But with every new public appearance the pressure builds, the awkwardness grows, the unspokenness gets louder. The more you and David do the meet-me-at-the-end-of-the-press-line charade, the more the press starts talking. “Who’s that guy? He’s not his publicist. That’s the third event I’ve seen him accompany Neil to. Is that someone he’s dating?” Your publicist begins fielding a slow crescendo of calls asking about your sexuality indirectly, then directly. His response is always the same: “I make it a point not to comment on my clients’ social lives.”
Then in October 2006 you suddenly, from out of nowhere, find yourself bombarded with angry texts and calls from gay friends. “What is wrong with you?” “We heard you publicly denied you were gay.” “What, are you ashamed?” “What the hell are you doing?” It turns out a certain website that will remain classless has been asking your publicist about you, and this time his response wasn’t a variation on the theme of “No comment” but a definite quote “Neil is not of that persuasion.”
“Not of that persuasion”? What the (literally) fuck?
On the one hand that’s such strange wording, and so oddly timed, it’s hard to believe it was something he would say. On the other hand it’s such strange wording, and so oddly timed, it’s hard to believe it was something he didn’t say. When you call him he denies having said it, but that doesn’t mean anything, because he is a publicist, a tribe for whom denying things is a way of life. And at this point it doesn’t matter. However it happened, whatever he did or did not say, the quote is now on the internet, and the internet is where innuendo gains immortality. Once it’s out there that you said it, you said it, even if you didn’t say it.
So within a matter of days—hours, really—angry gay bloggers who know you’re gay, but up to this point had been respectful of your privacy, are up in arms. They take to the blogwaves (not a word but should be) to denounce you as a self-hating hypocrite, on a moral par with the closet cases in Washington who support antigay legislation.
Leading the charge is Mario Armando Lavandeira Jr., a/k/a Perez Hilton. At this point in his career, Perez is a crusading gay activist itching to out everybody in Hollywood. He deems it his responsibility as a journalist and openly gay man to speak the truth. To him, every gay actor has a responsibility to be open about who they are, and so when he knows a celebrity is gay—meaning he has talked to someone of the same sex who’s slept with him or her—he has no problem with outing them.
* * *
For reflections from an older, wiser Perez Hilton, go HERE.
To continue the happy, wonderful process of publicly coming out, go HERE.
At the time, that is what Perez believes. You emphatically do not believe it. You believe the coming-out process is a highly individual one wrought with all kinds of neuroses and insecurities, and not something to be wrapped up in a one-outing-fits-all package. For many people, coming out requires a long incubation process, and that’s fine. You were very lucky in that you fell into Rent, this huge hot tub of awesomeness and everyone being super-okay and loving you no matter what. You got to act and sing in that eight times a week. Between that show and Cabaret you’d been surrounded by awesome gay people who’d had boyfriends for twenty years and were playing the straightest guys ever. It was the perfect venue to take that first baby step and others followed, and that was the right way to go about it for you. But to a lot of actors who didn’t get those chances, coming out can still seem a career killer, or at least jeopardizer. You respect their situations.
But Perez doesn’t. And when he (falsely) hears you’ve claimed you weren’t gay, he starts hounding you in his posts. “What are you thinking, Neil? Why would you say that? Why are you doing this?” The furor grows to the point where a lot of very close friends are very mad at you—too many for you to individually call and explain that you had in fact said no such thing. (Your gay attorney and gay agent are particularly incensed.)
Then Perez, in his indignation, pulls his coup de grâce: he asks for any man with definitive evidence of sleeping with you to come forward.
Eeeeeewwwwwww.
The boiling point is reached. It’s time to make some kind of statement, to get ahead of the story before it seems like you’re responding only because of some unearthed treasure trove of naked pictures or sworn affidavits. Or worst of all, naked affidavits.
* * *
If you choose not to come out, go HERE.
If you choose to come out in a rational, controlled way that allows your career to continue and thrive, go HERE.
If you choose to come out in a reckless, over-the-top way that justifiably destroys your career, go HERE.
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* * *
Neil Patrick Harris
a/k/a You
You call your manager, Booh Schut, and your agent, Steve Dottenville. You release the publicist who may or may not have gotten you into this mess to begin with, and in a spectacular display of irony, hire as your new flak none other than Simon Halls, David’s ex-boyfriend. The man you once worried would help take down your career will now instead help you protect it.
And so now it’s November 2, 2006, and here the four of you are spending three fitful hours exchanging ideas about the proper wording of your mea gay-a. The majority of it is crafted by Booh. Bless her heart, she’s been at a silent meditation retreat where no one was allowed to speak for four days, and now she gets your frantic message and has to sneak outside the retreat and break her vow of silence to help draft your statement. Way to shake up the Zen, Neil. No silence, no meditation, and certainly not a treat.
