'Show has fans from queer and far' (October 2004)

[RHintervews]

Show has fans from queer and far
Posted by Eleanor Sprawson; Sydney Daily Telegraph; October 27, 2004.

Randy Harrison will always have Paris, but it will never be particularly Parisien. The American star of SBS’s cult hit, Queer as Folk, went to the French capital recently seeking his fix of culture and cafes – and instead found Australians.

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Everywhere.

He says he’ll now always associate the city with the Australian viewers who gave him his very first ever taste of being mobbed.

“No Europeans came up to me but tonnes of Australians came up,” says the 26-year-old who plays Justin Taylor on the show, which returns for its fourth series on Monday.

“It was crazy. I mean, it is popular here in the States but it’s on one of the smaller cable networks so the audience is pretty small. But it seems to be huge in Australia. It’s Australians who come up to me even here in the State, more than Americans.”

While the series which follows the lives and loves of a group of gay friends living in Pittsbugh started off on SBS with a largely gay audience, viewership has broadened as more and more viewers find themselves addicted to an adult drama with a sense of humour.

“It’s huge with middle-aged women in Australia, which is the case here too. I think they relate to Debbie,” he says. Played by Sharon Gless, who is best known for her role as Cagney in Cagney and Lacey, Justin’s waitress mother, Debbie, has been getting more and more storylines as the show goes beyond its initial in-your-face celebration of gay culture.

Harrison says that all the actors have been relishing the show more and more now that it has moved beyond its flag-waving.

“The controversy surrounding the sexuality and all of that was definitely there at the beginning but that’s died down, which is comforting,” he says. “Having said that, the focus of so much of the fourth season are things that have very much to do with gay politics in the States, that’s definitely the spine of the show. In fact they’re having trouble writing it fast enough because as they’re writing things are happening and laws are changing.

“So, you know, no matter how fast we go it’s probably going to be a little outdated by the time it airs.”