One of the draws is the bisexual character of Nolan Ross played so well by actor Gabriel Mann. I chatted with Gabriel a few weeks ago at an ABC party during the TV Critics Winter Press Tour about his role and about the scintillating chemistry he has with co-star Ashton Holmes (let’s hope Holmes’ character isn’t really dead!).

You can read my story over at Gay Star News which details the gay kisses and Mann’s feelings about Holmes.

But exclusive to Greg In Hollywood readers, here is some bonus material:

Mann on how he approached playing Nolan: ‘There just wasn’t much on the page as to how he should be played or how he would represented. So as much darkness and sensitivity at the same time that I could bring I wanted to keep it open because they never tell us where we’re going. I thought well let me leave it open to interpretation so it’s not beyond the realm if I were to go off-the-cliff evil or it turns out I’ve got a heart as big as Texas and I think we found a middle ground somewhere in between.’

‘I really had no idea what people’s perception of this guy was gonna be before we started. I really was having some moments where I thought people very well may despise this guy in a way that he’s almost the Jar-Jar Binks of Revenge. I thought this will go well or this can go horribly wrong.’

I’ve really been enjoying him on ABC’s Suburgatory on which he plays Mr. Wolfe, a gay teacher who came out to the entire student body in last week’s episode.

The series came along just as Rex finished a six-year run on HBO’s Entourage where he played Ari Gold’s assistant Lloyd.

‘When Entourage was coming to an end, I was worried about what my next job would be,’ Lee says. ‘The fact that this one came up so quickly was a godsend, frankly. I do love the show and I love playing Mr. Wolfe. It’s been amazing.’

To read the rest of my interview with Rex, hop on over to Gay Star News!

The first time we met was at MJ’s, a gay bar in Silverlake.

I was a columnist for the LA Daily News at the time so made plans to interview Ross the next week.

Since then, we’ve chatted a few more times for columns and blogs and he’s always so chipper and fun.

I saw Ross most recently at the TV Critics Winter Press Tour where E! hosted a lunch. Ross sat with out table for about 15 minutes and I peppered him with questions for a  piece I’ve just posted on Gay Star News.

But here is a quote exclusively for Greg In Hollywood readers. Ross, who got his start with Jay Leno and now appears regularly on Chelsea Lately, is about to shoot a pilot for a talk show on E! and I asked him how it felt to be on the verge of such big things:

‘I travel the country and I speak at colleges all over. In my real life, it’s me and my dog and my partner and it’s a small sort of existence. With the Chelsea show blowing up the way it has, I see it when I travel now. Some of these kids don’t even know that I was ever on Leno, these kids.The number one question I get is: ‘When are you getting your own show?’ There was a time when no one ever thought I could host a show and now the question is, ‘When are you getting it?’ So I definitely feel the time is now and I’m so freaking ready I can’t even tell you. It’s going to be good, I promise you.’

This was pre-VCR folks!

Anyway, it’s been a real treat to interview her a few times including last weekend when E! television hosted a luncheon during the TV Critics Winter Press Tour.

When Joan joined us at our table with her daughter Melissa, she shared with us some of her hard-earned wisdom.

SWhen you get knocked down like she has been over the years, she says “you just push ahead, there’s no choice in life.”

And there’s no point in letting your ego get in the way.

“When you’ve been stepped on as often as I’ve been stepped on there’s no ego,” Rivers says. “In our business, survival is working. And you work on any level you can work on. I always say, ‘Don’t say no to anything.’”

To read what else Joan has to say about her E! Television show Fashion Police, go to Gay Star News!

It has a new name, Tabatha Takes Over, so she reminds everyone: “Change your DVRs!”

I chatted with Tabatha over the weekend at the NBC-Universal party and asked her about her tough and direct manner.

Does she ever think it’s too much?

“I think people have come to realize that the reason that I am tough and the reason that I’m honest is that it’s tough love and not meant in a mean-spirited way,” she explained.

To read my entire interview with Tabatha, hop on over to Gay Star News and check it out!

Sorry for the slow start today but I have lots of goodies coming so check back often!

