for any prop, and there was one pretty amazing dildo that was supposedly cast from a real porn star. I wet the suction cup and put it on the wall, then we went back to our discussion. Suddenly, we hear this crash and turn around. The fax machine was flattened. That's why they put the sign up."

It's doubtful they have these kinds of problems over at "Touched By an Angel", but then, that's sort of the point. "We're extremely non-PC here at "Queer As Folk," boasts Lipman, who promises that the Pittsburgh-set American "Queer" will indeed come well stocked with all the 'I can't believe they're showing that on TV' elements that made the British version such a sensation. "This is probably the first time in history," says Cowen, "that gay people will actually get a chance to see their lives portrayed truthfully on television with no restrictions and no censorship, unless Showtime kowtows to the MPAA ratings board. But it was certainly written and filmed with the intention of showing all aspects of gay life honestly." Yes, that includes foam parties, nipple piercings, recreational drug use, and scads of same-sex lovemaking scenes, including repeated couplings between our 29-year-old Jeep-driving, loft-living lothario, Brian, and our baby-faced but hungry for experience high schooler, Justin. "Some gay people will be upset that straight people are seeing things that they would wish they would not see," asserts Cowen. "But I think politically correct behavior is a form of internalized homophobia, that you are basically afraid to show straight people what your life is really like, and so you put forth a PC image out of fear."

With 22 hour-long episodes to crank out in 11 months - today is the first day of shooting on episode 7 - the "Queer As Folk" team members don't have a lot of time for fear. Sparks has just emerged for lunch after completing the Michael-Dr. Dave love scene. "It's actually more of a panic scene for Michael," the Second City alumnus explains. "He's like, 'I'm finally going to get laid in my old room,' but everyone downstairs can hear what's going on."

Though Sparks is straight in real life, Michael's soft, chewy center gives him plenty to relate to. "Michael will give you a foot rub and not expect sex," says Sparks with a smile, "and I'm the same way. I'm a total romantic." As for the more intimate scenes, Sparks admits he finds them more challenging than he expected to. "Intellectually, I didn't think I would have any problem," he reveals, "but I had a visceral, physical reaction that I wasn't expecting and that I have to work against. It's like a pheromone response to some guy standing in your face threatening you. You're OK for a while, and after 20 minutes you're like, 'Dude, get off me.' It really is a process."

More comfortable with that process, it seems, is 22 year-old Randy Harrison, making his TV debut as Justin, who's newly out and just fine with it. "The most challenging scenes aren't the most sexually provocative," shrugs the actor, who landed the part at his professional New York audition. "So far I've done a rimming scene, a hand-job scene, and several sex scenes, and those are easy. It's just moaning and getting in weird positions. The hard scenes are the emotional ones - like there's one in a therapist's office where I say to my mother, 'I like dick. I like getting fucked by dick, and I"m good at it too.' That was kind of hard."

It's lunchtime, and Harrison is leading the way through the gorgeously appointed set that is Brian's loft apartment, where a good deal of his aforementioned weird positions were executed. "This is my favorite part of the set, because the water comes down like a waterfall," he says, gesturing to Brian's five sided stainless steel and glass shower. "But it keeps changing temperature. We had to cut a million times during the sex scene, because it got really hot."

But then, as one of the show's two openly gay cast members, Harrison seems more than capable of handling the heat. "I'm aware of the dangers and repercussions [of being out]," says the Atlanta native, who has a boyfriend of 3½ years, a fellow actor he met while studying drama at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. "The way I see it, if I'm not true to myself, it doesn't matter what else I'm doing. There's enough bullshit in this business. I don't really need to add any of my own."

The show's other out actor, Peter Paige, echoes Harrison's sentiments. "I've been out for so long, doing this show and going back into the closet seemed like an absurd idea," he says with a laugh. "There would have been phone calls from various corners of the country saying 'Come on!'" Though his character is decidedly larger-than-life fabulous, scoring the shows best zingers and skimpiest outfits ("I've stopped eating bread"), Paige sees Emmett as a far cry from the cliché screen queen who flames to keep the pain away. "He hates himself less than anybody in the piece," Paige asserts. "Somewhere along the way he just got it that he's OK, and if you don't like it, fuck off. I think that's revolutionary."

