It's been an interesting summer for gay men at the movies. Richard Dreyfus played a suicidal gay man who nonetheless managed to be heroic in Poseidon. John Michael Higgins pummeled Vince Vaughn in The Break-Up. Sacha Baron Cohen's gay French racecar driver defeated Will Ferrell's Ricky Bobby in Talladega Nights (and got a rather extended kiss with Will at the end of the movie). All three were a huge improvement over last summer's Wedding Crashers, with its homophobic portrayal of a sexually predatory gay man.

Now to that list you can add Bruce James who plays Ken, the effeminate flight attendant in the just released Snakes on a Plane. The only difference, however, is that Ken isn't actually gay, although the audience is meant to think he is until the very end of the movie when Ken is greeted by his fiancée, Kitty.

AfterElton.com had a chance to interview Bruce about his fears of playing Ken as a stereotype, working with Samuel Jackson, and why he likes to be interviewed in his underwear.

AfterElton.com: My first question for you is do you have your ask Oscar speech ready?
Bruce James: (Laughs)

AE: Actually, since there weren't any press screenings I haven't seen it yet. I have to confess this isn't really my kind of movie. I don't like horror movies.
BJ: (Laughs) It's not my kind of movie either.

AE: Tell us about your character.
BJ: My interview with you especially has been on my mind because I read some other interviews on AfterElton, and I know we're going to talk about stuff that isn't just surface. I don't think this can be done without talking about the fact the character I play isn't gay.

AE: That's fine. We're still interested since the studio has made a big deal out of the “Is he or isn't he?” question.
BJ: Ken is a male flight attendant. With that comes a lot of baggage—good word to use, right? (Laughter) But it does, because right away when I auditioned for the part I played the character a certain way. There are certain perceptions and stereotypes people have about male flight attendants. Granted, I knew that I wasn't playing a gay character [which the final scene makes clear], but I was playing a male flight attendant, and they wanted me to play a male flight attendant and I had to play into that stereotype.

AE: Who were “they”?
BJ: The producers and the director.

AE: How did you know they wanted it played a certain way?
BJ: I guess it was the way it was written. The whole character fit into the stereotype. He was blonde. It was very important he was pretty. (Laughing.) I spent the longest time in hair out of anyone I think. As things progress on the plane and it gets more chaotic, I still had to look pretty. They would specifically do make-up, saying “Okay, Ken needs hot sweat.” That sort of thing, right? It was a thing that popped into my head, that I felt like this character was just a big stereotype.

On the other hand, I thought of it like there are many kinds of gay men. They come in many different kinds of fashions. This is just one of those types.

AE: When you auditioned they told you he's not gay, but play him “gay”?
BJ: When I auditioned, I got the break-down that said very effeminate flight attendant.

I also knew it was a comedic role. I really gravitated to that, latched on to it. I guess it came down to just making a choice. The choice I really made for him, the strongest choice I think, was to make him awkward. I knew he wasn't gay. I also knew I wasn't representing a “man's man” either. I tried to figure out a way to do that.

My way of doing that was to make him awkward because I thought that was not the most necessarily masculine trait. Does that make sense? I thought it was a good thing to grasp where people could then relate to him since a man doesn't react like that. Because he's a total klutz. That's where I went with him. I've no idea how he got his job with an airline. He's so incapable.

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