Interview: "Entertainment Weekly"'s Michael Ausiello Loves to Play the Spoiler

You might say that there are two types of people in the world – the ones who love TV spoilers and the ones who become insanely enraged by them.

It’s kind of like the difference between those of us who want a little bit of foreplay to spice things up before the main event, and the ones who blindly dive right in.

For those in the former camp (and I consider myself one of them), the undisputed king of the TV spoiler is Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello. If there's a major scoop in the current TV world, he'll somehow be behind it, whether it's via a major cover story, like his revealing behind-the-scenes Q&A with controversial Grey's Anatomy star Katherine Heigl, or his weekly print column The Ausiello Files and daily EW.com blog of the same name. Then there’s his insanely popular “Ask Ausiello” spoiler-a-thon (also at EW.com), wherein he answers readers’ burning questions about their favorite shows, delicately (and often humorously) hinting at what's to come without giving away the more juicy surprises.

A native New Jersey boy, Ausiello got his start writing for Soap Opera Update and Soaps in Depth, then landed at TV Guide where he kicked off “Ask Ausiello.” He spent nine years there, during which his audience grew significantly, before making the move to Entertainment Weekly in July of 2008. He's also been known to act, with walk-on roles in some of his own favorite shows, including Veronica Mars, Gilmore Girls, Scrubs, and a devastating appearance by his left arm on Felicity that acting students study to this day.

He currently lives in New York City’s Hell’s Kitchen with his partner of nine years, Kit Cowan (owner of prettybitter.com, a stationery company featuring hilariously snarky greeting cards). With the current TV season fast winding down, it seemed like an ideal time to check in with Michael for a TV-centered chat. Over cocktails, we chatted about gay TV, what TV meant to him growing up as a shy gay kid, the current TV season, and even some spoilers about what’s to come.

AfterElton.com: I don’t know if you realize this, but you have quite a lot of fans at AfterElton.com. In fact, one of our writers [snicks] gave you a nickname that the readers use for you – Spurf (a combination of Sprite and Smurf). How does that make you feel?
Michael Ausiello: [looking totally perplexed] What’s the Sprite thing? I don’t quite get it.

AE: I guess because you have magical powers to bring us good TV scoop.
MA: Oh, wow! Interesting. It’s funny, in my mind, I immediately went to sperm and Smurf …

AE: That would be a very different website than ours.
MA: Exactly! Well, I’m flattered. That’s fun.

AE: Were you always a TV fanatic, going back as a kid?
MA: Oh, I was a couch potato. Much of my childhood was about television, excitement about television, looking forward to television, consuming television …

I wasn’t a happy student, I didn’t like going to school, I was picked on a lot. So, the one thing that really got me through was looking forward to getting home and watching Days of Our Lives and Santa Barbara. The soaps were a big major escape for me.

And Friday night television, Dallas and Falcon Crest, was the highlight of my week. Whenever I was having a bad day, I would focus on those two hours coming up Friday, those two hours of bliss and escape. Those are some of my happiest childhood memories …

Dallas' J.R. Ewing and Falcon Crest Matriarch Angela Channing

I know it made me more of an outcast a little bit, because when everybody was outside playing, and watching sports, and all those things, here was this boy obsessed with soap operas.

AE: Right. And you weren’t going to go to school and tell everyone you were watching Falcon Crest.
MA: Although I did. Because it was at a time when I didn’t know that there was anything wrong with that. It was still innocent. I thought everybody was enjoying this. It took a little while to figure out that I was different, that not everyone had the same interests as me, and not everyone got such pleasure out of soap operas and being invested in these characters.