Of course, being revolutionary isn't always easy. Though the show's creators insist that the actors they cast were their number 1 choices, tracking them down proved harder than they expected. "Hundreds of actors would not even audition, and there were major agents who wouldn't send their clients to audition," says co-executive producer Cowen. "That was surprising."

Those who were cast admit that there was more deliberation involved in saying yes to "Queer As Folk" than your average job. In addition to the provocative subject matter, there was the Toronto location to consider as well as the fact that the actors were expected to sign on for five years. "When the screen-test offer came in, my manager basically said, 'I don't think you should do it,'" recalls Paige. "It was the sexual content, more than the gay content, he was really worried about. But I just finally said, 'I'd rather be a part of something risky than something beige.'"

Then, once the actors were cast, there was the matter of keeping them costumed. According to the producers, several presumably gay-friendly designers have refused to allow their duds to be featured on the show. "I find it disturbing that the Versace company says you can't show Versace," scoffs Cowen. "I mean, he was gay. Perry Ellis's company said no, and Perry Ellis died of AIDS. Abercrombie & Fitch, whose ads are so homoerotic, won't allow their clothes [to be shown]. That's extremely offensive, because they obviously want gay people's money but they also don't want to be associated with gay people, and gay people should know that."

"We must qualify this by saying that we really don't know if some of these places have a blanket policy to not place their products no matter what the material is," adds Lipman. "But there were certain letters. We had a scene where a character was just eating a brand of cereal..."

"Cocoa Puffs," interjects Cowen. "Let's say it."

"He wasn't doing anything sexual with the cereal," continues Lipman. "He was just eating it. So when you get feedback saying, 'We don't want gay people eating our cereal.' That's very disturbing to me."

The producers are curious to see if things will change once the show starts airing and people discover that "Queer As Folk" is not all boys, all nude, all the time. The program also deals with less eyebrow-raising facets of day-to-day gay life, such as being out at work, growing older, and taking care of the people you love. "Because all of the characters are gay, any story that you tell has a twist to it, even going to the grocery store," says Lipman. "In one episode our lesbian couple's baby gets sick, and the woman who is not the birth mother is not allowed in the emergency room. Until that point they were just happy parents like anyone else."

For Thea Gill and Michelle Clunie, the actresses who play the lesbian couple, dramatizing the frustrations, expected and unexpected, that come with starting a family made for a refreshing challenge. "It seems like any time I see lesbians portrayed in film, they have to be carrying guns and doing something dangerous," says Clunie, who plays no-nonsense attorney Melanie. "We're just two women trying to cope with life." But that doesn't mean they don't get frisky. "They are in sexual situations," vows Cowen. "They make love; we see that."

That's good news to Gill, who plays Melanie's lover, Lindsay, a college art teacher who was inseminated with her friend Brian's sperm. "It's been pretty subtle for us so far, so Michelle and I are like, 'OK, we're ready for our big sex scene now!'"

They'll surely get their chance - just not today. At the moment, Sparks and Paige are getting set to shoot a scene where a hilariously frazzled Michael packs to go away for a romantic weekend with Dr. Dave. Meanwhile, Harold is taking a break in the lunchroom. In a few minutes he'll join Harrison in a screening room where they'll view, for the first time, the just-edited "damn the age of consent" sex scenes they shot for the pilot episode a few months ago. He's both anxious and excited. "One day, Randy and I were sitting there between takes," recalls Harold, who declines to discuss his offscreen love life. "I looked over and Randy had this strange look on his face and I said, 'What's wrong?' He said, 'You just look so old, and I look so young. I can't imagine how people are going to respond.' I think the ramifications of what we were doing hit him pretty hard at the moment. After that, I got such a rush thinking about the 17-year-olds that are going to be watching. They're going to say, 'That's me, right there!' That, to me, is freedom: being able to say, 'This is my life,' and it's about fucking time somebody showed it the way that it is."

That warts-and-all sense of realism, more than the show's much-heralded naughty bits, is what the creators believe audiences will ultimately remember. "The cast screened some of the pilot last week," reports co-executive producer Lipman, "and one of them called me and said, 'You hear about all of the graphic sexual scenes, but in the end, it's the characters you come away with. That's all you care about.' I'll be happy if we achieve that, because that's what any good show does."

