I was there mainly to interview rugby pro-turned-actor Ian Roberts during a lunch break but since they were in the middle of shooting a scene, I got to watch him work for awhile and was also very impressed with his co-star Ronnie Kerr (who also wrote the film) and by the director Charlie Vaughn who was just a wonder to watch work.

I have posted the interview with Ian over at Gay Star News so please check it out!

Kerr and Roberts are joined by a cast that includes singer-songwriter Justin Utley, Bruce Hart, Will Bethencourt, Jonathan Camp, Russell Dennis Lewis, Brent Henry and John Stokkeland.

I asked Ian how he keeps up his striking physique and he said: ‘The typical gay man is probably a bit healthier in their lifestyle because most of us don’t have kids to bring up – our lives seems to be a bit more selfish. It’s only me and my partner so we get to look after ourselves. My brother has three kids, my sister has three kids. I can’t imagine the stress! But also the rewards that brings as well. It’s just a different lifestyle. Also, having played rugby, I have to keep training just because of all the old injuries I’ve got. If I stop training, they flair up terribly.’

I’ll write more about the film as it gets closer to release.

In the meantime, here are a few snapshots I took on the set:

1) Ian Roberts and his muscles 2) Director Charlie Vaughn, writer-star Ronnie Kerr, and Ian Roberts 3) Me and the 6 foot, 5 inch Ian Roberts 4) Charlie Vaughn giving the actors direction 5) Bruce Hart in a Halloween party wig (you can’t see his fab platform shoes!) 6) Two hunky cast members: Jonathan Camp and Brent Henry.

“I did feel relief personally,” Chandler said of shooting the touching scene with Deidre Hall who plays his grandmother, Marlena.

“Will has been had so much angst and conflict for so long. Once we finally filmed those scenes  where Will comes out and is okay with it, for some reason, I felt like a weight lifted off my shoulders as well. It was a lot of fun.”

It was perfect that his scene partner would be Miss Hall since she and Chandler clearly have an on-screen chemistry that appears so natural and real.

“The vast majority of it is Deidre,” he says modestly. “She’s amazing. I just hope to keep up with her in the scenes.”

But they do work together as a team to make the Will-Marlena scenes memorable.

“We do get along very well off set as well, we have the same relationship off screen,” Chandler says. “She really helps me. She’s a pro and I’m  new to [the soap opera] genre, and that relationship carries over in our scenes. We also do work a lot on our stuff – I work with her off-screen on our scenes more than with any other actors.”

While Will continues to come out to various family members in the coming weeks and months, it is not the only focus of his life. His job as assistant to former stepdad EJ will also take center stage.

“The next few months is a lot about Will and his relationship with EJ and how it evolves,” Chandler says, “It’s him learning basically how to run a business and how to blackmail people. [The gay plotline] is still interwoven but not at the forefront. But it’s still there, it’s who Will is.”

Since Will is going to be involved a lot with EJ (played by James Scott), I did have to ask Chandler about what appears to be a bit of a sexual undercurrent between the two characters.

“Some of it is in the writing,” he explains. “The relationship between Will and EJ is mentor-mentee and lends itself to those intimate scenes. But really it’s the fact that James Scott is British and everything he says to Will seems to have underlying sexual undertones.”

So what about Will’s love life? He passionately kissed a guy named Neil (played by Jesse Kristofferson) last month and we know that Kristofferson is set to return for at least three more episodes. Will also seemed to share a surprisingly intimate moment with his pal Sonny (Freddie Smith) recently at the coffee house.

Chandler says there will be more kissing for Will in the future but “I wouldn’t say his next kiss will be with Neil.”

Hmmm.

The kiss with Neil, the first time Will had ever kissed a guy, was very aggressive and anything but romantic.

The next one, whoever it is with, will be far different Chandler says.

“The first one was appropriate for that point where Will was in coming to terms with things. Now that he’s out, it’s not so much of a release of all those emotions as a romantic moment.”

He could not have been nicer and I loved what he said when I asked him what it’s like to work with gay icons Annie Potts and Kristin Chenoweth:

“They are both such pros and they’re both just so yummy. And both great people.”

Of playing a gay role, he said: ‘It’s wonderful,’ he said. ‘I’ve been telling my friends, ‘I should have played a gay cowboy years ago. It’s one of my favorite roles. I play a lot of guys who are sort of square-jawed professional guys in a suit and that gets boring. It’s nice to play someone who has layers.’

The character is a closeted man in a marriage of convenience to a woman named Cricket who is aware of her husband’s sexuality.

‘It was that fine tightrope where I could have just been this jerk who was lying and leading her along,’ Deklin said. ‘But she knows and we love each other. And we both have the out – the beard situation has worked itself out, we could both go our separate ways and be fine. But we don’t want to. It’s a very interesting situation and we’re going to explore it for all it’s worth.’

‘What’s interesting is that a  lot of the focus is going to be on that marriage and how do these two people make this unconventional thing work,’ he added. ‘Going into this, I love Blake, I’m very fond of this character, but he’s in the closet which obviously a lot of people wouldn’t approve of. Truthfully, I don’t really approve of that choice. But I understand it now. I’m so fond of this character, I’ve grown really protective of him and I’m so in love with the marriage between Blake and Cricket.’

Joe Manganiello of True Blood fame not only posed for endless photos, he also took the time to chat with every journalist he could until he was literally pulled away by handlers.

I got in a few questions about his pal Matt Bomer.

He told me he would ‘love’ to have his longtime friend guest star on True Blood.

‘I think he’d be a great vampire,’ Manganiello said. ‘Yeah, totally. We spent 15 years apart after college and then in the past year we got to work together a couple of times. He asked me to come to an episode of White Collar and then we got to work on Magic Mike.’

So what does Manganiello think of Bomer’s decision last month to publicly thank his partner Simon Halls and their kids at an awards dinner, a move that effectively announced to the world that he is gay.

“Matt’s been a friend of mine for a long time,” the actor said. “So I fully support Matt and everything that he does.”

He also spoke a little but about what is in store for his character of werewolf Alcide Herveaux on True Blood.

“Let’s just say this year his balls drop,” the actor said. “He’s not taking anybody’s crap this year. So you’re going to see a real emergence of a hero in the character. We’re also going to go way further than my character went in the books. I can’t say anything more.”

When we chatted recently, I said if I had an Emmy I would probably take it everywhere like Kathy Griffin used to or attach it to the hood of my car.

But the New York-based Jones doesn’t even have hers anymore! She gave it to the crew of 24, the show on which she played the President of the US.

“They live in Calfornia and they have more spacious homes,” she said.

The Emmy is currently in the possession of Nicole Burke, first Assistant Director for 24 and now first AD on Awake, the new NBC series on which Jones appears.

“I have made peace with it being on her mantle,” she says.

She had given the Tonys to her parents but after they passed on, they are now back with Jones and she has them in her New York apartment.

I talk to Miss Jones about her role on NBC’s Awake, about working in television after decades of being primarily on the stage, about about whether she is seeing anyone now that she and Sarah Paulson are no longer together.

Read all about it over at Gay Star News.

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!”