AE: Speaking of portraying a gay character, Leonard Maltin had an interesting quote awhile back. He said, "An actor's job is to convince you that they are who they are portraying. If you are aware that an actor is gay and you are watching them portray heterosexuals, I think that's understandably confusing." What do you think of that quote? Is that a fair assessment?
GB: I have two simultaneous thoughts about it. One is that I think he sort of doesn't know what he's talking about. So that's my primary thought. But my secondary thought is: I do think the less you know about actors' private lives in general, the better. I think there's something to the kind of privacy that a lot of the great actors that I grew up watching in the '70s and '80s, whether it was De Niro or Redford — you know, these were men who didn't do a ton of interviews. Not knowing a lot about them, it did help you sort of imagine them in a role.
AE: Yeah.
GB: But you know, if someone brings in a bias towards someone being gay or straight, if that's their own personal bias, it's small-minded of all of us to think that that's a reason for gay actors not to come out.
AE: Getting back to Brothers & Sisters, I'm curious about the writing process that goes on there. Does Robbie Baitz map out the season's overall story arc, or is that something that you guys work on together?
GB: I think since I've been here we've sort of done that together. You know, as a show runner and as someone who's done character-driven shows before, I've been able to navigate the whole thing a little bit faster. They were a couple episodes in already when I came in to help out, and just by virtue of maybe having gone in a slightly different direction initially, I think it needed to work at a quicker pace.
And so my experience with Everwood and Jack & Bobby and Dawson's has helped me to, I think, get them through a lot of hurdles a first-year show can have in terms of doing multiple characters and multiple stories all at the same time. We sit with the writer of each particular episode and sort of map it out from there. I think the job of the show runner is slightly different from the job of the creator, who may be the original source of the material, but the show runner has to sort of divine what that means and put that into a form of stories over multiple episodes.
AE: It seems like the show kind of shifted directions a little bit after you arrived. One thing, for instance, it seems like there was less emphasis on the Bill Walker embezzlement stuff. But overall, has the story arc really changed substantially, and now do you guys have a pretty clear view of where you're headed? I mean, is it mapped out for the rest of the year and next year?
GB: Definitely mapped out for the rest of the year. I think it has changed slowly but surely. If you go back to the first episode, the tone of the show has, you know, gotten a lot lighter.
AE: Yes, it seems funnier.
GB: Again my sense is that's part of what makes the show enjoyable to watch on Sunday night at 10:45 when you've got work all the next week. So it's important to remember that you're there to entertain the audience as well. We're not teaching a history lesson.
AE: OK, you said it was mapped out for this year. What about next year? I'm assuming you guys are coming back. Any word on that?
GB: Yeah, I'm pretty sure the show will come back. I mean, they haven't picked up anything officially for next season yet, but our chances are looking incredibly strong.
AE: Well, the way you said that, I'm curious. Will you come back as the show runner next year? I know you've got a lot of other irons in the fire.
GB: I'll be involved, but at the end of the day it's Robbie's creation. Hopefully one of my other pilots will go.
AE: Eli Stone?
GB: Yeah, Eli Stone. I also worked on another pilot called Dirty Sexy Money with Craig Wright, one of the writers from this show and Six Feet Under. Yeah, so I'll be involved in launching those, and so my time here will definitely be reduced. There will be someone else to do what I do.
AE: I'm curious about Dirty Sexy Money and Eli Stone. Is there anything that gay viewers should be looking for in those?
GB: Definitely. There's a character of a senator in Dirty Sexy Money who's in love with a transvestite. So that's definitely got an interesting character. And I do think if one were to look at the TV landscape now that transgender characters are sort of where gay characters were 20 or 30 years ago. So I do think that's an area that Dirty Sexy Money will explore. And then Eli Stone takes place in San Francisco, so there's lots of opportunity for gay characters.
AE: Getting back to Brothers & Sisters, the relationship between Scotty and Kevin really seemed to strike a chord with gay viewers. Were you surprised by that? It almost seems like that relationship is kind of overshadowing his current relationship with Chad [played by actor Jason Lewis].
GB: Yeah, without a doubt. As usual when you get two characters — and two actors — together that have so much chemistry, you wind up with two camps. You get people that really want that, and others that don't want it, you know? My sense is that because we've got a lot of characters that are married on this show, to drive a lot of story in these kinds of shows you need characters to be …
AE: Single and dating?
GB: … yeah, and to have a string of different relationships. You know, if they'd all gotten married the first year on Sex and the City, it would have been a very different show.
AE: Yeah.
GB: I like to think of Scotty as Kevin's Mr. Big.
AE: Interesting. So maybe down the road these two will get back together?
GB: I would hope so. Scotty is someone that will be in Kevin's life, but I don't think that we should be exploring Kevin in a 22 straight episode kind of relationship right now. There's too much fun to be had before that and too much learning for his character to do before he gets to that place.