Asked what the series is ultimately about, the folks behind "Folk" give wildly different but nicely complementary answers. "For us," says Lipman, "with all due respect for our lesbian chararcters, the show is about boys becoming men and assuming responsibility." Adds Cowen: "Because such a premium is placed on youth in gay culture and you don't always have role models, gay men are often stuck in perpetual boyhood."

"To me, "Queer As Folk" means queer as regular people," says Sparks. "The characters on this show want the same things as everybody else. They live with the same kind of challenges, just in a different shade."

Inspired, perhaps, by his straight-talking adman alter-ego, Brian, Harold delivers an answer worthy of a Showtime No LImits billboard. "It's about freedom, enlightenment, love, humor," he says, flashing the kind of smile that makes it easy to see how Brian gets all that action. "You know, all the things that make life worth living."

@темы: 2000

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'The Queerest Show on Earth' from New York Magazine (Sept 2000)

[moveforever]

не совсем про Рэнди, точнее совсем не только о Рэнди
но это первая статья из того, что мне попадалось, где о нем сказано довольно много.
upd: перевод на русский queerasfolk-rus.livejournal.com/110622.html

'The Queerest Show on Earth' from New York Magazine
by Charles Kaiser - courtesy of Teri Vogel; [in the Sept 8th, 2000 issue]



Fasten your seat belts: here comes Queer as Folk, the TV show that makes Sex and the City look like a Saturday-morning cartoon. Arriving this fall on Showtime, the two-hour-fifteen-minute pilot features the most outrageous language you have ever heard, some of the most compelling characters you have ever met -- and American TV's first explicit lovemaking scene between a 29-year-old man and a 17-year-old boy.

Actually, there are two of those scenes in the show's first two hours, punctuated by a visit to the hospital to meet the 29-year-old's newborn son, who has just emerged from the womb of a lesbian who has been inseminated with his sperm. In the maternity ward, the 29-year-old boasts of his conquest of the 17-year-old, provoking this response from the mother's lesbian lover: "So, you've both had an infant tonight!"

Queer As Folk first aired in 1999 in Great Britain on Channel 4, the country's alternative commercial network. Over there, the 17-year-old was only 15, and the gay sex was the most explicit ever seen on British television. So the outrage from horrified heterosexuals -- and from gays disgusted by the predatory stereotype -- was entirely predictable. But what followed was not.

After the third episode, practically every leading British critic fell in love with the show. The reason is simple: Queer As Folk isn't merely sensationalistic; it's fabulous television, the most important gay drama since Off Broadway theatergoers were stunned by The Boys in the Band more than 30 years ago. Just as Boys blew the lid off a slice of gay life that had been hiding in plain sight for years, Queer As Folk is the first completely honest depiction of the ordinary lives twentysomething gay men lead in big cities everywhere -- with absolutely nothing held back. Like Boys, the new program is replete with dark humor and stinging dialogue.

But Queer As Folk is even more revolutionary. Not only are its characters completely lacking in the self-hatred that permanently dates Boys to its birth in 1968, but it also tackles the last taboo for enlightened liberals, the one that still makes even the most liberated straight person squeamish: the fact that every gay adult begins life as a gay child.

It's the willingness of the original show's creator, Russell T. Davies, to plunge into treacherous waters that gives it so much heft. At the heart of Davies's craft is a simple but crucial notion: "There is no drama in political correctness." Davies feels it's important to show a 17-year-old having sex with a 29-year-old simply because it's true to life: A gay teenager in the process of self-discovery is likely to begin by going home with someone much older than he is.

"You've just got to be true to people and character and motivation," the 37-year-old writer told me on the phone from his home in Manchester, England, where the original show was set. "Whatever you're writing about, you've got to get under the skin and get to the heart and look at that stuff that no one likes to look at." And he has two words for the gay activists who believe he has libeled a whole community with his promiscuous, drug-taking protagonists: "Fuck 'em!"

While the characters have a universal quality about them, Davies chose gritty Manchester instead of cosmopolitan London to avoid focusing on the glitzier part of urban gay life. The American producers have done the same thing by locating the series in Pittsburgh, although the show is actually being shot in Toronto.

The title comes from an old Yorkshire saying: "There's nowt so queer as folk," meaning there's nothing as strange as people. For Showtime, which has half as many subscribers as HBO (and a severe case of Sopranos envy), Queer As Folk is an opportunity to create its own uproar. In the words of Showtime CEO Matt Blank, "This is real reality television."

