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T.R. Knight thanks the fans who voted him onto the AfterElton.com Hot 100
You may have seen over on the main page that today we unleashed the results of the second annual AfterElton.com Hot 100 poll, which asks gay and bisexual men to rank the most dashing, debonair and delectable men in the world. Is it going to win us a Pulitzer? No. But it is interesting to see what men a gay audience find appealing (take that, People's Sexiest Men!) and it's a great excuse to get all OMG over cute guys. And it's not like many guys mind being called "hot" ... in fact, some of this year's listmakers took the time to thank their fans for voting for them. We just received an email from T.R. Knight's folks (his publicist, not his parents) with this charming and characteristically sweet response from the actor regarding his making today's list: "Wait a second … I don’t even have abs! Thank you, AfterEltoners, I’m very flattered.” If you haven't checked out the list yet, it features comments from a handful of high-ranking noms, including out actors Neil Patrick Harris, John Barrowman and Cheyenne Jacskon, as well as gay-faves Gareth David-Lloyd, Jo Weil, Van Hansis and Jake Silbermann. Congrats to all who made the list, and thanks to everyone who voted! Now go cut yourself a nice hot slice of beefcake and enjoy. Submitted by on Mon, 2008-06-02 13:50. |
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Classic (and classy) T.R.
T.R.'s career trajectory
I was thinking about this as I was going about my day, which led me to pondering all the little accolades and recognitions that actors and media personalities get regularly. I'm sure most of them get plenty, but it was nice that he took the time to respond to this one. And then I started thinking tangentially about how 3 or 4 years ago, who knew about this guy? And now here he is making the Hot 100 list, a list which certainly has notoriety. Would he still have made that list if he had never come out? Has his coming-out been a huge positive influence on his career? Might it even be debatably the best thing to happen to his career and fame? Can other (younger?) gay actors take that as an example, and feel confident that coming out can only help them? Or would this be an exception to a very sad rule? Or do I spend so much time looking at the media through the lens of *this* website, that I'm not seeing the bigger picture?
I'm sure he doesn't see things the same way my brain did, or if he even thinks about it in those terms at all, but it's sure made me wonder.
T.R.'s career trajectory
Some great questions, Jerm. For myself, I hadn't heard of T.R. until Grey's, which I originally began to watch because of Kate Burton. But from the start, I was attracted to the character of George -- a work buddy and I used to have weekly recaps of Grey's where we'd debate the relative merits, successes, and trials of McDreamy (her favorite hottie) vs George (mine).
I wondered from the first where this actor had come from, because he'd totally been off my radar screen until then (so had Ellen Pompeo and Chandra Wilson, for that matter, though they'd been slogging away for some time -- Chandra, in particular, I see in reruns in guest spots all over the tube where she steals whatever scene she's in, in about 30 seconds of screen time). It turns out that Grey's isn't the first series where he was a regular (unfortunately, he was in one of Nathan Lane's ill-fated sitcoms, so he didn't stay onscreen long enough to make that much of an impression). He probably made an impression on Mr. Lane because of his Broadway career -- including holding his own against Patti LuPone in Noises Off.
But by the time T.R. made it to Broadway, he'd been working as an actor for some time -- I realize that I saw him at the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis about 30 years ago when he played Tiny Time in the Guthrie's annual production of A Christmas Carol.
In terms of whether coming out will be good for his career, it's hard to tell. Obviously people in show business have known about his sexual orientation for years, and he's still been castable. Actors like T.R. and Luke and Cheyenne are in the first phase of this brave new world of coming out to the general public during their first brushes with huge fame, so we have no paradigm to measure what effect their openness will have. I guess we'll have to wait and see.
In terms of the timing of T.R.'s coming out -- as were the cases of Luke, Cheyenne, and NPH -- he didn't come out to the general public until there was some media buzz about his sexual orientation. Because he was already out in his personal and professional life (the real professional life -- including his colleagues and those who could hire him or not -- not his media-generated public life), he (as did the rest of the new generation) made a conscious decision to be honest about who he was -- as opposed to the others in the public eye who have talked about "keeping [their] personal lives private" or threatening to sue to keep their secrets safe.
I look forward to cheering as the accolades continue to pile up for T.R. and the other members of my gay tribe -- and I look forward to T.R.'s next trip to Broadway. Thirty-some years is a long time for me to wait to see him create his magic onstage.