The Dark Knight

As was, perhaps, always inevitable, The Dark Knight is Ledger’s movie. It is a towering performance. From his menacing, pencil-packing greeting to Gotham’s Mob fraternity, to the threat and fire he conjures in exchanges with Maggie Gyllenhaal’s sexy, sophisticated brief and “The Bat-maaan”, to the Sophie’s choice surprises of the third act, he is pure, powerful, immense.

A force of fucking nature.

Mark Dinning, Empire

Source: The Dark Knight Movie Review and Trailers

Gay Heroes

Handsome, charming and openly gay, actor and presenter John Barrowman has become one of the best-loved faces on British television. But, as he explains to Alice Wignall, success has brought unexpected responsibilities

John Barrowman thinks that I fancy him. I'm not sure why - I said something complimentary about the male characters in Doctor Who, the series in which he makes occasional scene-stealing appearances as Captain Jack Harkness, and he appropriated it for himself, because he's gorgeous and used to people fancying him. Now we're talking about the fluid nature of sexuality and attraction. "You could find Captain Jack attractive. Hey, you could find John attractive," he says, twinkling away at me like a rope of promenade lights on a gusty night, "and I could find you attractive. But that doesn't mean that anything's going to happen." I am suddenly hotly aware of the close confines of the dressing room buried beneath the BBC's Television Centre in which we are cocooned. "Right?" he says.

Too right - not least because of the new BBC1 show he's here to talk about. The Making of Me asked three celebrities to use scientific testing, psychology, brain science and genetics to investigate the origins of their defining characteristics, each in their own show. Vanessa Mae asks why she is musical, Colin Jackson wonders why he is fast, and Barrowman finds out why he is gay: a fact which I think is going to stand in the way of our blossoming mutual attraction. The results of the programme - is it nature, is it nurture? - are a closely guarded secret, though Barrowman has always been convinced that sexuality is not a choice. "I've always known who I am," he says. "That's what I believe. I feel I was born this way. I've never questioned that."

Until now, of course, and the issues that the programme addresses do raise one potentially uncomfortable point: if the conclusion is that homosexuality is a choice, learned behaviour or the result of a particular experience at a certain time, does that mean that gay people can choose again, or unlearn their preferences? Could he? "It's not going to change who I am," he replies, instantly. "I always said, if the outcome is you're born this way, I'm going to be ecstatic. If the outcome is that it's something that happens to you, a trauma or it's your choice, I will have to reflect and think about that, but it's not going to change who I am because I like who I am." If it is a choice, it's a choice he'd make again.

And why wouldn't he? As he tells it, Barrowman's experience of life as a gay man has been overwhelmingly positive. At 41, he has a supportive and devoted family, a 15-year relationship with his partner, Scott Gill, and a successful career (before starring in Doctor Who and its spin-off series, Torchwood, and graduating from there to appearances as a judge on the find-me-a-star reality shows Any Dream Will Do, How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria? and I'd Do Anything, he enjoyed a long and happy period as a leading man in the West End, mainly in musical theatre).

He mentions interviewing a Seventh Day Adventist "ex-gay" man while filming The Making Of Me, who believed that homosexuality was incompatible with a fulfilling life. "His idea was that you had to have the white picket fence and the farm and he was talking about it like it was something that I could never have," says Barrowman. "And I actually said to him, 'Yeah, but Ron, I have a partner, I have a dog, I have really nice cars, I have a beautiful home, I have a home by the sea and the beach. You can have that and be gay.' But he just couldn't see that."

Barrowman can see it. He and Gill are thinking about having children. "We're building a house in Cardiff on the beach. We're going to have six bedrooms in it and we feel like we've got a lot to offer." He says that from talking to different families for the show - both accepting of homosexuality and not - he learned that "a family unit is what you make a family unit".

Almost the first thing Barrowman does when he starts talking about the programme is insist that he's not a campaigner. "I never thought I would be like this," he says. "I never thought I'd be someone who would stand up for 'the cause'. I don't want to be a militant gay, because that's not me." But it's clear that he is naturally possessed of strong opinions. Since he and Gill became civil partners in 2006, Barrowman has always been adamant that it's not a "marriage". "I don't call it 'marriage' for my own reasons - and I would suggest to gay men and women that they don't call it a marriage, because it connotes religious organisations that don't like them, and why do we want to take that on board?"