Of course, gay characters are hardly a novelty in American sitcoms; last season, there were sixteen of them in prime time, according to the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. But no one has ever seen gay characters quite like these, characters just as real and nuanced and hedonistic as many of their real-life counterparts.

It's that spirit of fearless originality that convinced Ron Cowen and Daniel Lipman they had to do the American version after they were contacted by Tony Jonas, a former president of Warner Bros. Television who is now an independent producer. Jonas joined Joel Schumacher, the show's then-director, but Schumacher dropped out of the project after complaining that he didn't believe Showtime would remain faithful to the spirit of the original. Cowen, Lipman, and Jonas then became the three principal executive producers. Cowen and Lipman, who were responsible for five years of Sisters on NBC, also wrote the 135-minute pilot of Queer As Folk, which will air this December.

Cowen and Lipman have been lovers and writing partners for more than 25 years; they have a history of pushing the envelope on American television. Their first episode of Sisters opened with an extended discussion of multiple orgasms. That intro was subsequently axed by NBC, creating three minutes of black screen. Before that, they wrote An Early Frost, the first TV movie about aids, and they know better than anyone what a quantum leap Queer As Folk will be for American TV.

"Fifteen years ago when we did Early Frost, we were not allowed to show the two guys even touch," Cowen remembers. "They couldn't kiss, they couldn't even hold hands. Aidan Quinn played a character named Michael who had to tell his parents that he had AIDS and that he was gay -- they didn't even know that he was gay. His grandmother was very supportive when he and his lover came to visit, and we had a line where Sylvia Sidney turned to her grandson and said, ''I like your friend.'' And Standards and Practices at NBC said, ''She can't say that line, because that supports the homosexual lifestyle.''

On the other hand, the flamboyantly gay character who was dying of AIDS was allowed to say anything he wanted, ''because he's going to die," the network censors explained.

All of which is a long, long way from the Zeitgeist of the first episode of the British version of Queer As Folk, in which the tongue of a 29-year-old man travels farther down the backside of a 15-year-old boy than any tongue has ever traveled on TV before. That image has produced the identical reaction in everyone I know who has seen it: "How did they ever show that on British television?" Which is always immediately followed by "We'll never see that on American television." They might be wrong about that.

The original version already enjoys cult status among gay men on both sides of the Atlantic. Bootleg tapes of the British show were passed to American friends in the show-business community; soon they were showing up all over Chelsea, Fire Island, West Hollywood, and the Castro. In August, an edited version of the British show began to get its first airing on a new gay cable network called C1TV, which has cobbled together a network by purchasing time on public-access stations that reach 7 million viewers in 25 American cities. However, to placate more conservative cable operators, all the nude scenes in the original have been blurred, and the harshest language has been bleeped out. The uncut version has been shown at gay film festivals all across America.

As a result, the director and the executive producers all realize that they will face heavy criticism from the fans of the original if they tamper with its production values. At the same time, they're not interested in making a carbon copy of the original. Although the pilot does incorporate all of the major plot points of the first three British episodes, it also expands the role of the lesbian couple, who in the new version are portrayed by two strikingly good-looking actors, Michelle Clunie and Thea Gill. And since the first season of the American version will be twice as long as the British one -- which involved eight episodes -- the executive producers will have to invent many new story lines. In fact, if the show becomes a hit, Showtime hopes to keep it going for five more seasons.

When I first met with them, the executive producers seemed confident that there would be no pressure to tone down the graphicness of the original. "There was a stipulation at the very beginning of this project that we would not hold back -- that we would either meet or surpass what they did in the English version," said Cowen. "They said, 'Go as far as you want.' "

The director, Russell Mulcahy, told me he was disclosing that he was gay because that fact makes this project especially important to him. "I just think it's an irrelevant point most of the time," he said over lunch in the cafeteria of the Toronto school that was used as a location on the tenth day of shooting. "The only reason I mention it here is, I thought it is relevant to what I'm doing. I feel a double commitment -- not only to a good piece of film, but there's a further obligation for me as a gay man."

