Interview with George Takei and Brad Altman

AE: I hope we get to see those pictures in People Magazine. I want to see you guys get a big, glossy spread.
BA: Well, if you have any contacts at People Magazine, let us know because they haven’t contacted us yet.

The key thing that we really want to communicate is that the only real reason it’s required upon a high-profile human being like George Takei and his life partner Brad Altman to kind of aggressively let the mainstream media know about our wedding ceremony plans, I feel, is because we are ultimately just two normal human beings who happen to be the same gender who love each other, who feel that in fairness we have a right to marry each other. That’s really why we’re talking about it because we want to make sure that people realize that we have the right to marry.

AE: So do you feel by being so public about this you are trying to show as many people as possible that you’re just two guys in love who are getting married? There’s nothing threatening here?
GT: Precisely.

BA: Yeah, that’s a great analysis. And we have to be careful because people don’t think about gay relationships – straight people don’t think about gay relationships. I just hope that fair-minded Californians just realize that it’s about love.

Photo credit: Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images

AE: George, you’ve been so successful since coming out in 2005. I’m curious what you think about some of the younger stars we’ve seen come out in the past couple of years, such as T.R. Knight and Neil Patrick Harris and now Luke Macfarlane who are doing it closer to the beginning of their careers. Do you look at what you did as sort of helping break the way for that, as something you take pride in? Or does it just make you feel good that the world has changed?
GT: Well, the world is changing, that’s true. The press, I guess, wants to call my 2005 interview as my coming out. But actually Brad and I have been out in a very natural and normal way for many, many years. As a matter of fact we support many non-profits and our names are carved in granite together on donor walls.

So we’ve been out in that respect, but in 2005 I spoke to the press about my being gay for the first time because of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s veto [of the state legislature’s legalization of same-sex marriage]. And for me to speak out on that veto, my voice had to be authentic. So I spoke for the first time and the press has deemed that to be my coming out. And I am proud to have made the comments that I did on that veto. I criticized him. I criticized him the second time when he vetoed it again two years later, but now I will say that he did the right thing in saying that he will honor the Supreme Court’s ruling and that he will oppose the effort by the radical right to revise the constitution and bring a ban on same-sex marriage into California again.

I think with the younger actors coming out, it’s a reflection of the climate of the times. I know that when I was a young actor, I was very cautious because we go for auditions and we get rejected for various reasons: too tall, too short, too fat, too skinny. And you don’t want to add another element over which they could reject you. I think because the social climate is changing it’s more comfortable for younger actors to make this very personal decision. And it is a personal decision. I applaud all of them for having the confidence and the sense of self to come out. But there are others who have not and I will also respect their personal decision.

AE: In the 60s, 70s or even 80s did you talk to other actors in the same situation as you were, or was this something you didn’t talk to other actors about?
GT: Once Star Trek started becoming feature films in the late 70s, we would have wrap parties on Friday nights when we would finish up a week’s work and I brought Brad to one of them and I introduced him as “my friend.” And a couple weeks down the road, I brought him again. They’re sophisticated people so they put two and two together and said, “Hmmm, I get it.”

And I recall when I realized that Walter really got it. I was standing with him at the coffee urn, sipping and chit chatting and there was this stunningly good looking young extra wearing the tight Star Trek uniform. And Walter kept making eye gestures, urging me to turn around. I was wondering what was he trying to do, so I turned around and there was this gorgeous young thing, you know, with his muscled body, pectorals voluptuously coming out, and that’s when I realized “Okay, Walter knows and Walter understands.”

But it wasn’t really verbalized. It was these signals that Walter gave that let me know that he knew and then he and his wife Judy, with whom I went to school at UCLA, would invite me over to dinner and he’d say, “Why don’t you bring Brad over?” So, it happened in a very normal, natural, friendly way.

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