First off, I want to share with you an interview I did with Brad Goreski the other night.

If you are a fan of The Rachel Zoe Project, then you know Brad was Zoe’s assistant for three years.

Well, now he’s out on his own – has his own business AND his own show.

It’s a Brad Brad World drew more than 1 million viewers in its premiere last week and airs its second episode on Bravo tonight.

‘Life has been really good,’ he said during a chat at Friday’s NBC-Universal party in Pasadena. ‘The show premiered really, really well and the response has been great which is all you can hope for.’

To read the rest of the story, hop on over to Gay Star News!

I’m taking the day off from TV Critics Association Tour today. It’s FOX day and for the past two years, this is the only network to not approve credentials for Greg In Hollywood so this year I didn’t even bother to ask.

You can read about whatever Fox is doing somewhere else – unless it has to do with Glee. I won’t blame Glee for the network’s press people blowing me off.

So I’m going to The ArcLight to see The Iron Lady instead!

But first, I want to share with you this fun little chat I had with Chelsea Handler during a TCA lunch event held by E! yesterday.

They had their talent move around to different tables every 10 minutes or so to sit with 5-6 of us as we ate lunch. Chelsea was at our table first so we got her fresh and fun.

I told her how very funny she is in the NBC sitcom Chelsea, Are You There? in which she plays the sister of a fictionalized version of herself. She is in 7 of the first 12 episodes and I wondered if she would try to be in more.

“I would definitely do more episodes if it gets picked up,” she said. “It’s a Friday day taping for me so I don’t have to be there the entire week. I do my show Monday through Thursday then I hop over there Friday.”

Chelsea, of course, is mighty busy with her nightly show on E! Chelsea Lately and the weekly Sunday night show After Lately. Plus, she is always busy writing her best-selling books and has her own book publishing company.

“I have a lot of jobs,” she told me. “I love it though. I work a lot. We have a bunch of shows in development too, we sold a show to FOX and to ABC. And we have a couple of pilots in development at E! I like to work, I’m having a really good time. I don’t have kids, I’m single so I might as well be working.”

Her pace reminded me a bit of Joan Rivers (we would spend time with Joan next) so I wondered if Chelsea, who is 36, could picture herself still going as strong as Joan who is more than 40 years older than her.

“No! I will not!” she said. “I won’t be in front of the camera that’s for sure. I don’t have any desire to work that long or that hard. I’m getting it all out now! I’m sure I’ll be producing things but I don’t know that I need to be on camera past a certain age.”

But she’s enjoying herself a lot right now.

“I’m really in a fortunate position,” she said. “I see that so I’m really just trying to be as happy as possible.”

Who didn’t love Dylan McDermott as passionate attorney Bobby Donnell on The Practice all those years?

I sure did and was already familiar with the handsome actor from his role as Julia Roberts’ husband on Steel Magnolias which, we learn in this interview with Brandon Voss for The Advocate, Dylan was not aware has a HUGE gay following.

Now starring in the series American Horror Story, Dylan talks about all kinds of topics of interest to the gays in this outstanding interview. Here are some excerpts:

On onscreen nudity and his refusal of a body double for American Horror Story: “I knew going into it that there was nudity and that a lot of people would be watching, so I knew I had to be in really good shape. I’m no fool, so I hit the gym and watched what I ate. Actually, when I first got the role, production called me and asked, ‘Who’s your body double?’ I said, ‘Oh, hell no. It’s going to be all me, baby.’”

On whether he hurries into a bathrobe or “let’s it all hang out” between takes:
“I’m probably somewhere in the middle. When I’m in the role, in the moment, I’m comfortable. After they yell ‘cut,’ I don’t need to put my balls in someone’s face.”

On whether he gets hit on by gay men: “Oh, yeah. Honestly, I’m cool with everyone, and people pick up on that. I’d say, ‘I’m not gay, but it’s all good.’ It’s kind of like going to Paris when you don’t know the language; some Americans get into trouble over there, but I’m just like, ‘Sorry, I don’t speak French.’”

