queer-as-folk.it


Gale force wins

June-July 2001

by: Eric Andersson
Source: metrosource.com
Photos: Paul Aresu
Edited: Marcy
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Queer as Folk's bad boy, Gale Harold, talks to MetroSource about Sex, Success, and his summer job. Brian Kinney is an asshole. After watching nearly a full season of Queer As Folk, I've seen enough to know that, after watching the first episode, I'd seen enough to know that.

I was there when he tossed Justin aside time after time. I was there when he reneged on his agreement to let Melanie have custody of Gus. I was there when he ruined Michael's birthday party. And now, he's sitting across the table from me.

Part of me expects him to stare for a moment, roll his eyes, say something deadpan and blow me off, a la Queer as Folk. But I'm quickly aware that it's Gale Harold, not Brian Kinney, with whom I'm talking. And Harold couldn't be any more different than Kinney, the character he plays on Showtime's hit series about a group of gay friends in Pittsburgh. He's friendly, warm and light-hearted, if not a bit haggard due to his hectic schedule.

Since taping for queer as folk ended in March, Harold has been in New York preparing for his Off-Broadway debut in Austin Pendleton's controversial dark comedy Uncle Bob, which had a month-long run at the SoHo Playhouse in New York, this past May. Harold had his first read-through with co-star George Morfogen, of HBO's OZ, on March 27, and hasn't had much rest since.

That doesn't mean he's not enjoying himself. "It's like sobering up after being on a long, Quaalude hangover," Harold says of being back on stage. "Not to say working on [QAF] isn't amazing -- 'cause it is. But it's a totally different state of mind and feeling."

Harold plays Josh, Uncle Bob's troubled, irresponsible twenty-something nephew who shows up, uninvited, at Bob's apartment during the last days of Bob's fight against AIDS. Harold enjoys the role because the character is so different from Brian, a calculating stoic who thrives on manipulation and exploitation. "[Josh] has never had any kind of meaningful relationship on any level with anyone except his uncle, but in a protracted, psychological imagined way, " he says of his character. "Even though he's full of all this energy and this feeling, he's really naive at the same time."

Harold, who began acting late in 1996, is no stranger to theatre. He grew up in Atlanta in the '70s, attended American University and dropped out after one year to study fine art at the San Francisco Art Institute. There, he discovered an interest in acting. "I fucked around with performance art, but I never really broke through in any way or felt like it was happening," he says.

When he moved to Los Angeles in 1997, he delved into it. Before getting the role of Brian Kinney last year, Harold starred in such productions as Me and My Friend at the Los Angeles Theatre Center, The Misanthrope and Cymbeline. In fact, it's the television show, not the stage, that's the new experience.

And getting into television brought its own set of complications for Harold, who is, for the first time, dealing with being a celebrity. Much speculation has arisen around Harold's sexual orientation, especially since he previously avoided the topic in interviews, unlike his co-stars. (Randy Harrison, who plays Justin, and Pater Paige, who plays Emmet, are both openly gay.) But the verdict's in, and he's bound to disappoint Folk watchers everywhere. "I'm straight," Harold says unequivocally. "And the reason that I haven't talked about it is because of the show and the way they were promoting it."

Harold is speaking of the extensive, country-wide ad campaign that began over six months before Folk even aired and which became more intense in the weeks before the show premiered in December. "My idea was to keep everything focused on the characters. I wanted [Brian] to have a chance. And I knew for him to have a chance he would have to be as much that character as completely as possible." So he opted to avoid discussion of his sexual orientation, which he now considers a dicey move, but is happy he did it.

Not only Harold, but everyone involved in QAF, has come under fire from critics and the public for the show's graphic depiction of the lives of gay men and lesbians in modern-day Pittsburgh. One of the harshest reviews came from the LA Times, which summed up the show as "relentless cruising and graphically simulated sex, at the expense of character depth, in an assembly line of orgasms." Ouch.

Harold vehemently disagrees that the show is just about sex. "I don't think that there's any exploitation going on because the characters are complete. They all have relationships, not only with their sexual partners but they have meaningful relationships with friends and family members," he explains. "If you take any slice of society and you go in and close up on it, depending on what day and what time of day, you may zoom in on two people fucking. Or you may zoom in on two people sitting around the table eating dinner."

And many times, QAF does happen to zoom in on two people fucking. And it's hard to deny that those sex scenes aren't graphic. But Harold's biggest concern is not getting naked with another man, but making the scenes look real, both mechanically and emotionally. "But in some of those scenes, there's obviously no emotional content at all," he laughs, "so it doesn't matter."

Playing a gay man, even a gay man who has explicit sex frequently, doesn't bother Harold at all. "there are real similarities to playing any other kind of scene," he says of his many steamy on- screen moments. Even when people think he's gay and call him "Brian" off the set, Harold finds the humor in it. He recalls one of the cast's public appearances at a business expo. "There were hundreds of people screaming Brian!" he laughs. "But that doesn't surprise me. I was prepared for that."

All in all, though, Harold shrugs off complaints that the show is too sexual or paints the gay community in a bad light. "I've heard from a lot of people that have said this how has changed their mind for the positive, has opened them to becoming closer and to becoming more understanding [of gays and lesbians]," he says. And for those who are still complaining, "Don't get hung up on the fact that you're watching something that's entertainment, 'cause if you're not being entertained, then turn it off and watch something else."

Regardless of what anyone says (many have praised the show, too), Showtime picked up QAF for a second season. So expect to see Brian, Justin, Michael and the gang back this fall. Filming resumes in July; that is, if the impending writer's union strike is resolved by then. And, unlike Brian Kinney would, Harold lights up at the thought of being reunited with his new friends. "I wasn't expecting this whole new family all of a sudden," he says of his QAF co-stars. "I'm already starting to look forward to going back."