Breakfast w/Greg: Heigl now an unfair target; Jason Stuart on ‘The Closer’ John Duran’s moving words

Good morning!

Boy, I sure was surprised when I was at the Television Critics Association Summer Press Tour on Saturday (ABC’s day) to hear how much resentment Grey’s Anatomy star Katherine Heigl seems to have created for herself – mostly for speaking her mind.

In a session with ABC head honcho Steve McPherson, a few journalists asked about remarks the actress made on David Letterman’s show last month while promoting her current film The Ugly Truth. Speaking about her first day on the set for the new season of Grey’s she told Dave: “Our first day back was Wednesday and it was — I’m going to keep saying this because I hope it embarrasses them — a 17-hour day, which I think is cruel and mean.”

Katherine, real-life BFF to former co-star T.R. Knight, had previously publicly criticized the writing for her character and had made noises about wanting off of the show.

McPherson, rather than dodge the question, said to the press Saturday that Heigl’s comments were “unfortunate” and added:  “People are going to behave in the way they choose to behave. There are so many people who work so hard on ‘Grey’s,’ and all of our shows, without any notoriety and those are the ones I’d be concerned about, people who feel like they’re being criticized or looked down upon.”

My take is that while Heigl is outspoken, she is also now somewhat of an unfair target. I can see any one of her co-stars make a similar comment and it would not have caused a ripple. She’s perceived as ungrateful etc. but as I listened to the snide tone of the questions about her, it seemed like it’s more of an insider attitude than a public attitude considering her last three movies have all been hits.

She’s an outspoken woman who is not afraid to speak her truth. Remember, Heigl was the only cast member (and it is a huge cast) to speak out about Isaiah Washington’s obnoxious behavior at the Golden Globe Awards a few years back toward the controversy he started when he referred to Knight as a “faggot” then tried to publicly deny it. Heigl did a TV interview immediately after and said “Isaiah needs to stop talking – now.”

I’m sure there are plenty of folks who feel the same way about Heigl but I am not one of them.

DURAN REMEMBERS: When West Hollywood City Councilman John Duran received the lifetime achievement award from Equality California recently, the 49-year-old civil rights attorney aimed his speech at the LGBT 20-somethings in the room who have very different lives than he did coming of age.

Here are a few excerpts from his speech, courtesy of my friend Karen Ocamb who in as column for The Bilerico Project, described it as a :moving summation of a generation.”

“It’s hard to explain maybe to you what it was like back in the late 70s and early 80s but when I walked into my first gay bar – gay bars didn’t have windows because they were afraid of people looking in and we didn’t want to look out.  They were dark and dingy and smoke ridden and they never had a name on the bar. There wasn’t a front door – there was certainly no Abbey. There was no Here, there was no East West Lounge. There was nothing open about it. It was one room where you go into the bar through a back alley. And you parked your car as far away as possible and you walked into that door. And I have to tell you – even though I describe it that way – that was my entrance to heaven.”

Then, tragically, came AIDS. Duran was infected and at one point told by his doctor that he had maybe just a couple of more years to live – this is before triple combination AIDS medication and he at one point had just 69 T-cells.

“If you encounter gay men and women who are 45 years and above – again, I’m talking to my little 20-year-olds – I hope that you’ll revere them (chokes up) for the sacrifices that (chokes back tears) – sorry – for the sacrifices that they made in that period of time.”

STUART GETS CLOSER: I’m really excited to watch the talented Jason Stuart’s guest appearance on tonight’s episode of TNT’s The Closer. Jason plays the owner of a storage facility where a dead body has been found in in one of the units.

Jason is a busy actor doing TV spots, movie roles and performing stand-up but he has also found time to be the founder and the national chair of the Screen Actors Guild’s LGBT Actors Committee.The group works to create a supportive environment for out actors like Jason and to encourage and create the auditioning and casting of out actors.

Jason and I had a chat last month about his being an out actor in what can still a very homophobic business. He clearly remains undaunted: “I think that sometimes it is rough out there but for me, my whole life has changed. In the last month, I guest starred on The Closer, I’m doing It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and I played a cop this year in a thriller with Catherine Hicks. You work hard, you keep showing up. You get parts in independent films, you put them on your web site and show them to people and you say, ‘Look, I can play that’ and they let you do it.”

“I think young girls today don’t care if a guy is gay in a movie,” Jason added. “They’re going to run to see it because they think it’s hot.”