Joel McHale: Hot and Hearty

What’s so funny about watching straight guys do gay stuff?
That’s a good question. I think it goes back as far as there were performances. Women weren’t allowed onstage when Shakespeare was writing, so it was all dudes playing women, and look how popular Shakespeare is today! But with the huge spectrum of crap that we cover on The Soup, we try to make fun of everything.

You often make fun of effeminate guys like American Idol contestant Danny Noriega and Onch from Paris Hilton’s My New BFF. The punch line is usually some variation on the assumption that they neither play nor follow sports.
Right, like we’ll go, “Hey, what was the score of the Giants game?” But our 1st AD on Community is gay and yet he’s the king of fantasy football and could tell you every single player in the NFL. We also show the ultra-hetero guys overhauling cars or whatever, so the stereotypes swing both ways.

Are there gay staffers at The Soup to consult on whether or not a gay joke is offensive?
Well, Edward Boyd, our executive producer, is gay, so he’s kind of our litmus test for that. He’s also a writer, so we run gay stuff by him all the time. He’ll usually be like, “That’s it? What’s the big deal?” He’d rather us go further.

Doesn’t he own Lou, the show’s resident Chihuahua?
Yes. When people ask if it’s my Chihuahua, I say, “No, I am not gay, but it is owned by our gay executive producer.” He can probably bench-press 400 pounds, so he walks in with that dog in his hand like he’s carrying a potato.

After leaving Talk Soup, The Soup’s predecessor, hosts Greg Kinnear and Hal Sparks famously played gay in As Good as It Gets and Queer as Folk, respectively. Could there be a juicy gay role in your future?
Yes. As a matter of fact, it’ll be in a movie called Juicy Gay Roll, which is about a gay sushi joint.

What was your earliest exposure to gay people?
I wish I could say it was when Uncle Billy showed up in a dress to Thanksgiving, but I don’t have that slam dunk. Some friends and I used to go over to these two sisters’ house, and their mom would always bring us movies like Aliens or something. But one day she brought home Prick Up Your Ears, which is very gay and also a brutal murder story. It was actually a pretty good movie, but after we were like, “Uh, OK, that was a fun two hours.”

Did your Catholic upbringing influence your views on homosexuality?
I think it just affected the way I dress. Those priests always looked so cool in their all-black suits, so I thought they were one step away from a spy or an awesome secret agent. One reason people have always thought I might be gay is because I dress well, and that’s because at The Soup I have the gayest stylist of all time, José Camilo. I trust him implicitly. At the very beginning he said, “Joel, you will be wearing skinny ties and that is all you will wear.” So I’ve been wearing them for the last five years, and I’d say it’s paid off.

If you had a drag party to attend, as which female celebrity would you dress?
Kathy Bates. But only as her character in Dolores Claiborne.