The Advocate talks with Hugh Dancy about being fancied by gays, marriage and shirtless scenes

Brandon Voss chats with the handsome and talented actor Hugh Dancy for The Advocate and asks the star of such films as Adam, Evening, Confessions of a Shopoholic and the TV miniseries Elizabeth I all the questions I would’ve wanted answered!

Here are a few of them:

Did you know that gays fancied the Dancy?
I think that’s been made clear enough times. [Laughs] I always appreciate it when people are appreciative, but I certainly don’t live in constant need of people telling me how great I am. Other people make that their concern, but I don’t.

Then I’ll go easy on the flattery. As a man from the U.K., where [same-sex civil partnership] is legal, and as a man who’s getting married this fall, what’s your take on the marriage equality debate in the United States?
You’re getting married soon?

No, you are.
Oh, right. I see. People can argue about whether or not they want to do it themselves, but the option ought to be there for everybody — and as far as I’m concerned, the sooner the better. It’s been going on for a while in the U.K. and society hasn’t crumbled.

Because you take care of your body, do directors ask you to remove your shirt for scenes when it seems totally unnecessary?
What, you mean like in Adam? Or in Journey’s End, having a quick wash in the trenches? [Laughs] I suppose the closest I’ve come to that would be Confessions of a Shopaholic, where the clothes were tailored to within an inch of their lives. But that’s what we signed up for.

You’ve dismissed a certain gossip item about a drunken make-out session between you, Evening screenwriter Michael Cunningham, and a male hotel staffer. Are you annoyed by rumors regarding your sexuality?
No more so than by other rumors. There’s a cultural phenomenon whereby people want to create or spread that particular rumor, and I find it slightly weird that that would be the go-to thing. I don’t like talking about my private life in general, so I find it better not to engage in that. There’s something as unseemly about denying those rumors as there is about the rumors in the first place.