Interview with John Barrowman

Below is the full interview with John Barrowman that appears in the April 2006 issue of outnorthwest magazine. To download a copy of this issue, visit:
www.lgf.org.uk

So you’re a Scot, aren’t you?

Yes. I’m originally from Glasgow, and left there in 1976 when I was 8 years old. It was my Dad’s company that moved us to the States, and he ended up being Vice President of the Caterpillar Tractor Company, which is a good thing because all the gay boys wear their boots and clothes! I grew up in the Mid-West.

Was it a big culture shock? Do you still remember Glasgow?

I absolutely do. It wasn’t a culture shock for me because I was so young. It was probably more difficult for my brother and sister,my brother’s five years older than me and my sister is seven years older.

How often do you get back to visit?

I don’t get back there very often. Actually, I’m going tomorrow because I’m filming in Inverness. I’m filming at Cawdor Castle which is outside of Inverness to do a TV show for American TV called ‘Keys to the Castle’.

What does that involve?

It’s for Home & Garden Television in America, which is like a Discovery Home & Leisure type channel. I’ll be taking the American audience through these British stately homes and castles to meet with people, eat with them, talk with them… Basically, it’s a lifestyle programme.

So it’s a series of programmes…

This is the pilot and if it does well then it’s a series of like 13 or 14 after that, which is great because it will fit in. I don’t know how my agent is doing it, but it’ll fit in between everything else I’m doing.

So, is this the busiest you’ve ever been?

No, this is normal.The only reason it’s becoming public now is because of the TV I’ve been doing over here. I’ve done two stage shows at one time in the States while I was doing TV, so I’ve always kept myself busy. I don’t like to be sitting around doing nothing!

It seems like you’re juggling a career on both sides of the Atlantic.

Yes and no. I used to try and juggle it, but I don’t do that anymore. I was doing Company in Washington DC and had a great time, but I said to myself,“I don’t want to go back to LA and pound the pavement to get a job in TV, because they are few and far between.”The UK’s been great to me, so I made the conscious decision to come back and get involved in TV drama over here. I can’t complain though, because work that’s happened over here has always brought work from America. That’s how The Producers came about.They contacted me because I was doing Doctor Who, and Susan Stroman rang up and said she always wanted to work with me.

Working on The Producers movie must have been a fantastic experience.

It was unbelievable, and one of the most surreal experiences I’ve ever had. I got off the plane and was literally picked up by car and driven to the hair and make-up artists’home. I sat in a chair for four hours and had my hair bleached blonde,my eyebrows bleached blonde, fitted for blue contacts and did make-up testing right there and then.The next day, I was in rehearsals learning all the coreography. In total it took about 5 weeks.

Do you still have the uniform?

Now if I did, do you think I would say? I’d get in a lot of trouble, but I know that there’s many a boy that would like to see me in that once again. Particularly my partner!

You’ve had an extremely successful stage career, is musical theatre a big passion of yours?

It’s a major passion, it’s the one passion that gave me my start in the entertainment
industry. I don’t only enjoy musicals though. I’ll never leave them, but I really enjoy doing
television, because I get a private and personal life to a certain extent.

What’s been your highlight in terms of stage work?

One of the great moments was The Fix, but not many people got to see it. I was playing a politician who was having an affair with a younger woman while sustaining a marriage, sleeping with his Uncle (who was in a wheelchair), shooting heroin, snorting coke, and drinking alcohol.That was the show I received my Olivier nomination for. I lost so much weight doing that from all the heroin… that’s a joke!

Can we talk about the gay thing?

You can talk about the gay thing all you want!

When did you ‘come out’, when was the moment when you decided it was time to let people know?

I was never really ‘in’ amongst my colleagues, and my friends. I’ve just always been me. I believe you shouldn’t have to proclaim your sexuality. I understand why we have to do it, but I don’t feel people should have to do it if they don’t want to. I have friends who are gay that have never publicly said it, but they still live a gay lifestyle and I’m perfectly comfortable with that. I was asked in a Playbill interview for America about dating, and I said I’d been with my partner for 13 years, and I kid you not, the guy’s jaw dropped. I thought to myself,”What have I just done?” Not in the sense of like, oops I’ve made a mistake but I thought why is he reacting like this? He said,“Do you realise what you just said?” and I said,”Yes.”, and he said,“Did you want to say it?”, and I said,“Well I just said it”, and he said,“Why’d you say it?”, and I said,“Because it’s a truth, it’s a fact.” I thought to myself, I’m in my thirties and I live with another man, I have two dogs that are groomed better than some people,my house is minimalist, and I’m in musical theatre… what other clues do you want?

So it’s never been an issue? Have you always had support from friends and family?

