GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

AUGUST 18, 1995

Evenings Out

Jeffrey actors take a shine to playing gay

by Dale Reynolds

There should be no actual surprise in the fact that non-gay actors are willing to play gay characters. We gays are, of course, a fascinating breed of sub-culture, with excellent taste in clothes, houses, jewelry, and mates. And who wouldn't want to

Steven Weber

look fabulous on the big screen?

Of course, gay actors should by rights be playing these roles, but generally they aren't offered to them. Due to the pervasive homophobia which still lingers in Hollywoodespecially from gay and lesbian producers, casting directors, and network executivesgay performers will regularly turn these roles down when they are offered. So, the producers and director and writer of Jeffrey made the only logical choice left when they couldn't find gay stars willing to play gay on screen: they cast the best actors they could find.

Enter comedic Steven Weber and hunky Michael T. Weiss. The two join co-stars Patrick Stewart, Kathy Najimy, Sigourney Weaver, Olympia Dukakis, Robert Klein, and other stalwart performers, most of them shining in small roles. Weber and Weiss, both in their early 30s, put their imprimatur on the two gay leads who make Paul Rudnick's hip and funny paean to gay romance in the '90s such a lively and rollicking trip.

Both actors, in separate press interviews, displayed one of the main reasons the nonartistic should know (biblically or otherwise) the artistically-inclined: their liberal attitude about politics in general and gay sex specifically. Both are avowed heterosexuals, although Weber did confess, in a slightly confusing statement, "I am not a virgin!"

Weber, the more obviously comic of the duo, is a regular on the television sitcom Wings, as well as a veteran of a dozen years in theatre (Death of a Salesman last year,

playing Biff to Hal Holbrook's Willy Loman), television, and film (Bridget Fonda's murdered boyfriend in the scary Single White Female).

Both stars were cast late in the game after Sigourney Weaver was added to the project— with bigger names signed on, the producers

could afford to go with the relatively unknown leads. The choices were superb, as it turns out, as both men can actually act and were willing to totally commit to playing the central love interests.

Weber tries to convince his listeners that he got the role because they couldn't land Micky Rourke or Leonardo Di Caprio: "I combine Rourke's sensitivity and Leo's tough-guy image. But hell, it was a lead, and a plus in that it was written by nny, sensitive writer, and was an interesting, cool subject. Lucky me."

The 6'4", lightly muscular Weiss also felt he couldn't say no to such a challenge. "For me, it's a movie about love. Not necessarily did I think, 'Oh, this is a gay character.' Instead, I was playing a man who was in love with another person, and that I've done many times. This time, the love interest was just a little furrier than most." Because of the strength of his work and the visibility he's earned in this film, his acting career has begun to soar.

The mood on the set was clearly upbeateveryone seemed to understand that they were involved with an important film project. Weiss certainly thought it was a breakthrough film. "I hope it helps in getting people off the 'politically correct' bandwagon. We've done all that and it's boring. Humanity has a wonderful spectrum of colors and doesn't just happen to be about ships getting blown up in the sea. There are many small stories that people tell that are exciting to see."

Weiss also seemed slightly offended when he was asked why an actor would accept a gay role when homophobia still infects the nation so. His response echos so much of the thinking of today's young actors: "Tom Hanks won an Oscar playing a gay man and so did William Hurt. Why shouldn't I play one? I'm asked if I think it's 'brave' of me: Why didn't you ask me that when I played a rapist last year [in Malibu Road 2000]? Besides, this is a pretty calm film [in its] sexuality-it could be PG-13 for all its 'naughtiness'."

Weber's response was similar: "I'm not afraid of the adverse opinion of people I might not like anyway. As for their homophobia affecting my career, I'm an actor, for Christ's sake."

Both men professed to zero hassles when it came to doing The Big Kiss. Apparently, most screen kisses are a chore rather than a

turn-on, and Weber acknowledged that kissing Weiss wasn't bad—it was, in fact, fine. "Screen kisses in general have a kind of limited enjoyment in that there's very little chance to be aroused or to get off in any sense, with 40 technicians, some with their pants drooping down allowing the crack of their asses to show, leaning against the lights. But I have lips and kissing comes easy."

Weiss had a similar time with it. "We got it out of the way early at the first rehearsal. It was nothing dramatic-we just did it; threw ourselves into it. I've kissed many women in my screen career, and not all of them did I have a real passion. Steven and I obviously didn't feel any real passion for each other, but you had to feel that this was the bee's knees, the cat's meow, this was the hottest thing going and as an actor I had to play it effectively, with 100 percent of my being, otherwise no one [in the script] would want to sleep with me.'

Weber admitted that he did start out with some fear, a "residual homophobia which I learned as a white, heterosexual male raised in this society where that kind of stuff was pervasive. I just made that little leap. Frankly, I was surprised and pleased that playing a gay man came without much difficulty." But of course the entire shoot was clearly given a boon by having a quiet, amusing, and out gay director helming it.

Weber comes from a showbiz family: his father and grandfather managed comedians in the borscht-belt of upstate New York. "I come from a funny background, as a comic, and an actor, and I tried for a while to banter with [writer Paul] Rudnick, but I shut up quickly. Paul is a bona fide wit and an analogy would be getting on the [tennis] court and bouncing a few off Ivan Lendl. 'Oh, there it goes, out of the court!' It was useless. I guess it was best in that we were all allowed to say his dialogue and hang out with him. He's extremely accessible and, in a way, funnier than the film itself-he has no constraints: he's dirty, he can be sweet, a riot, solid laughs."

Neither actor did much basic research into homosexuality, feeling that working showbiz circles

in

and having sus-

tained careers around gay men was training enough. Weber joked that although he did affect the classic gay walk, and, like Jeffrey himself, has had 5,000 sexual partners ("I'm still de-crabbing myself nightly with gasoline!"), he essentially didn't feel the character was different from himself in any way. When asked if he remembered his first gay film, he quickly replied, “You mean

Power Tool? Naw, seriously, it was That Certain Summer [1972, with Hal Holbrook and Martin Sheen]-I found it compelling and I wasn't afraid of it."

Weiss acknowledges having friends who are HIV positive. "This is a simple love story, complicated by the fact that one of the partners is infected. But what I've learned from playing Steven is that life is short, regardless of your HIV, or cancer, or overall health status. I'm a healthy guy, and I never consider my mortality before. But this movie made me realize that if you have a chance to go for love, whether it's to a goldfish, or a barnyard animal-oh, God, now I'm going to have PETA and all the animal rights activists after me or any human, you have to go for it. Steven's operating with a time bomb ticking in his head-and it changed my perspective on my life and my choices as an artist. Life's short and you can't make your decisions based on what the masses think."

He also has strong opinions on Steven as a strapping, athletic guy who's been living with his HIV status for five years. "The media has given the message that PWAs only sit around in wheelchairs, and I think that's a false image to put out there—you can live 20 years with HIV without symptoms. Paul's written a poignant, wonderful script. The great thing about this movie is that there's such solid humor connected to dying and disease. You can't be maudlin about your lives-you want to get on with it and get all

you can out of life. That's

Michael T. Weiss

what the message is for me.”

Weber married MTV reporter Juliette Hohmal just before the film's opening in Los Angeles and New York, forcing him to put up with the jibes that it had been arranged just to protect his straight image. "I'm not marrying her in order to pull off a Hugh Grant publicity -for that, I'll just felch a chicken.”✔

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