The actors behind
daytime television's cutest (and only) gay couple come
clean for National Coming Out Day.
There have been
queer characters on daytime TV before -- even cute blond
ones, like One Life to Live's Billy Douglas
(played by a very young Ryan Phillippe) -- but when Noah
Mayer (Jake Silbermann) arrived in Oakdale last May
and stole the heart of resident gay Luke Synder (Van
Hansis), CBS's As the World Turns became the
first soap to depict a fully realized romantic male
couple as an integral part of the show. At first Noah seemed
devoted to button-nosed Maddie
(thereby maintaining his heterosexual veneer),
but by the end of the summer, he and Luke were sharing
confidences…and big juicy kisses. Just in time
for National Coming Out Day on Thursday, October 11,
Silbermann and Hansis spoke with The Advocate
about the attention the story line has generated, their on-
and offscreen relationship, and what deep, dark secrets
they're ready to reveal.
Van, you've been playing Luke for almost two years.
Is it nice to have him in a relationship instead of just
being the angst-ridden gay kid?
Van Hansis: I'm totally psyched that we've been
able to open the character up some more. But I think Luke
was pretty fully realized all along. He hasn’t
been this perfect angel -- he crashed his car; he
pushed his mother down a flight of stairs when she was
pregnant and put her in a coma.
Sounds like an angel to me. How have viewers
reacted to Luke and Noah?
Jake Silbermann: The fan response has been
really great to both the individual characters and where
we're taking the relationship. Noah and Luke were
voted top couple in a Soap Opera Digest poll. The
funny thing is, a lot of people want them to be happy,
but a lot want them to suffer heartache and tragedy --
because that's what couples on daytime TV do. It's a
good sign, actually.
VH: They've been really supportive. I get tons
of mail and almost all of it is positive. If it’s a
negative letter or e-mail, it's usually people who
can't see past their own limitations and prejudices.
And they don’t have a very good grasp of grammar or
punctuation.
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Avery is an editor at Time Out New York.