Ask the Flying Monkey! (April 7, 2009)

Have a question about gay male entertainment? Ask the Monkey! (Please include your city and state and/or country.)

Q: I am an avid Heroes fan, and despite the original intentions for Zach -- who can forget that debacle? -- there hasn't been much love for gay characters. Is there any chance we will see a legitimate gay "special" on the show? -- Vincent, Sicklerville, NJ

A: “There was some talk about making Danko gay,” Bryan Fuller, consulting producer of Heroes (and the creator of the canceled gay fave Pushing Daisies), tells AfterElton.com. “It was decided it was best to not have our first gay character be a villain, but a gay hero is definitely on the docket for season four in terms of things we'd like to do.”

Željko Ivanek plays the evil "Danko" on Heroes.
Originally intended to be gay?

Q: So Sean Maguire, who played gay in the CBS sitcom The Class: is it my imagination or did he totally buff out between The Class and his role in the 300 spoof Meet the Spartans? – Anders, Louisville, KY

A: “It’s not your imagination,” Sean tells the Flying Monkey. “I had to beef up a great deal. It’s one of those things that there really isn’t any cheat methods. There’s just the difficult route of just having seven meals a day and working out for four hours a day, every day, seven days a week. No alcohol, no sugar, no fat.”

Sean Maguire, before and after

Sean has a funny new fantasy satire that debuts this week on Comedy Central, Krod Mandoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire, about a hapless freedom fighter and his band of loser-cohorts (including a gay guy). “We’re using the genre and the time period to kind of, as a backdrop for a modern workplace comedy,” Sean says. “To me, that’s really funny, because we’re dealing with very modern sensibilities and metrosexual males and twenty-first century kinds of problems or issues in this sort of old, medieval type fantasy world.”

Maguire in Krod Mandoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire

The show co-stars the out Matt Lucas (Little Britain) and is somewhat Monty Python-esque in its humor, which is ironic because, interestingly, at age 7, Sean appeared as one of the many kids in the hilarious “Every Sperm is Sacred” number in The Meaning of Life (1983).

"Sorry children, I've got no choice but to
sell you all for scientific experiments"

“I’m the kid that’s sitting at the table, eating bread and marmalade, right in the middle of the shot, little Mr. Potato Head,” Sean says. “That’s me.”

Read the rest of my interview with Sean, including his Python recollections, here.

Krod debuts Thursday on Comedy Central (10 PM/9 C). Since the show is a co-production with the BBC, it will also soon air in the U.K.

Next page! A gay Taking the Stage and word on Lifetime's Blush.