On working with Ryan Murphy: “I believe that Ryan Murphy is a genius. His instincts remind me of Andy Warhol. I recently went to the Warhol museum in Pittsburgh, and you can see a lot of echoes of Andy in Ryan’s work. Like Andy, Ryan’s finger is so on the pulse of culture that he’s ahead of culture. Their aesthetic and their vision of the world are very similar. Ryan is also so unafraid. Most people in show business are so afraid to fail that they don’t take any risks, but all Ryan does is take risks. He puts himself out there all the time, and it’s his bravery that really separates him from everybody else.”

On his dream project: “I had this idea — I actually brought it up to Ryan Murphy — that I wanted to play Halston. I think that would make a great movie, because his life was so interesting and complex. I was trying to develop that for a while, and Ryan was kind of mulling it over. We’ll see.”

On whether he knew that his 1989 film Steel Magnolias was a major gay favorite: “No, I had no idea. You have to tell me about it. … That’s hysterical. I swear to God, I did not know this.”

Seriously? You haven’t lived until you’ve been to a Steel Magnolias viewing party with a bunch of gay men. I’ve literally seen it played on a loop in gay bars.
That’s hysterical. I swear to God, I did not know this. That was my first really big movie, and I loved making it. I’d just made Hamburger Hill in the Philippines, where there were no trailers, and somebody died while we were making the movie. It was a brutal shoot. All of a sudden I’m on the set of Steel Magnolias, where there’s more pink than I’ve ever seen in my life. I was working with movie stars who each had their own hair and makeup people, we only worked eight hours a day, and everybody was always partying and laughing. It blew my mind.

Quoting dialogue from Steel Magnolias is a national gay pastime. What’s your favorite line?
Well, I’ve maybe seen the movie twice. It’s hard for me to watch my own movies, because I look back and think, Oh, my God, I’m a different person. Watching myself is a little unnerving.

I reminded her that a few years earlier, she had become a little distracted my a tiny hole I had near the shoulder of my favorite old sports coat that I no longer wear.

“Oh my God I’m always picking at you!” she said apologetically as wife Lara Embry laughed. “I’m just a picker.”

I assured her that it was all right by me.

Jane looked so happy and relaxed that I wondered if life as a superstar – after decades as a busy and successful character actress – had become more manageable.

“No!” Jane said.

But Lara, who she was married to last year, thinks they have because they are now in a new home they had built that she describes as “calming.”

“Ever since we’ve known each other we’ve been building this house,” said Jane. “So yes, things have started to level out – especially now that we live in this house. It feels so good. I sometimes still feel a little overwhelmed but its all good.”

The couple also shared with me their thoughts about last week’s Glee episode called “The First Time” where couples Kurt and Blaine and Rachel and Finn had sex for the first time. Groups such as the conservative Parents Television Council were up in arms before the episode even aired.

“I think they did a great job with that episode, I thought it was so sweet and tender,” Jane said. “We had Rachel and Finn having their for first moment and I thought they did that tastefully. Nobody was humping each other. They basically showed these kids post-coital if you will. It was just tender and sweet. If you have a problem with homosexuality, then maybe you have a problem with that.”

Added Lara: “What they are upset about is their own issues.”

Jane went on that night to present the evening’s other high-profile couple, Neil Patrick Harris and David Burtka with the Rand Schrader Distinguished Achievement Award.

He looked like a cooler and more hip version of his Days of Our Lives alter-ego Will Horton!

Since Will is going to be coming out as gay in the coming months, Chandler was in demand on the red carpet. I got a few minutes with him to follow-up on our interview a few weeks ago.

The young actor said he has quickly felt embraced by the LGBT  community since Will’s sexuality was confirmed late last month.

“They are very passionate about the story and the thing I’ve been hearing is that they really want it to be done realistically and for the story to be told well,” Chandler said.

I jokingly asked Chandler for a bunch of spoilers figuring he wouldn’t spill the beans. And he didn’t.

“I wish I could tell you!” he said before adding, “It’s some good stuff. I wish I could be more specific. It does get very real.”

I was so happy to get the chance to chat with the couple on the red carpet prior to the show and wondered how they felt about getting an award for basically being themselves.