But the recent escalation of his fame has put him in a position where he senses an obligation to do more. "I have to put it this way," he says. "There are some days that I sign, like, 400 pictures, autographs and stuff. And among those I generally get a bunch of, say, four, five emails and some written letters from young men and women who are struggling to come out of the closet and they don't know who to turn to because they're afraid of their family's reaction and they're afraid of their community's reaction. So when they approached me to do this [The Making of Me], I thought, 'Yeah, you know, I really kinda have to do it.' I do think I've got a responsibility to help change perceived attitudes or try to change them."

It's all a bit at odds with Barrowman's popular image, which starts with his showman's grin, an expert line in saucy banter and a reported fondness for showing everyone (especially co-stars who are trying to film a scene) his penis. His autobiography - Anything Goes, of course - tells stories of a carefree life in the limelight, hanging out with Claudia Schiffer on Valentino's yacht and having affairs with Spanish flamenco dancers called Paco. It's not that Showbiz John is a character that Barrowman plays for the public. Though he's clearly a born performer, there's no hint of concealed anguish beneath. It seems that he really is this upbeat, this positive, this happy, all the time. In TV appearances, he throws himself into the job with force: always eager to get the joke, make the joke, be the joke. It looks like uncontainable exuberance; sometimes it looks like he is having so much fun he may burst.

There is, actually, something slightly comic about Barrowman. He's so absurdly good looking, for one thing, and in such an obvious way: the teeth, the hair, the wide cheekbones and the blue, blue eyes. His American accent is almost too reassuringly warm (though he is able to segue into a broad Scottish brogue in seconds, a legacy of the first nine years of his childhood spent in Glasgow before moving with his family to Illinois, which is incredibly disconcerting; like being dragged across the Atlantic by your ears. He says both accents are his "natural" one) and his speech is peppered with phrases that, looking back, seem like fortune-cookie clichés: "I don't ask that you like me. I just ask that you respect me," is a favourite.

But at the time, and on him, it all works, because it's so patently sincere. He is just instinctively polite - waiting for me to turn over the tape in my Dictaphone before continuing a point, which hardly anyone ever does - and conscientious, diligently checking his notes from the programme to make sure he's getting it right. He is thoughtful and articulate, talking in long, seamless sentences, with passion and certainty. He might employ a hackneyed phrase every now and again, but it's because he believes them. And he has a natural solidity. You can see why he works on stage: he's tall and broad and booming; he's sure of what he's saying, and of himself.

In that, he's similar to his Doctor Who/Torchwood character, Captain Jack, who first appeared as a wayward interplanetary scoundrel who found friendship and redemption in the company of the timelord. On the one hand, he's cookie-cutter, old-school hero, all jutting jaw and big guns. On the other, he's a cheeky pan-sexual adventurer ("so many species, so little time") who landed a kiss on Christopher Eccleston's Doctor in the concluding storyline of the first series.

But - and this seems to be very Barrowman, too - Jack feels no tension or conflict about who he is. He lives in the confident expectation that the universe will order itself around him. Which it does. Captain Jack is one the best-loved of the returning characters - Torchwood was created pretty much to keep him on our screens - and his unapologetic eye for the gents as much as the ladies seems only to add to his appeal.

"I was doing a signing at a convention," Barrowman says, "and this father brought his son over and he said, 'Do you want Captain Jack's autograph?' and the kid said, 'Yeah, Dad, I don't care if he likes boys, he's still my hero.' And I thought, 'That's why I'm doing this.'

"I'd love to be a hero and that's why I love playing him, because he is a hero. But then, funnily enough, people have written to me and said I am their 'hero'" - he says the word with self-deprecating verbal air quotes - "because of standing up for what I believe in".

John Barrowman - The Making of Me is on BBC1, July 24, 2008

Source: The Guardian, I never thought I would stand up for the cause

Gossip Boys

Truth, Lies and Ted

Episode: Is Jake Gyllenhaal sexist?

Source: Ted Casablanca, Truth, Lies & Ted video - July 10, 2008

Out In the Cold

The enduring stigma of homosexuality in Hollywood
By Matthew Hays
December 15, 2005

When Ang Lee’s latest film, Brokeback Mountain, did the festival circuit in the fall, it was greeted with warm critical and audience responses, won the top prize at Venice and was declared a cinematic breakthrough. The film — which opens Dec. 16 — involves two cowboys, played by rising stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger, who meet and fall in love in the 1960s. Despite their passionate romance, one that continues clandestinely over decades, they are never able to live together as a gay couple might do today. The social taboo surrounding homosexuality, the film tells us, is all that stands between them and their honest and innocent pursuit of happiness.

