everybody’s a critic.(c) BK
Randy Harrison's interview with MarkyG at "Issues Over the Rainbow". Party 93.1 radio [March 26, 2004]
слушать
читать дальше
Marky G: My guest this morning is as handsome in person as he is on television. We've watched him lose his innocence, grow up and become out and proud young man. He's now the hot guy on Showtime's Queer as Folk Randy Harrison, he plays Justin, glad you're here.
Randy: Hello.
MG: You've got so many fans, people love you, and you've given a sense of pride to so many young people that yes, you can come out and become something 'cause you do, you were always involved in something.
Randy: Yeah it's odd though. I mean it's Justin who did it, it's not me. It's the character who's moved people and really affected people's lives and, you know, it's an honor to play him in that people sort of associate me with that, because he's changed a lot of people's lives.
MG: Yeah, and I guess I should be kind of careful to not cross that line because I know that Randy and Justin are very different people..
Randy: Yeah but, you know, people always-- I've been playing this character for four years. I've been in people's homes being Justin for four years, so it's hard for people, it's normal for people not to really differentiate.
MG: Well let's first talk a little about Justin.
Randy: Yeah.
MG: Let's talk about his maturation as a character. He burst onto the scene in season one as this kid like, okay I guess I'm gay, I'm having these feelings, I'm going to go down to the gay part of Pittsburgh..is that an oxymoron or..? *laughs*
Randy: I think there is like one, one, one street; maybe one, there's like one gay bar.
MG: Right exactly, it certainly isn't what we see on Queer as Folk but we love that street, we love that street. So you're standing out there and you run into the infamous Brian Kinney.
Randy: Right.
MG: And the two of you kind of, he's your first hook-up.
Randy: Yeah, he was.
MG: That whole thing, that was a major experience. Talk about first love, I mean maybe you can even mix a little about your own personal life and maybe the life of Justin, how it is to meet that first guy.
Randy: Yeah, my own personal story is nothing like Justin's, but I mean, I think for Justin, at that time, he represented so much. He sort of.. Justin was able to project a fantasy of what he needed this person to be, and Brian is so withholding that, you know, he never had to be proven wrong by a real personality exerting itself, at least at the beginning of their sexual relationship. So it's really convenient for him, and powerful.
MG: Yeah but he knew what he wanted, and he kept going after him.
Randy: Yeah he knew what he wanted, but he didn't even know what Brian was. It was childish, really.
MG: Did it ever bother you that they had kind of set you up with a character that was considerably older than you, and...
Randy: No, no, no.
MG: I guess with playing with Gale, I mean how much could that really bother you, right? Whether it's an actor or as a person.
Randy: Right, no, it never bothered me, but I actually wanted, 'cause Justin in the British series was fifteen, and I wanted to play fifteen. I thought he, Justin should be fifteen at the beginning, but they thought it would be too controversial, I guess.
MG: A lot of people would be astounded to know you're nowhere near seventeen.
Randy: No, never was.
MG: *laughs* You're consider, I what.. how old are you today?
Randy: I'm twenty-six.
MG: Twenty-six. So it was about, you were twenty-five, I guess, twenty-four, twenty-three when you..
Randy: I was twenty-two when we started.
MG: Wow.
Randy: Yeah.
MG: Okay so the two characters meet, and they form this really great relationship that's full of all kinds of problems and...
Randy: It's highly dysfunctional
MG: manipulation
Randy: I mean it's not the greatest thing in the world
MG: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I guess I should even rephrase it, it is. It's highly dysfunctional
Randy: Yeah.
MG: on your part. You're a schoolboy
Randy: Right.
MG: in high school, you're dealing with all kinds of emotions. And that's something I want to talk about, because a lot of the listeners that are out there today are our younger listeners
Randy: Right.
MG: They're going to high school, they have to deal with the same thing you did, getting beaten up or harassed in school from that fellow classmate, etcetera.
Randy: Right.
MG: What do you say to young people who are going to high school today and dealing with this whole whether to come out or not issue?
Randy: You know what, for me, it was things like this, it was things like this show, it was things like books and music and movies and, I mean, what this show must be that helped comfort me and helped me get through, know that, you know, always know there is a community out there for you. There are people who accept you. You need to try to be strong. It's hard, I feel silly lecturing people, I mean everybody has to go through a different path to figure out how to do it, you know, if they need to get out. It's always really personal.
MG: It's so hard though, when you have to hold those emotions in and you don't allow yourself to be who you are because you're afraid of the outside peer pressure.
Randy: Right. Yeah, yeah, I can't imagine.
MG: Justin is a perfect example. He said, "Screw it, I'm..this is who I am"
Randy: Yeah, he's such a.. I mean I love that about him, and I had a similar experience. It's hard for me to relate just..I couldn't deal with it. I couldn't allow myself to live like that for very long, and you know, was out really early, and was always, found a community where I felt like I could be myself.
