Best. Gay. Week. Ever. (September 19, 2008)

THE DUELING DIVAS
... and I don't mean me and Michael Ausiello, who despite not having a clue who I am was no doubt insanely jealous of me for my being assigned a prime red carpet spot right behind a giant cement stancheon while he luxuriated on the carpet with a camera crew. (Suffah, Aus!)

No, I'm referring to Ugly Betty's reigning divas, Vanessa Williams and Judith Light. Seriously, if the gays gave knighthoods or whatever they call them, these chicks would both have "Dame" before their names for all the work that they've done promoting gay visibility and fighting for gay rights.

First I snagged Williams (who is stunning, seriously) to find out more about how instrumental she was in getting the show's main gay, Marc St. James, converted into a regular character:

"Well, initially in the pilot I didn't realize that I was supposed to have a new assistant every episode. And when I started working with Michael, I just loved everything that he did - he tended to mirror me and he was really a great physical actor. You can immediately tell his stage presence, that he has that theater sensibility... and we hit it off perfectly. So I immediately starting throwing lines at him, like when I yell "Marc!" that was something I just started doing to include him in the scene, and it worked. The chemistry was so great and I just said we've gotta keep him and he's been with us ever since!"

As for Willi and Marc's axis of evil, it looks like it will be tested this season: "Now that Wilhelmina is editor-in-chief she's totally redesigned everything at Mode, new color scheme, new furniture, you'll love it. But Marc has a bit of a problem when I ask Betty to do some stuff for me and there's a little rivalry there and you'll see what he ends up doing to her..."

And last but by no means least, I had the chance to spend a few minutes with the amazing Judith Light. If you don't know just how much time and energy this woman has spent promoting gay causes, just trust me when I say it puts most of us to shame.

We certainly got off on the right foot when the publicist introduced me as being from Logo...

Judith Light: Yaaaaay!

AfterElton.com: Yaay you!
Judith Light: Yaaay YOU!

AE: Listen, I saw you at the Runway show on Friday, then you were at the Point Foundation Honors in LA on Saturday, and now you're back here - when do you sleep, woman?
JL: I ... haven't. I really could use a little sleep, that'd be good.

AE: Why are gay visibility and gay rights so important to you? How do you find the time and energy to do all this?
JL: You can always find time and energy when you have passion about something. The reason I have such passion about this community, YOUR community, is because you have inspired me, all of you have inspired me from the very beginning. From the time of the height of the AIDS pandemic, when all of my friends were dying, and this country gave them NOTHING, they took their anger and put it into being creative and pulling things together and they built a community that was inspiring to people like me. And I said you know what, I want to be a part of that community and I want to tell the truth about what's happening to that community in this country. Because people think that, you know, everybody's just sort of ignoring this group of people or maybe they sort of brought this sickness on themselves, and the real truth of it is that the level of homophobia that lived in this country and that still lives in this country is so severe that it has to be talked about. And yours is the community that has the kind of creativity and leadership and courage that needs to be at the forefront of changing the way the world operates. I saw you do it at the height of AIDS and that's why it's so important to me, and I want to tell the truth.

AE: I was at the premiere of Save Me last year at NewFest where you and Robert Gant spoke, and it's so great to see it get a release just a few weeks back.
JL: Yes! Because so many people have been going it's been extended another week here in New York, and it opens in Los Angeles on Friday. I'm flying back to LA on Thursday and I'm very excited about that and hope that we have the same reception there that we had here. The important thing is that our distributor needs to see that it can do well so that it can go to the middle of the country, which is where it needs to be. This is another thing that will help start a conversation about who and what this community is and letting people love who they believe it is right and appropriate to love. And it's nobody else's business.

At this point I'll admit that I hugged her. I know: Bad journalist, no biscuit. But seriously, she is absolutely incredible and I wanted to thank her for everything that she's done and is doing. As she moved on, she hollered back, "Nice to see you. Love Logo!" Love you right back!

Next page: Greek takes the kids to a gay bar!