My interview with Mark Deklin of GCB: “I should have played a gay cowboy years ago”

Since I’m positively hooked on the delicious GCB on Sunday night’s, I was very excited to meet one of its stars last night at the 45th anniversary party for The Advocate: Mark Deklin.

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.’