David Burtka on closeted actors: “If you are not comfortable in your skin, how can you be comfortable in an audition room?”

Since David Burtka is Neil Patrick Harris’s better half, he is very high-profile.

But I get emails and blog comments from people who wish they knew a little more about him or that he would give some interviews. So it is so great to see that David has participated in a roundtable with Out.com to promote a short film, GaySharkTank.com, that he appears in at Outfest 2010 which kicks off tomorrow.

“I think Outfest is such a great vessel for people to put out their films and for people to see gay films,” David says. “Mainstream movies are not the same as gay films. Having a gay vehicle for people to be able to see into our world is really important.”

David, whose stage credits include Broadway productions of Gypsy and The Play About the Baby, has done guest spots on such shows as The West Wing and Crossing Jordan and appeared several times on How I Met Your Mother in the role of Scooter.

But David has turned his attentions to being a chef and put acting on the back burner.

So how did he end up in GaySharkTank.com?

“I am a caterer as well as an actor and they asked me to cater the shoot,” he says. “I was chef-ing the whole day and then, in the last 20 minutes, [writer-director-producer] Guy [Salem]was like “Come on.” So I shot the last 20 minutes and ended up in the film.”

The Out interview touched on the infamous Newsweek article that claimed openly gay actors cannot play straight roles and asked whether gay actors should come out.

“I know a lot of actors who are still in the closet who think it’s going to help them,” David says. “It’s not going to help them mentally or in their personal world and aren’t they sort of linked? If you are not comfortable in your skin, how can you be comfortable in an audition room? Or acting in a play? I have no issue with it. I played straight on Broadway but I have never had that discrimination. When I moved to L.A., I had one casting director call me “light”…

So what about being limited to gay roles then?

“The great thing is that there are so many great, rich gay characters,” he says. “The spectrum is huge and we are seeing more gay people in movies. So if I play a gay guy the rest of my life, that’s fine. As long as I am acting.”

Earlier David Burtka posts: Monday Morning Man: David Burtka! *** Neil Patrick Harris throws surprise 35th birthday party in NYC for David Burtka *** Neil Patrick Harris remembers when he and David Burtka shared a hot tub with Channing Tatum

*****Here is a trailer for GaySharkTank.com which will screen at Outfest on Saturday, July 10 during the popular Boys Shorts program at DGA 1. The program will screen again at Sunset 5 on Monday, July 12 at 9:30 p.m. Ticket INFO HERE.