Scottish-American actor, singer and musical star John Barrowman is probably most familiar to US audiences from his roles in films De-Lovely and The Producers. In the UK, he has added to his popularity with recent appearances in Saturday night entertainment shows The Sound of Musicals and Dancing on Ice. But it is his attention-grabbing role as swashbuckling bisexual action hero Captain Jack Harkness, in the first series of the new Doctor Who, that has really endeared him to the nation.

So much so that the character now has his own spin-off show, Torchwood, due to premiere in the UK this autumn. American viewers can get their first look at Captain Jack tomorrow tonight, on the Sci Fi Channel at 9pm, in the new Doctor Who episode ‘The Empty Child'.

In this exclusive interview with AfterElton.com, Barrowman talks about creating Captain Jack, working with Queer As Folk originator Russell T. Davies, and prepping for the hotly anticipated Torchwood. He also shares his thoughts on bisexuality, gay rights, the religious right, being “too straight” for Will & Grace, and avoiding pigeonholing as an actor who is openly gay.

AfterElton.com: I was wondering if you could talk a bit about what the process was for you being cast as Jack?
John Barrowman: Well, my agent asked me if I would be interested in going in for a part that was being talked about for Doctor Who, which, for those who don't know about it, Doctor Who's an iconic British TV series that has been around off and on since 1963.

So to be a part of it is a huge deal. I grew up in the UK as a kid, I was born and raised in Scotland, and so, having the knowledge of it, it was kind of a fantasy of mine to be involved in Doctor Who, though I never thought it would happen.

So they rang and said “They're thinking about a character that might be right up your alley”, and I said “OK, I'll go in.” I met with Russell T. Davies, who writes Doctor Who, and is an executive producer, and also wrote Queer As Folk [the UK version]. I met with [executive producer] Julie Gardner and a few other people. I was in there for about two hours, and then when I left, I got a call fifteen minutes later saying that the part was... that they wanted me to do the role, and then they basically wrote the character around me.

AE: Well I was going to ask you about Russell T. Davies, because I'm a huge fan of his as a television writer. I was a big fan of Queer as Folk, and also Bob and Rose [a drama about a gay-identified man who falls in love with a woman].
JB: Russell is probably the one writer around today who really has no fears of what people think. And he writes everything as it happens in society. Rather than having things that are glossed over and pretending that they don't happen, Russell writes about them, because as he says “I write about the way people live”.

And not only with all the other things he's done, but with Doctor Who, what he's done is he's been able to bring in the way people actually live but into a sci-fi show. And to engulf and bring in a children's audience, to an adult audience, to a teenage audience--in the UK it spans a whole gamut of things. It plays to three demographics. And, you know, Captain Jack is bisexual. It's never said full out on the show, but he is: he likes both men and women.

And the fact that Russell has done this...the British public have accepted it with open arms, because it's done with the right type of humour, the right type of realism. It's not salacious, it's not done in a rude or crude manner.

Russell takes a look at characters, particularly--and this is kind of going off Doctor Who a little--he takes a look at characters and people, and whether they be gay, straight, bisexual, or, you know, red, green, black, whatever they may be, or what they're into, he treats it as a norm. And that's why I think it's so acceptable amongst so many people.

AE: I thought it was such an interesting contrast, and worked so well, when Captain Jack first appears, that you have these characters of Rose and the Doctor, and Rose's family and so on, that are such recognizable British modern-day characters. And then you have Captain Jack, who has this great humanity, but also has this amazing old-school, matinee-idol, American... almost like an Errol Flynn, kind of a swashbuckling quality.
JB: I'm glad you said that, cause that's exactly what Russell wanted to capture, and also when I did it, what I wanted to create was that Jack was a hero type. And I'm only saying what Russell said to me when they cast me, he said “John, we were looking for someone with a matinee idol [quality], and the only one in the whole of Britain who could do it was you, and who has that look”.