MG: We talked a little earlier in another segment about the prom that night. Let's go to Justin for a second, if you can put yourself into Justin's shoes for a minute.
Randy: Okay...
MG: Okay? That prom was so emotional, so beautiful to watch two men, two guys, a young guy go to his prom and be with his significant other, openly, brazingly, emphatically, I could come up with a million other words to describe it, but it was beautiful.
Randy: That's great.
MG: What did you feel when you were doing it? As Justin?
Randy: Justin fe..*laughs* Justin felt, I.... God *laughs again*
MG: I mean come on, you had to have some emotion at the same time, even though it's Randy.
Randy: I mean.
MG: playing Justin.
Randy: It was just, I mean, I was trying to play that Justin was happy his boyfriend was there, you know? He was able to dance with his boyfriend. I don't feel like, at the time, for Justin, he was trying to make a statement. He just wanted to be able to dance with his boyfriend. He wanted him to be there too. Also, you know, that entire season, Brian is completely withholding from Justin, never gives him even an inch, as far as comforting him or making him feel like he's loved, or even respected by him. So, I think a lot of the reason it was so powerful was that it was really the first time that Brian gave Justin any indication that he cared about him in even the slightest way.
MG: And of course we know that Brian had to deal with some really heavy emotions when Justin got gay bashed--
Randy: Right.
MG: Talk about that a minute, and how that felt to have to play a character that, just because he was who he was, right after the gay prom, the most beautiful night in Justin's life, he gets bashed over the head simply because he's gay.
Randy: Right. I mean playing that scene was really easy for me but really hard for Gale, because I mean, I just had to get knocked over the head *laughs*
MG: Yeah.
Randy: And Justin never knew what happened, so I never even had to play that that happened really, I just needed to know when the fake bat was gonna hit me and how fast I had to fall. *laughs*
MG: Well I will say that from my standpoint, in all four seasons, the best acting I saw on the show was his portrayal of emotion, to you.
Randy: Yeah, he's....
MG: When, I mean oh my god, he really, really hit it.
Randy: Gale's fantastic, yeah.
MG: Randy and Justin are very different in life. I know that you embrace yourself as an individual, not necessarily gay or straight. That's important to you, at least from what I've read.
Randy: Oh really?
MG: Oh I'm it's not true?
Randy: No, I mean I say I'm gay, but it gets tedious talking about labels all the time.
MG: Yeah, and I think that's my point
Randy: Yeah, yeah
MG: You want to be recognized as a person, not gay not straight, just...
Randy: It would be nice if someday that was how it was, but it certainly isn't now.
MG: What's your dream? What would you like as a dream? How would you like this world to be?
Randy: *laughs* I couldn't begin to answer that question...
MG: No?
Randy: No!
MG: I mean would you like it to be where everybody's equal? I-- I mean I guess I'm even self-prophecizing but does it get difficult sometime knowing that you're a gay man playing a gay icon in a film like Queer as Folk?
Randy: You know, the only thing that I get frustrated with is if people know I'm gay, the presumptions people have of what I'm going to be, and especially because I'm in Queer as Folk, and Queer as Folk represents ultimately a really small subset of the gay community. So they have a tiny, narrow expectation of what I'm going to be as a human being, you know, and it frustrates me because I have no shame of being gay, but the second I say I'm gay, people expect me to be this very specific thing that I'm not. So I feel like I'm always having to prove people wrong and say, you know, "No, just because I'm that doesn't mean that I'm this, this, this, and this and, you know, it doesn't mean I know what color you should paint your wall." I mean people assume that we're stereotypes and..
MG: Right, right
Randy: I feel like a lot of we're portraying is just making those stereotypes harder and more solidified and confirming a lot of people's worst beliefs about us.
MG: What would people be surprised to learn about Randy Harrison that they might think they know, but he's nothing like that? He's even blushing a little bit here.
Randy: No, no *laughs* I'm just trying to think. I don't know. People always think I listen to club music because Queer as Folk's a clubby show. That's the main one that always happens. I mean people just assume I'm a Justin, so anything that I'm not that Justin is is something that people have wrong about me.
MG: Okay anything you wanna share with us on what's gonna happen this year, just a little tidbit.
Randy: It's a good one. It's a good season, you guys are gonna like it.
MG: Little tidbit, little tidbit.
Randy: There's a lot. Justin has a lot of moves forward career-wise in a way that changes his relationships with the people in the show. Also, a..a really good friend of his gets bashed at the beginning of the season, which brings back a lot of, uh, issues, unresolved issues he had about his own bashing, and there's a lot of drama.
MG: Okay well you can watch Randy Harrison as the very charming, sexy Justin on Queer as Folk. Okay thanks Randy, pleasure having you here.
Randy: Thank you very much, thank you.