You all know the statement needs to be universally positive, filled with confidence, in no way deflective or defensive or in response to anything. You also know that while some of the people who read it will know about the brouhaha, the vast majority won’t, and it has to make sense for both sets of audiences, the irate and the oblivious. It has to be honest and true and heartfelt.
Thanks largely to Booh, it comes out exactly right.
The public eye has always been kind to me, and until recently I have been able to live a pretty normal life. Now it seems there is speculation and interest in my private life and relationships. So, rather than ignore those who choose to publish their opinions without actually talking to me, I am happy to dispel any rumors or misconceptions and am quite proud to say that I am a very content gay man living my life to the fullest and feel most fortunate to be working with wonderful people in the business I love.
It’s your Gaytease-burg Address.
Writing the statement is step 1. Step 2 is figuring out where to release it. Which trusted news source will be the conduit for the earth-shattering news of your sexual preference? An LGBT periodical feels too political, a TV network feels too solemn and self-important, and Popular Mechanics just feels way off. You decide to release it to PeopleMagazine.com, because it has a wide mass-market circulation, and to do it on a Friday night, which as everyone in Hollywood and Washington, D.C., knows is the best time to announce things you don’t want people talking about all week.
You click the Send button, and then wait.
Your announcement meets with several reactions. Kindness, from many quarters. Lack of surpri
se, from others. (That does make you feel emasculated, somehow, a little.) A fair amount of “Oh, that’s interesting. I’ll file that away in my ‘Things I Know About Celebrities’ file.” But the biggest, and most gratifying, reaction is the deafening silence of hundreds of millions of Americans thinking to themselves, Who gives a shit?
You had been genuinely afraid that after the announcement people would hiss at you like a vampire when you walked down the street. And as much as you’d told yourself you weren’t worried about your career, the first thought you had as soon as you pressed Send to People was, I wonder what’s going to happen to my career. But there is no hissing, no audition cancellations, no gossip magazine covers, and least unhurtful of all, no Westboro Baptist Church people picketing across the street. You don’t know if the apathy is directed at your sexuality or your career in general, but at this moment you’ll take either.
And so you officially become an out gay man in Hollywood. Which inevitably leads to the question “Is it your duty to be a role model?” You waver on this. You know there may be some people who look to you and your family as a source for pride, a reason to stand tall. And you’re glad for that, because standing tall is what is most important. Yes, overt advocacy is vitally necessary in a bigoted world, and you do not shy away from it when appropriate. You are vacationing with David when you first encounter one of Dan Savage’s “It Gets Better” videos, and it moves you so profoundly that, when Dan asks if you’re willing to do one, you literally can’t wait: you open your laptop, turn on FaceTime, and record yourself in one urgent take. Not polished, but raw, to reflect the sincerity of your message.
But you have seen instances when the hard-core vehemence of some gay-rights activists creates a backlash, making homophobes even more homophobic. For you it all goes back to the fundamental rule of creative endeavor, and life is if nothing else a creative endeavor: “Show, don’t tell.” Personal confidence, ease, conducting yourself publicly with grace and humility—these are the qualities you consider most effective. Directly showing family and neighbors and co-workers that you’re proud of the way you live accomplishes something on a core level that intense advocacy sometimes can’t. So for the most part your style is to lead by example, to show ordinary people—Oprah, say—around your home, to watch the twins play in the backyard and see what kind of family the four of you really are.
And let Oprah take it from there. That’s pretty much your philosophy about most things: let Oprah handle it.
* * *
To dish about Oprah, along with the many other talk-show hosts whose shows you have appeared on, go HERE.
To take the next step toward building a family, go HERE.
It’s just about 5:30 PST. You stand backstage awaiting your big moment.
It’s taken you years to get to a place where you felt ready to share your truth with the world. But now that you are, you are going to do it your way. No more pretending. No more lying by omission. You are going to proudly let everybody know that you are gay, and you are going to do it your way …
“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the 2009 Academy Awards! Now, please welcome your host, Neil Patrick Harris!”
… by hijacking an awards show.
YOU: Welcome to the Oscars on this beautiful night!
We’re here to honor movies and we’re doing it right!
But before we continue I’ve got something to say:
I’m Neil Patrick Harris and I’m gay!
LEATHER-CLAD CHORUS BOYS: He’s gay!
The crowd starts squirming. Jack Nicholson smirks epically. The six actresses present who have not had Botox look shocked.
YOU: To the billion people watching let me set things “straight”:
I am a homosexual and man, is it great!
I’m coming out, and isn’t this the perfect way?
I’m Neil Patrick Harris and I’m g-g-g-gay!
LEATHER-CLAD CHORUS BOYS: G-g-gay!
