Better Off Out

What was the moment you consciously chose to be out in your
professional life?

There were two, actually, because I sort of did it twice. My
partner, Michael, and I have been together since I was 24 years
old, which was right after I moved to L.A. and started working.
I did a lot of multi-camera half-hour stuff, and he'd always
come sit in the audience, and there was never any kind of
secret about who he was. But I had one show where a gay casting
director asked me, "Is that your boyfriend out there?" I
said, "Yeah." And that's someone who's literally never
called me in for another audition.

Gay casting directors
can be way worse than straight casting directors when it comes
to that. By the time I started doing
Andy Richter Controls the Universe

, there'd been a little lag in my career, and after auditions I
had heard a lot of "They loved you, but you're just too gay,
so they're not going to hire you." So I got a little skittish
and thought,
I'm just not going to address it.

But that lasted for about a month, and then I couldn't stand it
anymore. So my partner became a fixture around work again, and
everyone knew who he was. There were some issues, and some
stuff made its way back to me, like, "This person is
concerned about what's going to happen…" But I didn't really
care. I'm weird-looking, so it's not like anyone's trying to
sell me as the hunk. Then in 2005 I got a series,
Inconceivable

, where I was finally playing a gay guy. The publicity people
asked if I'd be willing to do any gay press, and I said,
"Totally." I'd been willing to do press about my sexuality
for years, but nobody ever really wanted to talk about it. With
all respect for gay publications and the work that they do, I
think that had I been 6-foot-2, blond, and gorgeous, I would've
been approached sooner. I always was who I was; it just took a
while for people to care.

But now that it's public, do you worry being
gay might pull too much focus in mainstream media?

I was doing press one day on the
Better Off Ted

set, and I was talking to someone about all the reality shows
that I watch. The interviewer said, "Oh, I guess your wife
must be really understanding about that." And I said,
"Well, my husband actually really likes them too." And he
immediately went, "Oh. So what did you think of Sean Penn's
speech at the Oscars?" [
Laughs

] I was like, "Wow, that was fast!" But I'll talk to anyone
about it, and if you want to put it on E! or whatever, knock
yourself out.

Let's backtrack to that gay casting director you mentioned.
Why are gay casting directors worse than straight ones?

There's a significant amount of internalized homophobia that
happens there. What happens sometimes with gay writers, gay
directors, and gay casting directors is that they sort of look
like me: They're sort of schlubby, middle-aged gay guys who
have always been schlubby gay guys, and who have always wanted
to be around really hot guys. When you give those people power,
they tend to surround themselves with the people that they find
dreamy, and they have a tendency to fetishize the conversion of
hot straight guys. Like, you hear stories about them not
yelling "cut" on the set of
Brothers & Sisters

when Jason Lewis and Matt Rhys were kissing. It starts with the
gay people in power, but the responsibility falls on us in the
gay community because we tend not to care if a straight guy
plays a gay character as long as they're cute. We'll choose abs
over politics, and that's our problem. It's up to us to say,
"But I'd like to see a gay person playing a gay
person."