Mulcahy, who lives with his lover in Sydney in his native Australia, is known for the imaginative visual style of his most successful feature, Highlander, and the countless music videos he has made for Fleetwood Mac, Billy Joel, Elton John, Culture Club, and Duran Duran. "It's definitely not watered down," he continues. "It's probably pumped up." To prove the point, he gleefully described how he simulated an ejaculation on the second day of shooting, using a syringe filled with Liquid Silk, "a shampoo with the consistency and color of sperm. There was me, or the assistant director, with these hands between the legs of some actor with this big syringe."

Lipman said, "You can't do this project and not go all the way. And it isn't even in the graphicness of the sex or the language; it's in the characters too -- especially the character of Brian, who is so unapologetic, who is a gay character who has balls, who fucks, who takes drugs, who is not sick, and who doesn't need to apologize. This is a character unlike commercial gay characters, who are either eunuchs or clowns. Those are nonthreatening gay characters. To many people, Brian is a threatening gay character. That's why people have the reactions they do."

"We've talked about what it's really about, and to us it's about becoming a man," Cowen told me. "It doesn't matter if you're a gay man or a straight man -- you have a certain rite of passage. I think it's harder for gay men to become men. It's very easy to be caught as a boy. And it's almost a fight: Are you going to live or are you going to die becomes a very big question. A lot of gay men die of aids; a lot of gay men experience the death of the soul and the spirit. I think a lot of gay men fall into crystal meth and other drugs. It's very easy to die as a gay boy and not become a man."

Most people who know about the new production assumed that it would be toned down after word leaked out that Showtime had decided to age the youngest character from 15 to 17. But the producers have figured out how to have it both ways on the age issue: To fill the youngest role, they found a blond newcomer named Randy Harrison who looks about 14 even though he's about to celebrate his 23rd birthday. Harrison graduated from the University of Cincinnati Conservatory of Music last March, did a single showcase in New York, found an agent, and landed the role of a lifetime last summer. Queer As Folk is the very first time he's ever been in front of a camera, and the director is already calling him "the two-take wonder."

As a member of Generation Y, Harrison felt little hesitation about announcing that he was gay. "I knew that if I ever were to become famous, I would be myself. I've had a boyfriend for three and a half years. I'm proud of that."

Unlike the character he plays, Harrison is a stranger to the gay club scene -- he never even bothered to go to the gym until he landed this role. On the other hand, he wasn't the least bit intimidated by the sex scenes, although he did find it tedious to have to fake so many orgasms "over and over and over again." He says he's warned his parents about what to expect, but "I don't think they believe it entirely. They keep saying, 'Well, they can't show anything too bad on TV.' And I keep saying, 'It's going to surprise you.' "

Peter Paige plays Emmett, the most flamboyant member of the troop, and he also felt the need to be completely truthful about who he is. "I am a gay man," he said. "I don't mind that appearing in print. I just don't think I could do this show and then apologize for my sexuality by not stating it as fact. What I love about my character is that Emmett is the gayest of the bunch, and he's not self-loathing. Of all these people, Emmett really is the happiest with who he is. And I think that is revolutionary." Scott Lowell, another newcomer to film, declined to say whether he is gay or straight, because "I'm playing a gay character -- that's what I want people to believe. And after this, who knows what I'm going to be?!"

Hal Sparks, the former host of Talk Soup on E!, who plays Brian's best friend, Michael, and Sharon Gless, who plays Michael's mother, are the only two actors in the show who have had any significant public recognition before now.

For this job, Sparks had to accept an elaborate nudity clause, which allows the use of every part of his body on film. "Yeah, yeah," said Sparks. "But don't get all excited. This is a cutting-edge series, but there's nothing cutting-edge about my penis. It's just standard-issue African-American -- it's just a little paler than most.

"I did have trepidation," Sparks admitted about his role. "And this momentary twinge of 'Oh, my God -- what if they think I'm gay?' And I would be a liar if I said that didn't occur. But what makes you a greater person is when you feel that and you go, 'But this is for the better me. This is for the betterment of everybody around me.' "

The willingness of so many of the principals to talk so honestly is another barometer of how much the world has changed since the Stonewall riot launched the modern gay-liberation movement 31 years ago. But there's a flip side to all this courage. According to Jerry Offsay, president of programming at Showtime, practically all of the major talent agencies were scared away by the show's content. Even after Offsay offered to triple the starting salary for the actor playing Brian, there were no additional applicants for the role.

