Missionary Man

 As an out actor starring as The Book of Mormon’s gay character, Rory O’Malley knows what you’re wondering: How will a Broadway show from South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone go over with the gay audience? After all, this is the same Emmy-winning duo who created Big Gay Al, portrayed Kanye West as a gay fish, and showed Satan screwing Saddam Hussein. “Gay people won’t be offended,” O’Malley insists. “Like in South Park, these guys will make you laugh your ass off, but they’re always saying something important. It’s satire at its best.”

Written by Parker and Stone with Tony-winning Avenue Q co-composer Robert Lopez, and codirected by Parker and out choreographer Casey Nicholaw, The Book of Mormon is scheduled to open March 24 at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre. O’Malley plays Elder McKinley, the closeted Mormon leader of a Ugandan mission. “Elder McKinley wants his homosexuality to be turned off,” says O’Malley, who explores that desire in the song “Turn It Off.” “To be a perfect Mormon, he has to put his feelings away.”

To say O’Malley relates to Elder McKinley would be an understatement. “I feel like I studied this character for 19 years as a closeted Irish Catholic kid with a very strong faith,” says O’Malley, who considered Jesus his imaginary best friend as a child in Cleveland. “I was an altar boy who’d pray that God would change these feelings I was having” for other boys. Though supportive, O’Malley’s family didn’t exactly break into a musical number when he came out at 19. “It was definitely a process,” he says. The first soul he told was his mother, a single parent with whom he feels a special bond as an only child. “I told her, ‘It took me 19 years to accept this, so I can give you a little time.’ A straight Irish Catholic woman doesn’t know much about modern gay life. I didn’t either.”

But O’Malley quickly discovered that being closeted professionally wasn’t an option for him. “Life comes before the business,” says the 30-year-old New Yorker, who was featured in the movie Dreamgirls and last appeared on Broadway in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. “Maybe some actors haven’t gotten a role because they came out, but who gives a shit if you aren’t happy? I do have it easier because I’m not a leading man, but I can’t imagine having the energy to be in the closet. Besides, gay actors who start up gay organizations can’t exactly get away with it.”