2010 Greggys: The Female Star of the Year is newlywed and Emmy winning star of “Glee” Jane Lynch!

It’s not like Jane Lynch suddenly became more talented this year – 2010 just happened to be the year when the world decided to really take notice.

The gifted actress who we had long loved from Christopher Guest movies including Best in Show and For Your Consideration, had been delivering stand-out performances in increasingly high-profile movies (40 Year Old Virgin, Talladega Nights) and TV shows (Boston Legal, Two and a Half Men) when along came the role of a lifetime: Sue Sylvester in Glee.

In 2010, Jane turned 50 and found herself a superstar. She landed on the cover of magazines, won the Emmy Award for Glee and had her talents on full display during last spring’s Madonna episode when she eplicated The Material Girl’s performance in the famous video for Vogue.

Through all of this mainstream success, Jane has not for a second turned her back on the LGBT causes she has been active in for so long. She was honored with the LA Gay and Lesbian Center’s Distinguished Achievement Award in November – the center’s highest honor.

She was also honored with the Outfest Lifetime Achievement Award in July and when she appeared during the festival for a Q&A, the large DGA Theatre was filled to capacity.

Jane has also been true to herself as an out actress and got a lot of coverage in May when she married psychologist Lara Embry in Massachusetts on Memorial Day.

“I really started to be known when I was 40 and I was a big les by then, I wasn’t turning back. There were stories to be told if I denied it. I didn’t have a moment’s worry about it at all.”

But that was not always the case: “I will say that when I was in my 30s and had no reason to be thinking about fame and fortune at that time, I would lay in  bed and night and think, ‘How would I do this? How would I come out? How would I hide it?” I had restless nights about that. But when it came and people started to care – and kind of not care too – I’m a character actor and you’re allowed to be gay. When you’re an ingenue or a leading man it’s apparently still too hard for America to deal with. And it might not even be America, it might just be studio executives.”

She had plenty of lesbian role models by the time she got famous: “People like Ellen DeGeneres, Melissa Etheridge, KD Lang, Rosie O’Donnell, they were these hip kind of happening personalities who went, ‘Oh by the way I’m gay’ and American went, ‘Okay.’ Then Jane Lynch comes along and it was, ‘I’ll take that path. I feel a little bit of a responsibility – in a good way not like it’s a bother – to do things like this and be very open about who I am and be very open about that fact that I just got married and I’m very happy. … I think the most powerful political statement I can make is to not make one and just talk about it everywhere I go. Everywhere I go they bring it up.”

Congratulations to Jane Lynch, the winner of the 2010 Greggy for Female Star of the Year.