The unflappable Meryl Streep, attending her thirtieth consecutive Oscar ceremony, can be seen in the audience mouthing “Why? Whyyyyyyyy?!?” Tom Hanks—Tom friggin’ Hanks—looks ready to kill somebody.
John Travolta looks confused.
YOU: This is my town, and I’m coming out to it!
This is my moment and man, what a thrill!
This is my world, and I’m gonna shout to it,
“Hey, I’m as queer as a three-dollar bill!”
By the third chorus your career is over.
THE END
It’s 2007, and America’s television and movie writers are on strike. No one is making scripted entertainment anymore. Mirth is dead. A drama-hungry, comedy-thirsty nation slowly perishes of malhumorment.
How I Met Your Mother has stopped production, of course, and there’s not a whole lot else happening to fill the void. You support the strike, but you’re also suffering from creative atrophy, yearning to do good work with good people. One day you’re in a cab in New York when you get a phone call.
“Hey, Neil, this is Joss Whedon, how are you? Listen, I know this is out of the blue, but I’m doing this online musical called Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, and I was wondering if—”
“I’m in.”
“Wait a second. You haven’t read the script, and it’s a five-day shoot, and it will pay you nothing. Are you sure you—”
“I’m in.”
Why hesitate? It’s Joss Whedon. He’s a genius, a visionary, a man who makes the average wordsmith seem a mere wordjones. His body of work is legendary.1 Buffy the Vampire Slayer is one of your all-time favorite shows. So is Firefly, for which you had once auditioned; you were almost cast as the doctor, but negotiations fell through. But you happen to know Joss best from the semiregular readings of Shakespeare plays he hosts at his home in Santa Monica. So many great actors and actresses gather to take part in these impromptu performances that you’re just as likely to be cast as Spear Thrower #3 as Hamlet. But it makes no difference, because every time you go it’s a rich and merry and culturally fulfilling experience and you leave thinking, Here’s a guy who’s so creative, so prolific, so happy to embrace the nerd element to his world while still having a populist touch. I must work with this man.
So you say it for the third time: you’re in. And that simply, you begin work on what will become Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. And for all the blind faith you have going into the project, the reality turns out even better. First off it’s shot entirely with Joss’s money, meaning there are no movie executives on hand to meddle. It’s just Joss, his two brothers Zack and Jed, and Jed’s wife Maurissa. They’ve conceived the whole thing, and it’s funny and sad and strange, and like any true work of art it’s unlike anything you’ve ever seen before, yet feels immediately recognizable. All four have collaborated on the songs, which are soaring and impeccably crafted. Jed sings the vocals on the demo, and you end up listening to his version of each tune literally a thousand times, mostly at the gym. (Workouts are a great time to learn music, because your mind is grateful for the distraction: it’s much more fun focusing on an internal rhyme than that thirty-fifth rep.) Even after the songs are pre-recorded you still keep listening to them because (a) they’re so damn good, and (b) you want to get the lip sync exactly right. Some of the songs are hyperwordy. The toughest is “Brand New Day,” which starts with a very fast patter lyric on a tight close-up.
This appeared as a moral dilemma ’cause at first
It was weird though I swore to eliminate the worst
Of the plague that devoured humanity it’s true
I was vague on the how so how can it be that you
Have shown me the light …
The whole section needs to be filmed in one take, and it needs to look absolutely live. The slightest disjunction between lip and lyric would take the viewer completely out of the moment. And so you practice your mouth motion until one morning David tells you he caught your mouth lip-syncing in your sleep.
For time and budgetary reasons, Dr. Horri
ble is shot guerrilla-style, quickly and secretively, lending the whole endeavor a wonderful air of mischief. As a favor to Joss, Universal Studios lets you use its backlot, but that’s as far as the studio involvement goes. In the intensely collaborative environment the limitations of schedule and money bring out everyone’s ingenuity; constraints lead to solutions instead of frustrations. For example, the first three pages of the script are just Dr. Horrible monologuing into the camera, one continuous take, no edits. So for the sake of efficiency you take the script pages, rip them up into little pieces, and stick them all around the sides of the camera in different places, depending on where you think you will be looking. And that’s exactly how that opening scene is shot. You feel a little guilty about it, but then you find out Spencer Tracy and Marlon Brando often did the same thing, and conclude (rightly) that it gives the scene the appropriate air of naturalism and (wrongly) that you are one of the greatest screen actors of all time.
Another number, “I Cannot Believe My Eyes,” requires you to walk down the street lamenting your love for Penny, the girl from the Laundromat. That scene has to be shot at the end of the day, with time and sunlight dwindling. There’s just one handheld camera, one sound guy holding a mic, and another guy off camera holding a boom box with the volume cranked up loud. You film it superfast in one continuous shot, again with no edits, and you wind up achieving the cinema-verité effect that, you all realize afterward, was exactly what the scene called for.
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