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Going Both Ways / 'Queer's' Gale Harold tries life as a homophobe
Published: May 6, 2001 8:00 PM
By Karin Lipson. STAFF WRITER
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HARDLY ANYONE comes to see his mother's amateur theatricals, sneers Josh, the rebellious young nephew played by Gale Harold in Off-Broadway's "Uncle Bob." Except for a few stalwarts, Josh tells his uncle, "everybody else stays home and watches cable." If so, they may well be home watching Harold-in a breakout role-play the central character in "Queer as Folk," the season's controversial hit on the Showtime cable network. The first full-season dramatic TV series to focus on gay life, "Queer as Folk" has won reams of media ink for its no-holds-barred (in every sense) portrayal of the sexual forays of a group of longtime gay friends. And no one has more forays, and is the object of more envy, than Brian Kinney, the startlingly handsome ad exec played by Harold.
In most ways, Harold's TV and theater characters couldn't be more different. If Josh, who's visiting his AIDS-afflicted Uncle Bob (played by George Morfogen), is nervous and jumpy and scathingly homophobic, "Queer as Folk's" Brian is the panther-like gay stud who is just as contemptuous of the straight world.
And if Josh, for most of the two-character "Uncle Bob," seems unable to figure out what he wants, much less take it, "Queer's" Brian is cold enough, and beautiful enough, to grab anything he desires-which usually is sex. "They're in absolutely different worlds," agreed Harold, the day after "Uncle Bob" opened at the SoHo Playhouse to mixed reviews. "Josh would never be able to do any of the things that Brian does. He doesn't have the makeup for it. Their psyches would never cross paths."
While Brian's veneer does occasionally crack to reveal a vulnerable human being, Josh "doesn't have any veneer at all, you know," Harold said. "He's just this raw, inarticulate-intelligent, but inarticulate-struggling person." The 31-year-old Harold was struggling a bit himself during his 20s, before his career came into focus. A native of Atlanta, Harold had worked in a motorcycle shop and as a general contractor, among other jobs, after studying film and performance art in San Francisco. "I had kind of stopped doing everything," he said. "I never graduated from art school. I was just supporting myself. I feel really lucky that I was able to discover an art form and re-connect with the creativity I was completely unconnected to."
With the encouragement of friends, Harold studied acting and got some roles in film and Los Angeles theater. For "Queer as Folk," he said, "I went into a general audition that turned into a producers' meeting" that all but clinched his getting the part of Brian Kinney. While the network had yet to sign off on the little-known Harold, "they say I was the last person who auditioned." Harold's lack of pre-"Queer" stardom may actually have been a plus. According to published accounts, "Queer as Folk" had an unusually difficult time attracting a cast, because of its remarkably candid portrayal of gay sex. (The show "makes 'Sex and the City' look like 'Mister Rogers' Neighborhood,'" quipped the Philadelphia Inquirer.)
The role of the promiscuous Brian may have been especially off-putting to some actors who read the graphic early scene in which he initiates a 17-year-old into his world. (The teen is played by fellow Atlantan Randy Harrison; Harrison and Peter Paige, who plays the effeminate Emmett in the show, are the only cast members who have declared themselves gay in real life.) So when Harold, with his smoldering good looks, came in for that audition, the show's producers were undoubtedly delighted to finally find their Brian. Harold, meanwhile, has been engaged recently in the intense process of finding his Josh. One of the biggest challenges of "Uncle Bob," Harold said, was mastering the complex rhythm of verbal interchanges between Josh and his mordantly witty uncle, especially given the limited rehearsal time: "We had about two weeks, 13 days."
The young actor praised his co-star for his "amazing" openness in developing their stage personas- especially since the play was written in 1992 by actor- playwright Austin Pendleton specifically for Morfogen, who had starred in a production of "Uncle Bob" several years ago. Morfogen will no doubt be recognizable to many in the audience as prisoner Bob Rebadow in the tough-as-nails HBO prison series "Oz."
"George and Austin are both on 'Oz,' and there's this neat little cable television community, I think," said Harold, mulling over how he came to be cast in "Uncle Bob." "There's comparisons made between ["Oz" and "Queer"] a lot, because ["Oz"] also deals with homosexuality. It's a very popular show in the gay community."
In "Uncle Bob," homosexuality is also addressed. Not only is Bob dying of AIDS because of some seedy gay encounters, but Josh, the classic homophobe, also turns out to be unsure of his sexuality. [CORRECTION: Due to a production error in yesterday's Part 2, one paragraph and the Where & When box in the story on Gale Harold were incomplete. They should have read: In "Uncle Bob," homosexuality is also addressed. Not only is Bob dying of AIDS because of some seedy gay encounters, but Josh, the classic homophobe, also turns out to be unsure of his sexuality. Pg. A02 NS 5/8/01 Electronic version correct] Yet Harold, clearly leading-man material, said he's not concerned with the possibility of getting typecast. "I've gotten really lucky to get my start in this quality stuff," he said. Besides, the issue of typecasting is "so arbitrary, anyway. We all know that male actors that play doctors on mainstream TV go off and play killers."
So Harold is counting his blessings-the whole series of events that brought him from a motorcycle shop to "Queer as Folk" and "Uncle Bob." And he's thinking less about a hypothetical casting moment in the future than about making current audiences feel what they're seeing is real: "The moment you're sitting in the...theater, that's the moment it should be about."
WHERE&WHEN "Uncle Bob" is at the SoHo Playhouse, 15 Vandam St., off Sixth Avenue in Manhattan. Call 212-691-1555 for information; 212-239-6200 for tickets. [CORRECTION: The phone numbers to call for the play "Uncle Bob" are 212-691-1555 for information; 212-239-6200 for tickets.