Brokeback Mountain is a testimony to the huge advances gays have made in terms of their representation on the big screen. It is a beautifully shot, studio-backed film featuring two bankable stars, directed by an Oscar-winning director, with a same-sex romance as its central focus. But these changes have not come easily.

In 1981, New York film critic Vito Russo penned the first edition of The Celluloid Closet, a diatribe in which he argued that the powers-that-be in Tinseltown had long supported anti-gay attitudes by infusing American movies with injurious stereotypes about the lives of gays and lesbians. Gays were too often sidekicks and the brunt of bad jokes, Russo argued, chastising closeted Hollywood gays for not pushing the issue further. Most striking was the book’s concluding section, "Necrology," in which Russo tallied a list of movies in which gay and lesbian characters met their untimely ends via suicide, mutilation, skewering or gunfire.

"Hollywood is too busy making old formulas hit the jackpot again to see the future," Russo stated in his final sentences of the book. "Hollywood is yesterday, forever catching up tomorrow with what’s happening today. This will change only when it becomes financially profitable, and reality will never be profitable until society overcomes its fear and hatred of difference and begins to see that we’re all in this together."

Many of Russo’s dreams have been realized since his death in 1990. With a general demystification of homosexuality in Western culture has come a shift in Hollywood casting calls. Now, heterosexual actors are no longer afraid to take on gay roles for fear of being identified as gay themselves. This has brought major star power to gay characters and issues that affect them. In Philadelphia (1994), Tom Hanks played a corporate banker who loses his job when his employers learn he has AIDS. He won an Oscar for his role, seen as doubly courageous given the character’s sexual orientation and illness. In 2003, Charlize Theron won the Oscar courage sweepstakes for her role in Monster, portraying a homely, serial-killing lesbian prostitute. It seems a fait accompli that Philip Seymour Hoffman will get an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of gay scribe Truman Capote. On television, meanwhile, Eric McCormack has won an Emmy for his ongoing role in the long-running sitcom Will & Grace.

These roles, considered breakthroughs in their own way, have something in common: the characters are all played by heterosexual actors. All of these portrayals have been accompanied by media fanfare and publicity. In interviews, the actors were always careful to emphasize that they are heterosexual. Indeed, it could be argued that their ability to muster widespread audience sympathy and empathy seems to be predicated on the fact that they’re only playing gay. Despite this so-called progress, when an actor plays a serial killer, they are never asked about their reluctance to take on the role. When an actor plays gay, the possible-reluctance question is obligatory.

If dramatic gay and lesbian representations have shifted radically in the past two decades, the change for gay actors is starkly unmoved by comparison. Various thespians have come out, but the idea of a leading actor — male or female — being openly gay remains out of the question. A number of British actors have come forward, notably Sir Ian McKellen and Rupert Everett, and Nathan Lane and Harvey Fierstein have given a number of supporting-role performances in Hollywood features. Ellen DeGeneres and Rosie O’Donnell have famously come out, but are now thought of primarily as talk-show hosts.

But little has shifted for the A-list acting club since Rock Hudson succumbed to AIDS 20 years ago. The damage such widespread knowledge could do to an actor was reinforced in 2001, when Tom Cruise sued a French tabloid for $10 million US over a fallacious story about the actor’s affair with a French porn star. Cruise’s lawyer, Bert Fields, pointed out in his legal brief that the mere perception that Cruise might be gay — and he is not, Fields repeated — could seriously damage Cruise’s ability to command multi-million-dollar film roles. In fact, much of the damage, Fields inferred, had already been done. “It’s something that will be there forever,” he said. The tabloid printed a full retraction and an apology.

The issue of closeted actors is something San Francisco-based author and screenwriter Armistead Maupin has dealt with in his own work. The author of the hugely popular newspaper serial-cum-book series Tales of the City, Maupin is a hero within the gay community for championing sexual honesty above all else. In 1995, when filmmakers chose to make a feature-length documentary version of Russo’s book The Celluloid Closet, they hired Maupin to write the narration. When the film was released, however, Maupin distanced himself from the project, slighting the film’s narrator, Lily Tomlin, for not being more forthcoming about her lesbianism. (Tomlin has since come out of the closet.)