“There’s lots of Dan Choi’s around that do the heavy lifting,” said Neil. “We just get to go to the, you know, Farmer’s Market.”

“It’s flattering and it’s nerve-racking because we like to represent as we do individually but we don’t like to really be heralded for it,” he added. “And this [LGBT] community, unique to most, is filled with scrutiny when it comes to what you say and how you say it. So you find yourself having to be very hyper-aware of how you say things lest you ostracize yourself even further.”

Neil is so well-spoken and smart, it seems to me that he doesn’t make these kinds of missteps and on Saturday night, his speech was funny and well-received.

David told me: “We’re honored but there’s also this thing where we are looking at each other going, ‘Why are they picking us?’ I understand we’re in the public eye and we’re two gay men and we have kids. But we’re just living our lives, we’re having a good time.”

They’re having a good time onscreen as well these days. Neil, of course, has been a real bright spot in the Harold & Kumar movies and in the latest, A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas, is no exception.

Neil, once again, plays a fictionalized version of himself with this onscreen NPH being a real heterosexual pig always looking to get laid. In a wink to his very public relationship with Burtka, the couple appear in an absolutely hilarious scene where they can barely stand each other and are only pretending to be gay so that NPH can get more action with the ladies.

“It was great,” David said. “It was all Neil’s idea actually. Neil had his own kernel of an idea and he brought it to the creators and they expanded on it and it became real. I was very fortunate.”

Added Neil: “I don’t think they knew that David was as good an actor as he actually is so when I let them know that he’s like theater Albee big man on campus as far as acting goes, then they were willing to write the role to be bigger.”

They should have written both roles bigger still since the screen really came alive whenever Neil was on it. More starring film roles for this man, please!

Jai Rodriguez may have come to fame as the culture expert on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, but he has since displayed his considerable acting and singing skills on film and television.

Last week, Jai began shooting scenes on NBC’s Days of Our Lives for episodes to begin airing in January.

When I chatted with him Friday night at the Halloweenie event at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, I was hoping he’d spill some storyline details.

No dice.

“They shoot three months in advance and I’ve been sworn to secrecy,” Jai said. “My episodes will start airing in January so I think 2-3 weeks before then, they’re going to let me talk about what it is.”

Does he know how many episodes he’ll appear in?

“I don’t know yet. I think that is all going to depend on storyline and what happens and where things go.”

Jai was much more free to talk about the elimination two weeks ago of his fellow Queer Eye alum Carson Kressley from Dancing With the Stars.

“I was sad to see him voted off,” he said of his pal. “Of course he knew he didn’t quite nail the technique but he really did take it quite seriously and he was entertaining the best he could.”

“I think he gave something to the show that is missed now,” Jai added. “He was, by far, one of the leading entertainers of that bunch. He just looked forward to what he was going to do each week. I has worried about him crumbling because he’s not a technical dancer. But he flipped it. He was like, [expletive] that, I’m just going to entertain. He dances from such a pure, honest place  you can’t help but like fall in love with him.”

Busy Jai is also one of the executive producers of a new Logo series called Bad Sex which premieres on Friday.

The interview took place in his Tudor style house in Hollywood where his two Writers Guild of America awards decorate the living room.

So where is that Oscar he won in 2009 for writing the screenplay for Milk?

“Oscar is with mom,” Lance says. “It brings her a lot of joy. It felt right. I didn’t want to see the Oscar and think, OK, I’ve done that. I’m too young to feel like that., and I want to keep challenging myself and taking on risky projects.”

We also learn in the article that Lance recently broke up with his boyfriend of 2.5 years and doesn’t find the bachelor life very appealing.

“I’m best when I’m with somebody,” he says. “I grow more. It’s how I’m built.”

He adds: “I want kids. I have a room upstairs that’s getting twin beds put in. If you build it, they will come!”

We spoke at last week’s Laugh Out Loud benefit and the 40-year-old actor from Australia said his life has been “no different” since he went public with his sexuality three years ago.

“I’ve always been out to my friends and family and everything,” he explained. “Professionally I wasn’t only because I was a shy kid and I didn’t talk about my private life anyway. But it comes to a point that you realize you have a responsibility so it wasn’t about me anymore.”

