Sharon Gless Reflects on “Queer As Folk” and… a Reunion Soon

There was never anything like it and there will never be.

Those are the words of actress  Sharon Gless talking about the gone-but-not-forgotten series,  Queer As Folk, the US take on the British hit series which ran on Showtime from December 2000- August 2005.

And while the actors from the show have been busy in multiple projects –   Peter Paige  (Emmett) is Exec Producing the  ABC Family series,  The Fosters,  Gale   Harold  (Brian)  has been acting in series like  Defiance  and  The SecretCircle  and  Randy Harrison (Justin) has concentrated mostly onstage though he appears with  Michael Urie in   Such Good  People, which is currently on the film festival circuit – is there a chance we could see them, along with co-stars  Hal Sparks, Scott Lowell, Thea Gill, Michelle Clunie and, of course, multi Emmy-winner   Sharon Gless, reprise their roles?

According to Gless, who talked to TheBacklot  last week, the answer is yes.

The actress has had a string of long-running series in her career including  Switch  (1975-78),  Cagney & Lacey  (1982-88) and  Burn Notice  (2007-13), but it’s clear in talking to her that QAF  is still very near and dear to her heart as she recounted taking the role when her managers told her not to, her favorite storylines, how the show helped teach her about the gay community and, yes, whether we’ll see the  QAF  characters come back to life again in the near future.

Before the show started and you were in the cast, did anybody ever say you shouldn’t do cable since cable back then was considered inferior to network TV?

Sharon Gless: Well actually, I was in Chicago doing a play that someone had written for me, and while I was there somebody sneaked a script to me under the table, a script called  Queer As Folk…I read it and I picked up the phone and called Showtime. And a friend of mine, Barney’s [Rosenzweig, Gless's husband] assistant for many years, was an assistant to Jerry Offsay, the head of Showtime. Jerry was the man who was courageous enough to put   Queer as Folk  on television. I don’t know if Showtime was the first one approached, but Jerry was the one who had the courage to do it.

So I called up Jerry’s office because Carole Smith, who was Barney’s assistant, was now Jerry’s assistant. I called her and I said, ‘Have you cast   Queer as Folk?’ And she said, ‘No, we didn’t cast anybody but you don’t want to do that, Sharon. There’s no money and it’s in Canada.’ And I said, ‘yes I do.’ So Jerry was told I wanted to do it and he called me and said, ‘you know, I like the idea. I think you’ll add a little class to the project.’ I said to Jerry, ‘class in not what I had in mind.’ And they flew me out to Los Angeles from Chicago to meet Ron Cowen and Dan Lipman, the men who created the show, and I got the job. Once I read that script I couldn’t understand anybody not wanting to do that show.

What was it about Debbie that you connected with when you first read that script?

Sharon Gless: Having read her for the first time I just thought she was outrageous. I just loved the script. And when I went to meet Ron and Dan, I said ‘I know that people write the scripts to get the money, to get the backing for it, but they don’t shoot it. I mean, come on, you’re not going to put that on TV.’ I said, ‘are you going to shoot what I just read?’ They said, ‘every frame.’ I said, ‘well, then, send me in Coach. I want to be part of this. I smell trouble and I love trouble!’

There was no trouble. The night we opened on television, on Showtime, was the night of the Bush/Gore election in Florida. Remember that scandal that night? Well, nobody would pay any attention. I mean all the religious right didn’t pay any attention to [us]. So we just sort of elegantly slid in and they forgot to be upset about it. I was disappointed because I thought we’d be in big trouble about it. And it just became a very, very popular show. If we’d all known it was going to be such a hit we all would have bought property in Toronto.

One thing I always liked is that Debbie wasn’t just Michael’s mother. You had your own stories and you had romance and you had the storyline with your brother on the show. They really gave you a lot to do on the show.

Sharon Gless:  They did, and it wasn’t originally written that way. But when I said ‘I’d really love to do it’ and I got the part, then they started writing for Debbie. And they were wonderful. Ron and Dan kept developing this character. She wasn’t that big a role in the British version from what I understand. Ron and Dan asked that I not look at the British version. ‘Yeah, all right.’ They said, ‘well, we know what an Anglophile you are’ and I do, I love the British. They were afraid that I would want to copy what they did with the character. And they said, ‘we don’t want you to copy it. We want you to just do your thing.’ I think they were right.

Did being a part of the show change your opinion at all about gay people and relationships at all?