I’ve always had support from friends and family. I came out to my family when I was 21 years old because I wanted them involved in my life. I thought they were going to disown me, and I was completely wrong. Actually, they were a little offended because they never brought me up that way. It’s every gay man and women’s fear that they are going to be shunned by their family, and I know so many people that have been shunned.My mother’s reaction was,“I’d like to have a word with those men and women. How dare they shun their children!” My Dad said,“What we do in our bedroom we don’t discuss with you, and what you do in your bedroom is your business.” They’ve actually lost friends because of it, which for me is a huge deal.They’ve challenged their friends because of derogatory jokes and comments about gay men.Good on them for it.

Have you ever experienced homophobia?

So many people sit around and allow people to say negative things about gay men and women – they don’t speak up. I’ve been in the back of a taxi cab and the taxi driver will drive past something like Clone Zone and say,“All the queers hang out in there, you won’t want to go and eat in there.” I’m like,“Dude, pull over. I’m a gay man and you’re offending the shit out of me and I’m reporting you to your company.” I don’t use company’s that make statements like that because… ust keep your mouth shut.

Has it ever been a problem in securing roles?

I’ve never known it to be a problem.What I don’t like is being labelled a ‘gay actor’, I’m an actor who is gay. If you were to interview Brad Pitt you don’t say straight actor Brad Pitt. It’s just not an issue for them. Some newspapers do it for salacious reasons, to make it sound seedy. It’s not seedy. It’s not bad or wrong to be gay. Actually, the entertainment industry is probably still one of the most homophobic industries around, and the sad fact is it’s mostly run by gay men and women.

Tell us about your experience of Will & Grace…

I was up for the role of Will in Will and Grace and I was told that I’m not gay enough, I was too straight! I don’t watch it anymore because Will would have a boyfriend.They need to stop playing this whole Grace thing, and them getting together. It so ain’t going to happen! A gay man might fiddle-diddle and try something just to see what it was like, but at the end of the day they are going to go back to the boy. I think the reason they still do that on American TV is because if they gave Will a boyfriend people would switch off.The whole premise is, she’ll turn him.No she won’t!

Is it true you’re entering into a civil partnership with your partner?

I haven’t done it yet. I don’t want any big hoo-haa made out of it because I want it to be
very private and quiet with friends. I certainly don’t want the newspapers all,“Barrowman gets
married!” To me it’s not a marriage.

It’s a fantastic step forward for gay people…

HUGE! I don’t like calling it a marriage, because it’s a word synonymous with religion, and religion hates gay men.Why do we want to be part of something that hates us or dislikes us? That’s what civil partnerships do for those right-wing arseholes that preach fire and brimstone and hatred. It forces them to accept us as legitimate people, which we are. All I’d say is please don’t just go out with someone for three months and then get civil partnered. We could have a split up rate higher than the heterosexual community. I’d say you should really think about what your getting in to before you do it. Scott and I have been together thirteen years, and we’re not doing it to legitimise our relationship,we’re doing it show people that you can have a long-term relationship, and be two men or two women living together.

You’re quite closely involved with Crusaid, aren’t you?

I’m on the board of Crusaid.My industry was the first to be heavily affected - infected - if I can use that word, by HIV and AIDS. It killed companies, literally casts wiped out, generation swiped out, boyfriends, girlfriends, sons daughters. I say all those words because it makes people look at it differently, it makes people look at it as not just a gay man who is affected by it.He’s a son, he’s a partner, he’s a brother.That’s why I’m so passionate about it because I know so many people that have been affected by it, so that’s why I do a lot of that stuff.

Moving on to Doctor Who, Captain Jack was originally only meant to be in a couple of episodes wasn’t he?

He was written for a couple of episodes and it just grew. At first people hated him.They thought he was too in your face, and too cocky which is exactly what we wanted to happen. I was going on all the Doctor Who websites seeing all these negative reactions to the character and I was like,“Yes!”, because I knew the way the scripts were going.You were going to discover his charm and his affection for humanity, as well as for Rose and The Doctor. Literally after the second episode, the producers indicated that Jack was going to come back, and that he’d be in the next series. All that changed with all the Chris Eccleston leaving stuff. Jack the character became so popular not just because of his bisexuality, just because of his humanity and everything, and I was chuffed that this had happened and oh my God, so like, bowled over by it. Jack became bigger than we expected.

The role had to have been written with you in mind, it was so perfect for you.

Thank God for Russell T. Davies! He said, and I’m quoting him,“We thought about the character ofCaptain Jack and we have to have someone with matinee idol looks and there’s only one person in this country that can do it and it’s John Barrowman.” I just remember when I went into the screen-test and I sat and talked to Russell and Andy - we just laughed! I said, “Look, I’m not trying to be sycophantic and I’m not trying to kiss your ass here or anything, but if you gave me this job, you’d be making a young boy’s dream come true.” And when I said that I just saw it in his face, because Doctor Who is the same for him. It’s a young boys dream come
true to be a part of it. When I got the call that I had the part, I was with my niece and I
screamed the road down. It was unbelievable.

