Interview: Gay Twin Gary Lane Reveals the Secret to His "Wipeout" Victory (and it Has to do with Dolly Parton!)

Wipeout photos credit: Mike Weaver

It’s clear that the world has long been fascinated by twins. So what are twins fascinated by?

In the case of Gary and Larry Lane, the answer is Dolly Parton.

The two have always idolized the country icon — so much so that in their latest screenplay, Full Circle, these aspiring screenwriters wrote a part especially for her. Once it was done, they then even embarked on a cross-country road-trip to hand-deliver the script to her, filming everything along the way and turning it into a documentary, Hollywood to Dollywood, that also happens to tell the life story of these 35-year-old twins, who grew up in Goldsboro, North Carolina, and who also happen to both be gay men.

How to finance the film? In addition to various acting roles, they’ve participated in a number of reality shows, which are always eager to cash in on the world’s fascination with twins. But Gary and Larry aren’t just handsome (and remarkably youthful-looking) faces: they won $125,000 on a show called Set For Life, and $50,000 on Fear Factor.

Last week, they added to their total by winning the campy ABC obstacle course show Wipeout, to the tune of another $50,000.

It wasn’t even a contest: they completely blew the rest of the competition away. What’s this about gay men not being athletic?

We decided to get the whole story from Gary, one of these twins, who now pursue writing and acting careers together in North Hollywood, including the real secret of their Wipeout success, what really goes on back-stage on that show, the problems with dating a twin, and Gary's theory on the number of twins where both are gay. 

AE: How do you keep ending up on these reality shows?
GL: We always get pulled in with the fact that we’re twins and we’re Southern. Both of the shows that we won $50,000 on, Fear Factor and Wipeout, were looking for twins. We always say we’ll only we’ll do it if the winning prize is $50,000 or higher.

We definitely exploit the twin thing.

The funny thing about Wipeout is that we were scared to death of the show, because it looks like people really get hurt. But we had something to motivate us, this Dolly Parton movie project [where we needed money to purchase song rights]. With every wipe-out, we’d think, “Well, ‘Jolene.’ Or ‘Coat of Many Colors.’ And we’d keep moving.

AE: Everyone on Wipeout says that it’s much harder in real life than it looks on TV. Is that true?
GL: I was the same way. I’d watch it and think, “How can they get that far and quit?” But the first time you hit the water, it zaps all your energy. You have to climb up these ladders to get back to the platform, and it really zaps your energy. But then Dolly would pop in my head, and I’d think, “Oh, shoot, I need to pay for that song!”

The Lane Twins in the NoH8 campaign

Next Page! Just what kind of release form do you have to sign to be on Wipeout?