Sharon Gless:  What it did was educate me. I was always involved with the gay community. This will sound like such a cliché, but some of my best friends are gay. But I learned so much. There was a lot of the heartache and the problems that the gay community is up against. I didn’t totally grasp what was going on and as I did the show over the years that was probably the best thing I took out of it is everything I learned and that’s what made me active more in the gay community because I get it. I’m not gay. I didn’t have to go through the heartache but I had friends who I loved very, very much. So now I go out and I fight for gay marriage and I fight for equality. But I thought I knew everything. I didn’t. I didn’t know anything. I just thought that gay men make the best girlfriends. [ laughs]

Well, we do! [ laughs]  Was there a particular storyline of Debbie’s that stands out to you more or differently than the other ones did?

Sharon Gless:  Gosh, I’m trying to think now. Each boy had their own story and she was always a part of it because she was a mother to all of them. But for Debbie’s personal story, I loved the transition that they wrote for her where she hated that cop (Carl, played by Peter MacNeill). She hated him. He was a homophobic cop and I loved the sexuality that they wrote for her.

Every boy on the show and the two girls, they were always called into the producer’s office every week, I don’t know if you knew this, with the cinematographer present and Ron and Dan present. And the actors were allowed to say what they were uncomfortable about, how there would be scenes that would be shot nude but they would be protected. And it was always done to the courtesy of the actors, to be comfortable. You didn’t pull any punches on that show.

Well, when Debbie falls in love with her policeman, I got called in and so did [Peter]. We’re a couple of old farts sitting around on the couch like children, [asked] ‘now is there anything you’d like to talk about with this first kiss?’ It’s just a kiss…but it’s a good one. [ laughs] They were so serious, Jim. They said ‘would you like to practice the kiss here in front of us and see how comfortable you are?’ I said, ‘no!’ I loved that they made someone her age find her sexuality again and that she changed this man, who was so homophobic.

I remember that well.

Sharon Gless: Do you remember the scene with the boys, she wouldn’t have sex with [Carl] because she thought she wasn’t very good.

I do remember that!

Sharon Gless: Two of the boys taught her how to give head in the kitchen. Do you remember that? My husband was on the set the day we shot that. I was going down on vibrators, right? And I was hoping from off the set, I’d hear a voice saying ‘she doesn’t need lessons’ but he just sat there and watched me do this wonderful scene with Peter Paige and Scott Lowell. And so they train her so well that Carl thinks she’s a pro and he doesn’t want to go out anymore. Do you remember? He stopped seeing her and he said, ‘honey you’re a pro.’ [laughs]

Then they finally get engaged and she’s so excited. And then her child [Michael] is not allowed back into America. He went up to Toronto and got married to his lover [Ben, played by Robert Gant] and then they wouldn’t let them back in as a married couple and she called off her engagement saying ‘until my son can walk down the aisle, neither do I.’ And for Debbie, I think she taught the boys to change and grow. That was one of the purposes of her being on that show with her foul mouth and everything. But her heart was in the right place.

When you’re out and about, what do you hear most from fans? Do you hear  Cagney & Lacey? Do you hear  Queer as Folk? Or  Burn Notice?

It’s split between three. It depends on the age of the fan. The older ones, men and women will comment on  Cagney and Lacey. Predominately gay men will always comment onQueer as Folk. And I love that, I don’t want that to ever be forgotten. And then a widespread of age groups for  Burn  because their demographics I think were age ten to age ninety.

The luxury of a hit series is just my favorite thing. We were asked at the end of  Queer As Folk, what is the most orgasmic thing? And everybody gave something very sexual and I said ‘a hit TV show.’ That’s orgasmic for me. [laughs] But it is because you have to luxury of your character growing. We all change as we get older, or hopefully we do. We learn and become more compassionate, hopefully.

The best thing, I think, is I’ve gotten mail or people have told me that they sat their mother or their father down, usually their mother, gay boys who didn’t know how to say, ‘I’m gay,’ and they’d sit them down and have them watch Debbie. Or the parents were not accepting to their son being gay and they’d set them down and ask them to please watch  Queer as Folk. One boy wrote me that it saved his life,  Queer as Folk. And he said, ‘I think a lot of kids are suicidal if they can’t get anybody to listen to them or understand.’ He said, ‘my best friend wasn’t as lucky.   Queer as Folk  had not came out yet and he’s dead.’ And I thought, ‘wow, the impact of television is just amazing!’

If they were to come around and say, ‘Hey let’s do a reunion movie’ or ‘let’s do a couple more episodes,’ would you be on board?

Sharon Gless: That’s exactly what we want to do. We want to do a reunion movie. I mean, the cast all had a meeting in Los Angeles saying how many of us would be on board to doing it and every one of us said yes. And so I’m hoping Showtime, they’re airing our shows now this month, and I’m hoping it will let them see how loved that show was and the characters. I think it’s time for them to all meet again. There was never anything like it and there will never be.

Queer As Folk   is re-airing weeknights on Showtime along with  The L Word  for the rest of this month and then will continue airing through November. Check listings for times.