One of the best things about Doctor Who is that a whole new generation of children are becoming fans. The issue of Captain Jacks’ sexuality has not been a problem for them has it?

They SO don’t care. I know of one little boy who said to his Dad,“I don’t care if he likes boys Daddy, I still think he’s a hero.”That was a little boy. His father came up to me at a Doctor Who convention and said,“It made me feel so proud.My child was not discriminating against people.”

And now we have Torchwood to look forward to…

They actually took me to dinner to tell me that I wasn’t going to be in series two of Doctor Who, but in series three instead. I was fine with that.Then there was another meeting, and I thought they were going to tell me I wasn’t even going to be in the third series! Then, all of a sudden they said,“You’re going to be in series three, and you’re also going to have your own series and we’re calling it Torchwood.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I stood up in the middle of the restaurant and did a WOOO! dance.To have a series written for you by one of the most prolific writers of our time on television.

You’ve read the first script.Can you tell us anything about it?

No! I’m contractually obliged not to say anything! I’ve read the first script and all I can tell you is that all the boys and girls, AND all the adults who love Doctor Who are going to be so pleasantly surprised. Jack’s still going to be outrageous, but you’re not going to see him naked or anything. It’s going to be very scary.Things are going to happen on screen, and you’re going to think,“How did they think of that?!?” It’s Cardiff based, but it’s set all around the UK. You might see me in Manchester, you might see me in other parts of the UK because… well, that’s all I can tell you! Seriously, it’s worth more than my life!

Dancing On Ice…

I loved it! The reason why I was so upset about being voted off by the three judges was because they were SO wrong. I was gutted. I was absolutely gutted. In fact, I heard some of the bars in Manchester had a 3 minute silence when they noticed I was voted off! The clubs went quiet…

You were absolutely outstanding on the night.

I think there was a little bit of… well a little bit of favouritism.That was why I was upset. I really enjoyed it, I loved doing it. Olga and I spent a lot of time, really worked hard on it and I also felt bad for her as she left a company to come and do this with me. The skate-off was the highest rated to that point. I mean for my money Bonnie should have won it. I love Gaynor and Stefan both, but Bonnie should have won it because she was the most showbiz spectacular. If the public had seen her Bolero they’d have realised,“Oh my God!”

Did you keep watching every week afterwards?

I did, because I wanted to keep up with what was going on as I was going to be back in the final, and I was still being asked about it on a daily basis. But,my voting changed. do you think I voted for someone who knocked me out…?

Was there a level of competitiveness?

Hell, yeah. All the celebrities got together in the beginning and we said that we knew this was a TV show, but we want it to be a TV show for family viewing.We’re not going to back stab each other – even though we know that things are going to happen between us where we’re not going to get along at times. It’s good to know that you can succeed in things and put your differences aside and get on with it.That’s why we did that.Of course,we had our ups and downs, our little arguments, a few little tiffs but we got on with it. It was an ensemble piece and we were all rooting for each other.

We loved when you came back for the final and skated backwards…

Everybody else was going in a line and I looked at Christine and said,“I’m doing a backward crossover… and I’m doing that backwards. I want to let them see they made a huge mistake!”

...and got one of the biggest reactions of the night!

Yup. No flies on this one.

Have you had a lot of support from the public?

Yeah I did.Oh my God, people come at me in the street and said,“You woz robbed!” I’d gofor a coffee down Starbucks and I’d hear people coming up to me and they’d say,“You were clearly the best…”

So you’ve got Torchwood on the immediate horizon. Any other plans you’d care to share?

I was at a meeting only this morning and I’m going to be presenting This Morning with Fern Britton when Philip (Schofield) goes on vacation.Then when I’m done with This Morning I go… oh I can’t talk about that yet, but there’s another show with the BBC possibly.There’s loads I’d still like to accomplish and I have loads of ambition.

This must be an exciting time for you.

It is. I know it won’t last forever, and for me it’s not about becoming famous, it’s about doing good work and being respected in the craft that I have trained in. So I’d like to continue to do what I’m doing…

John Barrowman, thank you very much for taking the time to talk to us.

This interview is copyright 2006 of outnorthwest and The Lesbian & Gay Foundation. Please
seek permission before reproducing any part of this interview.Contact the Editor on 0161 235 8035,
or email grahame@lgf.org.uk
outnorthwest is published every month by The Lesbian & Gay Foundation. For more information
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