"Dad said that he was prouder of me than he'd ever been when I came out."
"I guess I had a suspicion of it my entire life without knowing exactly
what it was - knowing that there was something different about me, which I attributed
to being an artist. At 11 or 12 I started sort of clarifying for myself. It
took a while."
"I love my parents. Coming out to them was sort of coming out to myself.
I educated them, and I wanted our relationship to keep growing. I wanted them
to be a part of my life still. I wanted to be able to share with them what I
was going through."
"A lot of my friends are club people. It's not me. It's funny to represent
that, because it's not me. I don't fit into a gay club setting. It's just ironic
that I represent that somehow."
"By the time I came out, that kind of stopped it. The bullying stopped
when I claimed myself and proved that I wasn't afraid. A lot of it was when
I was hiding when I was younger."
"A kid brought in a BB gun and shot another kid. He was expelled. And someone
got expelled for blowing up mailbox."
"I acted all through my childhood. I went to Stagedoor Manor, this big
Broadway kids' camp, when I was 9 and 11. I've done two plays a year since I
was 6 until I got Queer as Folk."
"I actually have more respect for people who are in the closet. You end
up exposing so much of yourself because you have to talk about your sexual life.
You shouldn't have to talk about it."
" I can't walk down the street with my head up. I'm not a hat wearer, but
now I'm a hat wearer."
"I don't want to be the center of attention. My posture has changed. I
walk with my head down and shoulders slumped. Suddenly I carry myself as if
I'm ashamed of something."
"I don't want to be Tom Cruise. I'm not after some movie blockbuster career.
That's not the kind of work I'm interested in. And frankly, it's not the kind
of work I'm ever going to get."
"I had been doing summer stock every summer while I was in college. We
did a showcase, like most good conservatories do - monologues and things that
agents and casting directors come to see. From that I got an agent."
"I just don't think that I could be the kind of actor I want to be and
not be honest with myself. Honesty is very important to me as an actor and as
a person. I didn't even think about it.
"I know that I'm capable as an actor."
"I never felt a need to manipulate my career from the outside - try to
be someone I wasn't to get ahead."
"I never hesitated once. I still aspire to a theater career. The amount
of celebrity that I have now seems like a fluke to me."
"I started performing when I was a kid. I don't remember myself not being
an actor."
"I was always the shame of the family - the one Yankee who was actually
born in the North."
"I was beyond the novelty of homosexuality. I just dated the people I liked.
Mostly I was concentrating on acting, fighting to do what I wanted to do career
wise."
"I wasn't being bullied at school at this point. I had a group of friends,
and I was isolated because I wasn't communicating with my parents. I wasn't
telling them what I was going through."
"I wasn't dating anyone. I was hyper-focused on acting. So I didn't bring
a guy to the prom. I was the lone gay person as far as I knew."
"I wonder what kind of lives they will have built for themselves when they
turn 45 and can't really have any connection with people because they are so
used to fleeting sexual."
"I'm definitely a Yankee, a New Englander at heart. Both my parents are
Southerners, so they always wanted to go back to the South."
"It makes me proud, and it makes me scared. More than anything, I want
to be an actor and I want to keep working, and I think there's a danger in being
perceived as a poster boy for something."
"It's upsetting that it is such a big deal. I wish it weren't an issue
all the time. It's funny that people say it's a departure, because I've been
acting since I was a child. I've played three gay roles out of hundreds."
"It's a really subtle kind of thing. It makes me feel like Randy Harrison
is not a human being to them."
"When I was 4 my parents couldn't get a baby-sitter for me when they were
going to see a performance of Peter Pan. I was fascinated by the whole thing.
After I saw Peter Pan I started auditioning for community theater."
Quotes über Justin
"I think what Justin went through in the first year is such a universal experience. It's not even necessarily gay. Just being introduced to sexualizing yourself and becoming a sexual being and sort of the overwhelming aspect of that and beginning to claim your sexual power and losing yourself in a relationship."
"I could definitely empathize with the character, with the feelings of
helplessness - if only the desperation and the feeling of isolation."
"I don't know for Justin; he's always looking for meaning out of his relationships
with people. I don't think he's as trapped into the drug thing as a lot of the
others are."
"The whole character of Justin and the club life he lives - I have no experience
with it. It's really foreign to me, which is annoying, but that's just how it
is."
"It always weirds me out and makes me unhappy that some people think I'm
Justin. I'm not. People can be talking to me and I know they think they are
talking to Justin. It's hard to explain."
Quotes zu QAF
"After the second call-back and third audition, I knew I had gotten the part. I went back to St. Louis and then back to Atlanta to drop off my stuff before I flew to Toronto to start filming."
"I think the gay community is split: They either love the show or love
to hate it."
"I think the sense of community that exists with all the characters - that's
the answer. The fact that they have found a family in their friends. It does
give some depth and meaning to their lives."
"I'm tired of being solely being "Queer as Folk's Randy Harrison."
Unfortunately, you can't be anything else until you get other work out there.
But it has also opened up so many opportunities for me that, I can't really
complain too much."
"I've done sexual stuff before - onstage, which is even more emotionally
difficult. With a TV crew around, you are stopping and starting; it becomes
really technical. It's not erotic at all."
"The stuff I get is not that severe like, "I'm going to kill myself."
I do get a sense that seeing Justin can be a great comfort to a lot of people.
They feel that they can stand up for what they feel and who they love."
"When you watch it, you're like, Wow. I look like that. But it doesn't
feel like that at all. It was about communicating with Gale Harold and getting
across what I wanted to say about the character."