"I got on the phone with some of the big agents," Offsay remembered, "and I said, whoever this guy is, we will offer him parts playing straight characters in our other movies, so that he's not typecast as a gay man. And he will be a star. And they said, 'We understand, but it is very sexual.' " In addition, there was a long list of fashion companies, including Versace and Abercrombie & Fitch, that refused to allow their products to be shown on the show. (Tom of Finland, on the other hand, was delighted to provide a pair of orange leather pants for Emmett's character.)

"I think we all realize at this point that Hollywood as a liberal business is a myth," said Lipman. "It's extremely homophobic. From our experience on this show, I would say, far more than I ever imagined." But, he added, "the people who were brave enough, who wanted the challenge and were up to it, found it."

Sharon Gless, of Cagney & Lacey fame, is one of those actors; she loved the sсript as soon as she read it. One of Gless's best friends happens to be Carole Smith, who is Offsay's personal assistant, so Smith instantly arranged for Gless to meet with the show's producers. Gless told me, "This is definitely the biggest character I've ever played. I didn't see the original version, but I get the thrust of it, pardon the expression. The stuff that comes out of my mouth is outrageous."

Gless plays the waitress mother of Michael, the role played by Sparks. "She loves all the boys," Gless said of her character. "I see her like the den mother to all of them."

Gless's favorite line so far is when she asks the boys, " 'So what are you having?' and Emmett says, 'I'm not hungry.' And I say, 'Em, honey, you should try and eat some of your protein off the plate.' "

Gale Harold is the newcomer who plays Brian, the edgiest character in the piece, a guiltless 29-year-old who seems determined to sleep with every attractive young man in Pittsburgh -- except Michael, his best friend, who has secretly been in love with him since they were teenagers. This unrequited love is at the heart of the story. Harold, who looks like a cross between Eric Roberts and Jeff Bridges, ran a motorcycle shop in East Oakland before he started acting three years ago, at the age of 28. In person, he has a smoldering quality, which snared him the role of Brian on the final day of casting. Lipman said, "We all ran over to the casting director's office, and Gale had it all." When shooting began, he was also one of the first two actors who had to expose it all.

"The sex scenes were kind of mind-blowing," Harold told me. "There was one day of wardrobe, and then it was right to bed. And it's intense, you know, because it's going to be on television. You've got this cavalier predator having his way with a 17-year-old, who looks maybe 10, and the visual implications are unbelievable." And maybe too risky, even for a cable network whose motto is "No limits." For the producers, what will actually make it to air has suddenly become the $22 million question -- that's the amount they're spending to produce the show's first season.

When I interviewed the network's executives, I discovered that Showtime has a policy of showing only R-rated movies, and nothing rated NC-17. Even though it doesn't have to, it has sent all of its most controversial movies to the Motion Picture Association of America to be rated, and recut them slightly to avoid an NC-17 rating. I asked Jerry Offsay if that meant the British version of Queer As Folk could never be shown on his network.

"I think if I'd taken out five or ten seconds here or there, you could have got back to an R." He said it was "possible" that he would take the new Queer As Folk to the MPAA to be rated to placate cable operators who distribute Showtime. But he insisted it would still be "the sexiest, edgiest series to premiere on any network in America."

One thing that's working in favor of the creative freedom of the producers is the network's eagerness to cause a sensation. "We're going for it in every way," Showtime's CEO, Matt Blank, told me. "It's going to be hot." At a time when the competition for television viewers has never been fiercer, Showtime is doing everything it can think of to make sure its latest offering won't go unnoticed. Already this year it has co-sponsored gay-pride events in a dozen cities around the country, passing out thousands of handheld fans promoting the show and tastefully emblazoned with the words HUNG, BOTTOM, TOP, DISCO WHORE, and BAD BOY.

With this self-consciously provocative marketing campaign, Showtime, which gained attention and viewers when it aired the controversial Lolita in 1998, is hoping to do it again. "Our objective is to get a real inside buzz in the gay community," said Blank. "And then I think as we move out to the straight community, the greatest thing we have going for us is curiosity."

Blank admits the show is bound to offend both gays and straights. "There's a chance that everyone will be upset with us," he said, not sounding too displeased with the prospect. But Viacom, Showtime's corporate parent, should be used to a little controversy by now. The company's other hot-button offering this fall is the new Paramount television talk show featuring Dr. Laura.

@темы: 2000

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[RH archive]

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