New feature: Six Degrees of Gay Separation!

We're launching a brand-spankin' new weekly feature (well, no real spanking is involved, so don't get excited, paddle-lovers): Six Degrees of Gay Separation!

The idea was brought up by one of our newer writers, the delightful Steven Frank, in one of his blog posts from last week: he made a few interesting connections between thirtysomething and Brothers & Sisters and joked that he may have invented a new game. Well, Steven -- you haven't just invented a new game, you've invented a new bona fide Thursday afternoon time-sink!

Here are the simple rules: we give you the names of two gay actors, and you try to connect them through other actors with whom they have appeared in movies or television shows (no theatre, sorry -- we have to set parameters and a summer stock run at Aunt Millie's Backyard Theatre in Akron is too hard to verify). The trick is that the actors connecting the two actors have to be PUBLICLY gay or bi (or lesbian -- the ladies are totally fair game), or have to have PLAYED gay in at least one of the films that they're connecting.

For example: Ian McKellen and Harvey Fierstein. Can you connect them? Well, you can if you use Will Smith -- Will played gay in Six Degrees of Separation (now where have I heard that phrase lately..) and then appeared in Independence Day, which also featured Fierstein. Since he played gay in one of the films, he meets his requirement and is fair game. Actors do not need to share actual screen time to qualify, as long as they were in the same movie.

If you come up with a connection (remember -- in six degrees or less!), drop your entry in the comments. We'll pick the shortest number of connections and make a judgment call if there's a tie, and announce sometime Friday afternoon. But remember, this is really all in fun and meant to flex our gay movie and television muscles more than anything else -- we don't want any hurt feelings or scrapping over it. Challenge yourself and resist the lure of the IMDB!

So, without further ado, your first two contestants are...

Neil Patrick Harris

Stephen Fry