QAFolk
Has Catapulted Gale Harold to Stardom
PM Magazine May 2001 issue
Gale Harold wasn't what the producers expected
when he showed up on the final day of casting for the
Americanized version of "Queer As Folk"
On
the other hand he was better than what they had anticipated. Co-producer Dan
Lipman probably said it best; 'Gale had it all!"
To think that three years before Harold considered
acting a viable career option, he ran a motorcycle shop in
As
of late, the handsome Mr. Harold is making his
He
studied at American UnivesJty in Washington, DC and the San Francisco Art
Institute.
Suzy
Landau, a producer for the Francis Ford Coppola films "Dracula" and
"Tucker", encouraged him to pursue a career in the theatre.
And
although he played 'Bunny' in Gillian Plowman's "Me And My Friend",
with a feature film debut as 'Booker" in Paul Scheuring's "36K",
before
returning to the stage in productions of "The Misanthrope", and
"Cymbeline",
Harold
remained by his own admission "massively unknown" until being cast as
Brian Kinney in Showtime's "Queer As Folk".
At 28-years-old, Gale Harold has embraced stardom by playing a gay hero who is
unapologetically promiscuous.
All
at once it became giant step for gay rights and cable television. For Gale it
was a bit much.
"While this guy is a blast to play because he holds nothing back, the sex
scenes were kind of mindblowing.
It
was intense because we are talking television here. You've got this cavalier
predator having his way with a 17-year-old,
who
looks maybe 10, and the visual implications are unbelievable."
Not only were there visual implications with Gale's characterization of Brian
as an archetypal gay Don Juan,
there
were social ones too. Heterosexuals resented having to see the gay lifestyle
played-out in their living rooms,
while
gays charged that the promiscuity represented in the series was overstated.
Yet
something clicked and Gale Harold became a sex symbol for the millennium.
Austin Pendleton's macabre, yet sometimes witty story of a man and his nephew,
who
in spite of their glaring differences, share a common desire for human
connection, seems like the next big step for Harold to make in his career.
The
young actor takes it beyond the melodrama about a fractured relationship
between a self-loathing victim of AIDS facing a meaningless death,
and
a disturbed young man facing a meaningless life. Gale Harold makes his
portrayal real.
"I
think my character, Josh, is more fleshed-out than any other I've played.
Austin
has written a great play with stimulating social significance."
"Uncle Bob", directed by Courtney Moorehead is terrific theatre with
a charismatic cast,
Screen
veteran George Morfogen plays the lead, Uncle Bob, and the chemistry between
the older and younger actors is superb.
Gale is an incredible new talent with a raw and unbridled quality.
He
stuns, he smolders and he sets the stage for a new era of leading man.
Catch this rising star at the SoHo Playhouse.