Although his life is not so different since coming out, the initial wave of publicity was something of a shock.

“It was an amazing experience,” he said. “The week that it was announced it was a small story in Australia and it went global within 24 hours which we didn’t expect it to do and that was the overwhelming part. I think because I was on Baywatch and having a gay guy on it was a headline. So the original part was a bit daunting but afterward, it’s just back to life and back to everything.”

He stays in touch with “about seven or eight” of his former Baywatch co-stars including Alexandra Paul and David Chokachi.

I’ll have a report from the event in a few days. First I want to share with you the fourth and final part of my interview with Geri who is best known for her recurring role as Blair’s cousin Geri on The Facts of Life.

After her run on the show ended, Geri did guest spots on The Young and the Restless, Strong Medicine and 21 Jump Street but found it hard to get roles because of her Cerebral Palsy.

“Casting directors don’t even look at me unless the role specifically says someone with a disability,” she said. “If we don’t start embracing people for who they are as a whole, we can only see and appreciate parts of them and you are missing the boat.”

Then in 2002, she got a big break in an unexpected place.

“I was standing in a line at the pharmacy and this man turns  around and recognized me and said he was a fan of mine and loved my work. He said, ‘I haven’t seen you on TV in a long time.’ He said, ‘Do you want to do a western?’ I said, ‘Excuse me?’”

That man was David Milch and he had just signed a contract with HBO to do Deadwood.

“We met and what a lot of people don’t know is I was the first actor to be cast in Deadwood,” Geri said. “It was a repeat of Lana Turner at Schwabs. It was Geri Jewell at the pharmacy in Santa Monica.”

With her acting career back on track, Geri began to work on her autobiography, I’m Walking As Straight as I Can out April 1.

“It was something that I wanted to do forever,” she said. “I had a book out in 1984, it was my autobiography called Geri. It was a nice sweet story but had no bearing on what I had really gone through,. It was a sugar-coated cream puff story for kids. Because my life had taken such a downfall and I had so many things to overcome, psychologically that book was a thorn in my side because I thought it was a hypocrisy to what I was really living.”

“I’ve always believed and I always will beleive that there is a time and a plce for everything,” she added. “Even though I wanted to write the book for many years, on a spiritual level, it didn’t come about until I was ready to do it and the universe was ready to support it.”

Related posts:

** Greg In Hollywood chats with Geri Jewell of Facts of Life fame

** Geri Jewell talks about her facts of life co-star Lisa Welchel

** Geri Jewell talks about performing for the first time as an out comic

Here is part three of my interview with Geri who will be performing stand-up for the first time since she came out publicly. She confessed to being a bit nervous at the prospect:

“This is all new territory for me,” she said. “I’ve never been out in such a big way. Truthfully, I had so much growing to do myself before I could be at this place. I know I’m going to get criticism, I’m prepared for it. I think when you come into the world with something like Cerebral Palsy and live with that from the time you were born, nothing you can change or hide. You have to cope and deal with it.  I think because I had that psychology of being different coming into the world with this difference and having to cope with so much prejudice and discrimination and isolation, it actually gave me a greater tool to deal with any kind of opposition that I am going to get for being gay. Granted I could still hide it if I wanted to. When I was in my 20s, I remember saying to a reporter that if I could hide CP in my pocket and just be an actress, I would. I would only use it if I needed a parking space. That’s my youth. It’s the same thing. I don’t want to hide my being gay anymore either.”

Tomorrow: The fourth and final part of out interview has Geri talking about how her acting career was revived with HBO’s Deadwood and why she decided to write her autobiography.

When she had a recurring role on The Facts of Life, Geri Jewell not only played the cousin of rich and preppy Blair Warner, but she was also close friends with Lisa Welchel who played Blair.

Geri, who is now 54 and an out lesbian, was in her early 20s at that time of the series and coming to terms with her sexuality. In part 2 of our interview, she talks about that secretive time in her life. (Here is a LINK to part 1)

“The only person that knew was Lisa Welchel at least to my knowledge,” Geri tells Greg In Hollywood. “We were very close, we were roommates and spent a lot of time together.”