"If Vito could see this now," Maupin said at the time, "he’d be very upset. Having a closeted person involved with this project runs counter to everything Vito Russo stood for: openness and honesty, and an end to the celluloid closet he wrote about so passionately."

In speeches and articles, Maupin frequently refers to the massive successes of the gay and lesbian liberation movement, a phrase that now seems almost quaint. But for all the discussion of evolving attitudes, he acknowledges little has changed for a new generation of A-list actors.

"Unfortunately, that closet hasn’t really vanished at all," Maupin told me recently. "It’s simply more sophisticated than it was in the past. Rock Hudson could rely on the fact that the local press wouldn’t run with a story about him being seen with another man. Now, gay superstars are required to get married, have children or adopt them and be very discreet about that trainer who travels with them."

At a time when black actors fought for better roles, the point was often made that Hollywood is about green, not black and white. According to Maupin, the question for gay actors boils down to the same thing: economics.

"It’s about money and the continuing perception that actors will lose money for their agents if they come out. And that may be true, but it won’t change until there’s honesty. I have more admiration than ever for people like Ian McKellan and Rupert Everett, who’ve come forward, been honest and are still pursuing their careers."

That’s two British actors who’ve come out. Where’s the American leading man?

Maupin sighs. "You’re right: there isn’t one."

Source: Out In the Cold, CBC Canada

Give me a break!

Dear Ted:
Are you ready to concede defeat on Jake yet? Or do you wish to add further embarrassment to yourself? Hello! has a story about Reese and Jake cohabitating. Everyone's lying though, right? Everyone but you. For a "showmance" they sure spend a lot of time together out of the public view. Get a clue, buddy, and stop spreading lies about people.
Ellen
Chicago

Dear Gyllenblind:
Hello!, the record of who's really diddling whom in this town? Give me a break.
***

Dear Ted:
Here's my take on gay Hollywood: If only one gay A-list couple would come out and have a public affair, have a row in public, break up, get back together, go furniture shopping in public, get married, adopt a cute baby and get a divorce—i.e. act like a straight Hollywood couple—they would sell just as many magazines. If Hollywood execs saw that gay people can bring in money, they wouldn't be afraid of casting them.
Idun
Copenhagen

Dear One Sex Fits All:
Wish it were that simple. T.R. Knight and his boy toy are happy to be seen hand in hand for all the paps, but do ya see him scoring any leading man movie roles?
***

Dear Ted:
If Toothy Tile and Public Thrust want to be caught so badly, why don't they just come out already?
Cheryl
Atlanta

Dear Dental Work:
If it's voluntary, then they can't deny anything if they change their minds.
***

Dear Ted:
I don't get it. So, Jake G. is looking for a new, preferably female, assistant. Why does that make him picky and/or cantankerous? And to mention him in the same breath as Naomi Campbell—that's stretching it just a teensy bit, don't you think?
Vicki
Wilmington, Del.

Dear Ass-istant:
Maybe you should apply for the Gyllen-gig and get back to us. Would make a fabulous item, trust.

Source: Ted Casablanca's The Awful Truth and The Awful Express newsletter

Hot for Girls, Gross for Guys

Female stars, including Angelina Jolie and Drew Barrymore, have revealed past relationships with women and haven't seen their careers hurt in the least because of it. But among male actors, owning up to experimentation is all but verboten. Why the double standard?

"I'm not sure what that's based on anymore, other than the idea that leading men have to be virile and masculine in order for them to be viable for big roles," said Corey Scholibo, arts and entertainment editor of The Advocate. "For women, it seems that women and, of course, men will still accept them if they admit to experimentation in the past." …

But the fact that actresses seem able to reveal bisexuality without negative repercussions may not point to acceptance as much as society's desire to see them, first and foremost, as sex objects.

"It's great that women have more flexibility to experience those relationships without being penalized, but I think it's because women are taken less seriously in general," said Jennifer Baumgardner, author of "Look Both Ways: Bisexual Politics." "It's like, 'So what if they were fooling around?' When two men who were thought to be straight have sex, it's perceived as more serious."

