Screen Actors Guild-GLAAD panel: Bryan Batt, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Wilson Cruz and others on being “Out In Hollywood”

Actor Jason Stuart is among those participating in today’s National Equality March in Washington DC. But a few days before heading to the nation’s capitol, Jason was at Screen Actors Guild headquarters presiding over Out in Hollywood III: The Rise of the LGBT Actor, a panel featuring notable out actors, producers, directors and casting directors discussing their experiences being openly LGBT in the industry.

“Ten years ago, I couldn’t get a job,” Jason told the crowd. “I as doing stand-up and I got a job maybe once a year. Now, I work a lot…. History has shown us the prejudice does not win out. We have a black man as president. Things have changed and we have to acknowledge that and also look forward instead of looking back all the time. … In another 10 years, there’s gonna be a romantic [leading] guy out. It’s gonna happen.”

“I really believe that there’s a lot of hope and I believe in my heart that 10 years from now, it’ll be cool for young guys to come out.,” he added. “It changed for me, I never thought I would be out of the closet. I grew up in Hollywood, California, I was one of the kids who wanted to kill himself. I live right here in this town. I have a sister who’s Orthodox Jew who doesn’t speak to me because I’m gay but I’m right here in this town and I’ve been living my life.”

Jason is chairman of the SAG-LGBT Committee which teamed with GLAAD for the for the event which was moderated by Doria Biddle, co-host of The Frank DeCaro Show on Sirius/XM Radio. It included the participation of Emmy-winning director Paris Barclay, casting directors Tammara Billik and Dan Shaner, and Academy Award-winning producer Dan Jinks. The LGBT actors on the panel were: Bryan Batt (Mad Men), Candis Cayne (Dirty Sexy Money), Wilson Cruz (He’s Just Not That Into You), Jesse Tyler Ferguson (Modern Family), Michelle Paradise (Exes and Ohs), and Jonathan Slavin (Better Off Ted).

Jinks said when he and Bruce Cohen had their first meeting on Milk with writer Dustin Lance Black and director Gus Van Sant, they all agreed that the only way they were going to get the movie financed was to get a movie star to play the role of Harvey Milk which won Sean Penn the Academy Award.

“The sad thing is, there is no openly gay movie star right now,” Jinks said. “There are potentially closeted movie stars but in terms of someone who can really carry a movie, it doesn’t exist so there were none on our list. I think what will have to happen is that somebody will emerge.  Let’s say Neil Patrick Harris is given a shot to be the lead in a Judd Apatow movie and then he becomes a movie star and then all of a sudden, that’s viable. … It’s all about dollars and cents. If there was an openly gay actor that put bodies in seats, they would be starring in movies.”

Jinks is among the Hollywood power players who says the final frontier remains a top male movie star coming out: “If you are truly going to be a romantic leading man, then I think it’s something to consider keeping that quiet but only if you’re going to be a romantic leading man otherwise I don’t think it’s an issue.”

He stressed romantic leading and “that would be Neil Patrick Harris or Ellen. It would be Brad Pitt or George Clooney coming out of the closet. It’s only those very specific romantic leading men where there’s a feeling in Hollywood, the power brokers will say, ‘Audiences want to fantasize that there’s something really going on between those two people.”

For Cruz, who came out way back in the mid-90s as one of the stars of ABC’s My So-Called Life, it would just be nice to start with casting openly gay actors in gay roles instead of seeing such straight stars as Stanley Tucci (The Devil Wears Prada), Robin Williams (The Birdcage), Greg Kinnear (As Good As it Gets).

“They still go to straight actors and there’s no reason for that,” Cruz said. “You hear the reason: “Well, that person is a name.”
“I guarantee you that a gay actor will bring to a gay role an understanding and a knowledge of that experience that a straight actor will have a more difficult time with and there’s something to be said for that.”

Slavin, one of stars of ABC’s Better Off Ted agreed.

“I think that it is important for gay people to play gay people. I really do,” Slavin said. “I think we bring our experience to the roll. I’d be happy to play nothing but gay characters for the rest of my career.”

As a gay actor, he’s eager to see more LGBT characters on screen: ‘I remember being a kid in a tiny town Pennsylvania thinking that I was the only person in the world who felt the things that I felt. It would have meant something to me to be able to turn on the TV and know that guy’s like me. And that I think is the importance of coming out. We talk about politics and the machine and the Hollywood thing but this is a small world. There are kids who want to die because they think they are alone. For me, i want to be of service to those kids.”

Bryan Batt said creator-producer Matt Weiner wanted to cast a gay man to play the role of the closeted Sal on Mad Men. Still, he said he’d still like to be considered for straight roles: “I’m an actor. There are tons of roles oiut there gay, straight or whatever and I don’t think I should be excluded because I’m gay. I believe in finding the best person for the part. I wake up in the morning and I look in the mirror and I don’t say,. ‘Hello gay actor!” I don’t define myself just as a gay actor. I’m an actor and I’m gay. A gay actor can play Willie Loman, why not?””

Jesse Tyler Ferguson, who plays one-half of the gay couple with a baby on the new hit ABC comedy Modern Family, has played both gay and straight roles and feels there shouldn’t be any hard and fast rules on gay actors playing gay roles.

“I sort of don’t have a stand on it,” he said. “Maybe it’s because I come from the theater world, I’ve always just sort of done the role that I wanted to do. …. My partner on television is straight and tested with me – we tested a lot of different guys and lot of them were gay …  and I just had this insane chemistry with Eric [Stonestreet] and I find myself just literally falling in love with him more and more each day and I’m so glad he’s the guy who I get to create this couple with. … I really do think it’s a classic case of the best actor was given the part.”

His previous role was as the lovestruck Ritchie on the CBS sitcom The Class, a character that not only had a girlfriend, but a wife!

Said Ferguson: “When I did The Class, I was asked to audition for the gay role and was like, ‘Sure, whatever.’ I didn’t even think about playing Ritchie and the producers wanted me to read for it … and they knew I was gay and it was never an issue. I never felt like I came out, I’ve just been sort of doing what I do.  … I’ve always been who I am. I do think it’s important to be open and make yourself known because I do think there’s power in numbers.”