Welchel is famously Christian and the two did not stay in touch after Jewell stopped appearing on the show: “I have total and 1000 percent respect for Lisa. Even though we did not see eye to eye on religious issues, I’m very spiritual. I have a very strong spiritual base. I make sure every action and word I speak comes from a spiritual place for the highest good of everyone concerned. I was raised Catholic.”

“At the the time, of course, Lisa wanted me to be born again, that was her passion, her love, and I understood that. I did not resent her for that. I was just so conflicted. I was just trying to figure out who I was and what I wanted to do and struggling with so many issues: my sexuality, financial issues, not being an adult but being a child after being so protected by Special Ed for so many years. It was kind of a jungle. It”s a amazing that I even survived.”

“I hope ultimately [Lisa] is pleased with what I wrote about her in the book. I told the truth and, hopefully, what is conveyed is the respect and the love and the fact that we were kind of like sisters when we were roommates, looking out for one another.”

Geri’s autobiography, I’m Walking As Straight As I Can, comes out April 1. Former co-stars Charlotte Rae and Mindy Cohn have been publicly supportive of Jewell since she came out.

“It means the world to me, I am grateful for that,” she said. “I don’t know how Lisa Welchel will respond but the truth of the matter is I know you can love someone and not approve of a lifestyle and there’s nothing is wrong with that.”

Coming Sunday: The final part of Geri’s interview with Greg In Hollywood.

If you are a fan of The Facts of Life then you certainly remember Blair’s cousin Geri.

The character had Cerebral Palsey as does the actress who played her: Geri Jewell.

What we did not know until recently is that Geri is a lesbian. She tells her story in a new memoir, I’m Walking As Straight As I Can, out April 1.

Geri, who returned to series television from 2004-06 on HBO’s Deadwood, will make her debut as an out comic on Sunday night at Laugh Out Loud 5 benefiting the L.A. Gay and Lesbian Center’s LifeWorks Mentoring program. (More information HERE).

“It is my first time performing and not just attending [an LGBT event] and I’m very, very nervous,” she said when we spoke recently. “I’m really changing my whole act. It’s not going to be all gay material because it’s a gay event. But I will add some gay material, tailoring your act to your audience.”

Geri, now 54, said she still meets Facts fans all the time who still fondly recall the show which ended its nine-year run more than 20 years ago.

“It’s a compliment that I can be remembered for something I did so, so long ago,” she said. “I was the first person with a visible disability to ever be cast in a prime time series. I will always be a pioneer in that way. The comedic aspect of it was also new on the horizon. Prior to that, disability was something was dramatic. Then I come around and say, ‘This is cool, this is funny. I challenged society to have a lighter attitude general.”

The role was not much of a stretch she admits.

“It was me all the way around,” she said. “The first episode was tailored for me and what a lot of people didn’t understand back then was I started doing stand up comedy in 1978.  My first episode aired Christmas Eve in 1980. So the episode was tailored for me as a stand -up comic.

In all, she was in 12 episodes of the series which ran from 1979 through 1988. After it left the air, she did some TV guest spots but faded from view throughout the 90s.

She was unable to capitalize on the exposure the series gave her: “I was new to the industry. I was just living one day at a time, not thinking long-term. That was kind of my pitfall too. A lot of people think I’m the same age as the girls, that I was a teenager. I had even gone to college for three years before going into standup. I was actually the oldest girl. Well, Charlotte Rae was older. Even though I was 23, emotionally I was probably the same age as the girls if not a little younger. Emotionally, I did not match my chronological age. Nobody quite knew how to relate to me.”

This is one of the reasons why she wanted to write the book.

“I’ve been so misunderstood over the years,” Geri said. “Now at 54, I think it’s time to share my journey, the whole journey. There was so much to what I was doing. I think there’s a lot of mes out there. I think my story hopefully will help people to not give up hope to keep the dream alive. You are able to keep going and not give up.”

TOMORROW: Geri talks about coming to terms with her sexuality and about her former co-stars including one-time roommate Lisa Welchel.