перевод qafcollection.diary.ru/p182493110.htm
слушать
читать дальше
Marky G: My guest this morning is as handsome in person as he is on television. We've watched him lose his innocence, grow up and become out and proud young man. He's now the hot guy on Showtime's Queer as Folk Randy Harrison, he plays Justin, glad you're here.
Randy: Hello.
MG: You've got so many fans, people love you, and you've given a sense of pride to so many young people that yes, you can come out and become something 'cause you do, you were always involved in something.
Randy: Yeah it's odd though. I mean it's Justin who did it, it's not me. It's the character who's moved people and really affected people's lives and, you know, it's an honor to play him in that people sort of associate me with that, because he's changed a lot of people's lives.
MG: Yeah, and I guess I should be kind of careful to not cross that line because I know that Randy and Justin are very different people..
Randy: Yeah but, you know, people always-- I've been playing this character for four years. I've been in people's homes being Justin for four years, so it's hard for people, it's normal for people not to really differentiate.
MG: Well let's first talk a little about Justin.
Randy: Yeah.
MG: Let's talk about his maturation as a character. He burst onto the scene in season one as this kid like, okay I guess I'm gay, I'm having these feelings, I'm going to go down to the gay part of Pittsburgh..is that an oxymoron or..? *laughs*
Randy: I think there is like one, one, one street; maybe one, there's like one gay bar.
MG: Right exactly, it certainly isn't what we see on Queer as Folk but we love that street, we love that street. So you're standing out there and you run into the infamous Brian Kinney.
Randy: Right.
MG: And the two of you kind of, he's your first hook-up.
Randy: Yeah, he was.
MG: That whole thing, that was a major experience. Talk about first love, I mean maybe you can even mix a little about your own personal life and maybe the life of Justin, how it is to meet that first guy.
Randy: Yeah, my own personal story is nothing like Justin's, but I mean, I think for Justin, at that time, he represented so much. He sort of.. Justin was able to project a fantasy of what he needed this person to be, and Brian is so withholding that, you know, he never had to be proven wrong by a real personality exerting itself, at least at the beginning of their sexual relationship. So it's really convenient for him, and powerful.
MG: Yeah but he knew what he wanted, and he kept going after him.
Randy: Yeah he knew what he wanted, but he didn't even know what Brian was. It was childish, really.
MG: Did it ever bother you that they had kind of set you up with a character that was considerably older than you, and...
Randy: No, no, no.
MG: I guess with playing with Gale, I mean how much could that really bother you, right? Whether it's an actor or as a person.
Randy: Right, no, it never bothered me, but I actually wanted, 'cause Justin in the British series was fifteen, and I wanted to play fifteen. I thought he, Justin should be fifteen at the beginning, but they thought it would be too controversial, I guess.
MG: A lot of people would be astounded to know you're nowhere near seventeen.
Randy: No, never was.
MG: *laughs* You're consider, I what.. how old are you today?
Randy: I'm twenty-six.
MG: Twenty-six. So it was about, you were twenty-five, I guess, twenty-four, twenty-three when you..
Randy: I was twenty-two when we started.
MG: Wow.
Randy: Yeah.
MG: Okay so the two characters meet, and they form this really great relationship that's full of all kinds of problems and...
Randy: It's highly dysfunctional
MG: manipulation
Randy: I mean it's not the greatest thing in the world
MG: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I guess I should even rephrase it, it is. It's highly dysfunctional
Randy: Yeah.
MG: on your part. You're a schoolboy
Randy: Right.
MG: in high school, you're dealing with all kinds of emotions. And that's something I want to talk about, because a lot of the listeners that are out there today are our younger listeners
Randy: Right.
MG: They're going to high school, they have to deal with the same thing you did, getting beaten up or harassed in school from that fellow classmate, etcetera.
Randy: Right.
MG: What do you say to young people who are going to high school today and dealing with this whole whether to come out or not issue?
Randy: You know what, for me, it was things like this, it was things like this show, it was things like books and music and movies and, I mean, what this show must be that helped comfort me and helped me get through, know that, you know, always know there is a community out there for you. There are people who accept you. You need to try to be strong. It's hard, I feel silly lecturing people, I mean everybody has to go through a different path to figure out how to do it, you know, if they need to get out. It's always really personal.
MG: It's so hard though, when you have to hold those emotions in and you don't allow yourself to be who you are because you're afraid of the outside peer pressure.
Randy: Right. Yeah, yeah, I can't imagine.
MG: Justin is a perfect example. He said, "Screw it, I'm..this is who I am"
Randy: Yeah, he's such a.. I mean I love that about him, and I had a similar experience. It's hard for me to relate just..I couldn't deal with it. I couldn't allow myself to live like that for very long, and you know, was out really early, and was always, found a community where I felt like I could be myself.
