Interview with John Barrowman of "Doctor Who"

But yes, Jack's human, he's got a heart, it's very different from Rose and the Doctor, but the fact that - I mean, the British like the American kind of thing.

AE: Absolutely. It's such a great mix, I think.
JB: Yeah, it is--they love Hollywood. Our world is very small now, you know, being American, or being British--it's kind of being one and the same, except for the cultural differences a little bit. The world has gotten a lot smaller, and people travel so much more, so it's not such a jarring thing to see someone speaking with a different accent on your television.

But I mean, the popularity of the character has turned out to be huge in the UK, because I am now as we speak... Captain Jack has his own spin-off series now.

AE: Torchwood, yes.
JB: Which, I've to go to a read-through this evening. So it proves about the British public that they're not judgmental [about Jack]. And also they've kind of accepted me with open arms really because I was born over here, and spent a lot of time over here.

AE: Yeah. Well I wanted to ask you a little bit as well about Jack's bisexuality. It's interesting to me how, in terms of female characters on television and so on, there almost seems to be a higher proportion of bisexual women that are represented than lesbian women that are represented.

Whereas when it comes to gay men versus bisexual men, there's this skepticism that certain people seem to have [about the idea] that men can be sexually fluid in that way.
JB: For a country [America] that is so progressive, and so ahead of itself in technology, in finance, in everything else, their human rights are not exactly...

Yes, you're free, and I am proud to be an American, but I'm not proud to be a gay American, because they shun me. And that's why it's [comparatively] acceptable to say you're bisexual in America. There's something that is slightly more acceptable about it, because you do have sex in the ‘normal way' as seen by the religious sect, the government sect.

But if you're to come out and say you're gay, immediately you're bad, you're evil, you're wrong, what you do is not considered correct. You might be accepted, but you're not respected. So I find [perhaps that's why for] women, there's more bisexuality represented than there is gay, you know. It's hard for me to speak for a bisexual person because I'm not. I'm a gay man, [but] in terms of acceptance, that's why I think that [someone might call themselves] bisexual, as opposed to [calling themselves] gay or lesbian.

AE: Right. Well, yeah, I was going to ask you, out of your own experience, whether you had met bisexual men, or what your particular point of view was on bisexuality. Because I find it interesting how people have such different takes on it. Certain people will say “Yes, of course it exists”, you know, whereas other people have this quite rigid view of “Everyone must basically either be gay or straight”.
JB: No, I don't...well, I don't personally believe that. As we talk, I hope that when you do write the article you don't call me a gay actor, because I'm not a gay actor. I'm an actor, who is gay. I'm adamant about that.

And, it's funny--I'll answer your question in a second--it's funny that when I do interviews with, particularly with gay publications and websites, they're the ones who always say ‘gay actor'. And what it does is it pigeonholes us. And people look at us as just being ‘A Gay Actor', whereas I'm an actor who is gay, but I can play other parts. And that's what I've been able to do in my career. So, the thing about, um, uh, with, you know... [laughs] I've gone off in a tangent now and I've forgotten what your question was. Sorry, I apologize.

AE: [laughing] It's OK. I was just asking, in your own experience, whether you had known men that were bisexual.
JB: Oh, right, yeah. I don't like to label. I think of myself as a man. I am a man, who, if you have to put me in a category, I am a man who likes men, I would be a gay man.

I do believe that there are people who can like men and women, because, although I wouldn't choose to sleep with a woman, I still find women attractive. And when I say ‘choose to sleep with a woman', it's not a choice that I have made [to be gay], it's just not in me to sleep with women. I wasn't created this way to sleep with women.

And with men who like both men and women, that's fine, but there's a lot of confusion goes on in that instance, because men sometimes do use bisexuality as an excuse not to admit to their families, their friends, and publicly that they really are gay. And what that does in the long run--you have a lot of men who marry women, have children, but are living a secret gay life.

AE: Brokeback Mountain.
JB: Brokeback Mountain, classic example of it. That's why I say that I'd like to think that we are progressing, but to me, the US seems to be going backwards in that aspect as opposed to forwards.

The whole thing about gay marriage. I particularly don't like to associate a civil partnership, which is what I call it, with a marriage. Because--and I have arguments with people in the gay community about this a lot--why do we want a word that is synonymous with a religious ideal [belonging to] a group of people that hates us? Why do we want to be part of that? Why do we want to have that word attached to us, why can't we create our own word?

And you know what else has happened, the conservatives have turned it into a political battle, so every time they want something done, they just say “Oh, gay people will be married, and marriage is a sacred thing”. Well then--excuse my French-- let's f*** it, let's just get rid of the word. Let us use ‘partnerships', it's still the same thing. The thing that we need the benefit from is--

AE: The legal rights.
JB: The legal side of it. And also the fact that, for people who don't want to accept homosexuality, it shoves it down their throat, to coin a phrase--sorry, I'm on my soapbox here-- it forces them to accept us, and to respect us.

AE: Yup. Well I wanted to ask you about that, because I think it's quite an interesting debate, the whole question of civil unions versus marriage. There is partly the religious aspect. But also it seems that some gay people are quite keen on the idea of having a different phrase, and in a sense a different system for gay partnerships. Because they see them as having something that's inherently slightly different to a heterosexual relationship. I was wondering what...
JB: Well it is, I mean it is different. We are homosexual and they are heterosexual. It is completely different.

AE: Yeah. But the essential relationship, don't you think, is... I don't know, I have mixed feelings...
JB: Well, the essential relationship is the same.