Maybe that's why so few men in Hollywood are willing to talk about experimenting with other guys. Alan Cumming is the only major actor to call himself bisexual, but with his scrawny stature and preference for theater and indie flicks, he was classified as eccentric long before talking about his sexuality.

While E! online gossip columnist Ted Casablanca claims male actors "absolutely" fool around with the same sex as much as their female counterparts, he doubts he'll see a day when a hunky, A-list, alpha-male -- a Jake Gyllenhaal (who made waves when he starred as a gay cowboy in "Brokeback Mountain") or a Chace Crawford (the "Gossip Girl" pretty boy rumored to be gay) -- talks about it publicly.

"The public just doesn't know about it. It's still Hollywood's biggest, dirtiest secret -- absolutely always will be," Casablanca said. "The business is built on fantasy. If Joe is talking about how he likes to go around with Kenny, it doesn't work. But if Jenny wants to talk about getting it on with Katie, it sells tickets."

Casting directors and network executives contacted for this story were reluctant to talk about how the employability of actors, male and female, changes when they reveal they don't conform to the heterosexual norm. But while the bulk of bisexual Hollywood may still be in the closet, many gay actors have come out in recent years and haven't hurt their careers because of it.

"We've had a spate of them recently: David Hyde Pierce, Lance Bass; Neil Patrick Harris came out and still has his role as a womanizing man on 'How I Met Your Mother,'" Scholibo said. "Anytime someone comes out and says, 'I'm going to keep doing what I'm going to do,' it opens up the door for the public to accept a new kind of gayness which encompasses every kind of representation. But whether they owe it to us, I don't know."

Source: ABC News, Bisexual in Hollywood: OK for Girls, Not Guys

Truth, Lies and Ted

Dear Ted:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but in your recent Truth, Lies, and Ted video, there are at least two comical clues as to why Jake and Reese will not be living passionately ever after. One clue was visual, the other verbal, but both reaffirmed your status as gossip's most clever columnist! Kudos!
Judy
Dover, N.H.

Dear Between the Lines:
Was that when I was cleaning out the cat litter?
***

Dear Ted:
Love the column, Ted! Especially Sex, Lies and Ted! Great to see you in the flesh again, baby. I've noticed a few let's say "dubious" pairings in H'wood. How many reasons are there for a phony romance? Particularly when it is a serial occurrence?
Silvia
New York City

Dear Repeat Offender:
First off, it’s Truth, Lies and Ted. Sex, Lies and Ted would be quite a different show, but glad to see where your mind is going. And faux-mances are all formed for one thing: publicity.
***

Dear Ted:
I think just about every man in Hollywood has been suggested for Toothy, so there is only one guy left: It’s gotta be Carrot Top! Please Tedly, tell us someday soon—I might be dead by the time you spill...
Margot
El Paso, Texas

Dear Not the Top:
Don’t insult the annals of this column’s beauty, darling, please.
***

Dear Ted:
Hold on there a minute, mister. What do you have against Illinois, the land of Lincoln? We have everything you've got if not better. So in the fashion of honest Abe, I expect you to answer this truthfully, to redeem yourself, as I know you're sorry for that tawdry remark: Is Toothy's hair dark or light?
Monika
Chicago

Dear Abe-l:
Somewhere in between, sorta like the truth. Calm down about Illinois, Oprah lives there, so I suppose you have half a point, at least.

Source: Ted Casablanca's The Awful Truth and The Awful Express newsletter

***

June 25, 2008

I Want Eye Candy
Two reality stars start up just as soon as one of them is about to hit the road, while Jake Gyllenhaal apparently gets choosy when it comes to personal (assistant) matters. ...

It's a Woman's World

As if Naomi Campbell wasn’t exacting enough, now we’ve got our darling Jakey Gyllenhaal being a tad pushy, too. It’s all so treacherous these days watching celeb-ville get more and more cantankerous. Did you know Mr. G is currently looking for a new assistant? Must be all those coffee and yoga dates with Reese-love—I’m sure they’re all hell to put together, those sweaty appointments. Help is needed by the dimpled dude!

But don’t bother applying if you’re a guy. Insiders knowledgeable with the star who’s dating the chick known for always buying two calendars (in case one gets too smudgy half way through the year), say Gyllenhaal is more interested in a female assistant. Doesn’t surprise moi, really, ‘cause everybody knows men gossip more than women. Known fact, babe-cakes.

Source: Ted Casablanca's The Awful Truth