MG: We talked a little earlier in another segment about the prom that night. Let's go to Justin for a second, if you can put yourself into Justin's shoes for a minute.
Randy: Okay...
MG: Okay? That prom was so emotional, so beautiful to watch two men, two guys, a young guy go to his prom and be with his significant other, openly, brazingly, emphatically, I could come up with a million other words to describe it, but it was beautiful.
Randy: That's great.
MG: What did you feel when you were doing it? As Justin?
Randy: Justin fe..*laughs* Justin felt, I.... God *laughs again*
MG: I mean come on, you had to have some emotion at the same time, even though it's Randy.
Randy: I mean.
MG: playing Justin.
Randy: It was just, I mean, I was trying to play that Justin was happy his boyfriend was there, you know? He was able to dance with his boyfriend. I don't feel like, at the time, for Justin, he was trying to make a statement. He just wanted to be able to dance with his boyfriend. He wanted him to be there too. Also, you know, that entire season, Brian is completely withholding from Justin, never gives him even an inch, as far as comforting him or making him feel like he's loved, or even respected by him. So, I think a lot of the reason it was so powerful was that it was really the first time that Brian gave Justin any indication that he cared about him in even the slightest way.
MG: And of course we know that Brian had to deal with some really heavy emotions when Justin got gay bashed--
Randy: Right.
MG: Talk about that a minute, and how that felt to have to play a character that, just because he was who he was, right after the gay prom, the most beautiful night in Justin's life, he gets bashed over the head simply because he's gay.
Randy: Right. I mean playing that scene was really easy for me but really hard for Gale, because I mean, I just had to get knocked over the head *laughs*
MG: Yeah.
Randy: And Justin never knew what happened, so I never even had to play that that happened really, I just needed to know when the fake bat was gonna hit me and how fast I had to fall. *laughs*
MG: Well I will say that from my standpoint, in all four seasons, the best acting I saw on the show was his portrayal of emotion, to you.
Randy: Yeah, he's....
MG: When, I mean oh my god, he really, really hit it.
Randy: Gale's fantastic, yeah.
MG: Randy and Justin are very different in life. I know that you embrace yourself as an individual, not necessarily gay or straight. That's important to you, at least from what I've read.
Randy: Oh really?
MG: Oh I'm it's not true?
Randy: No, I mean I say I'm gay, but it gets tedious talking about labels all the time.
MG: Yeah, and I think that's my point
Randy: Yeah, yeah
MG: You want to be recognized as a person, not gay not straight, just...
Randy: It would be nice if someday that was how it was, but it certainly isn't now.
MG: What's your dream? What would you like as a dream? How would you like this world to be?
Randy: *laughs* I couldn't begin to answer that question...
MG: No?
Randy: No!
MG: I mean would you like it to be where everybody's equal? I-- I mean I guess I'm even self-prophecizing but does it get difficult sometime knowing that you're a gay man playing a gay icon in a film like Queer as Folk?
Randy: You know, the only thing that I get frustrated with is if people know I'm gay, the presumptions people have of what I'm going to be, and especially because I'm in Queer as Folk, and Queer as Folk represents ultimately a really small subset of the gay community. So they have a tiny, narrow expectation of what I'm going to be as a human being, you know, and it frustrates me because I have no shame of being gay, but the second I say I'm gay, people expect me to be this very specific thing that I'm not. So I feel like I'm always having to prove people wrong and say, you know, "No, just because I'm that doesn't mean that I'm this, this, this, and this and, you know, it doesn't mean I know what color you should paint your wall." I mean people assume that we're stereotypes and..
MG: Right, right
Randy: I feel like a lot of we're portraying is just making those stereotypes harder and more solidified and confirming a lot of people's worst beliefs about us.
MG: What would people be surprised to learn about Randy Harrison that they might think they know, but he's nothing like that? He's even blushing a little bit here.
Randy: No, no *laughs* I'm just trying to think. I don't know. People always think I listen to club music because Queer as Folk's a clubby show. That's the main one that always happens. I mean people just assume I'm a Justin, so anything that I'm not that Justin is is something that people have wrong about me.
MG: Okay anything you wanna share with us on what's gonna happen this year, just a little tidbit.
Randy: It's a good one. It's a good season, you guys are gonna like it.
MG: Little tidbit, little tidbit.
Randy: There's a lot. Justin has a lot of moves forward career-wise in a way that changes his relationships with the people in the show. Also, a..a really good friend of his gets bashed at the beginning of the season, which brings back a lot of, uh, issues, unresolved issues he had about his own bashing, and there's a lot of drama.
MG: Okay well you can watch Randy Harrison as the very charming, sexy Justin on Queer as Folk. Okay thanks Randy, pleasure having you here.
Randy: Thank you very much, thank you.
перевод qafcollection.diary.ru/p182493110.htm
@темы: 2004
-
-
21.02.2012 в 18:41