Jason Stuart is an out comic, which means that he’s openly gay and feels compelled to tell me that he’s naked while doing the phone interview. (While openly gay is just grand, I’m not sure that the nude information is anything I ever need anyone telling me, unless that person is Brad Pitt and it’s followed by his address and the statement “Jennifer’s gone for the rest of the week.”)
Stuart would also like me to immediately check out his photo at www.jasonstuart.com and tell him whether or not he’s “hot.” A quick courtesy in the affirmative does not satisfy him.
“Don’t lie to me,” he warns. “Because I’ll slap you. I’m breaking up with you; I want my records back.”
He then promises to send a photo of himself in all his glory.
“It doesn’t have my head, though,” he adds.
Welcome to the world of the out comic. Stuart, who’s appearing this weekend at Giggles Comedy Club, has been doing stand-up since ’83 but didn’t come out, he says, until “Thursday.” OK, maybe it was earlier than that.
“I came out to my family in my early 20s,” he admits. “Then I came out to my fans on the Geraldo show in ’93.”
Where to begin, really? “Fans”? Geraldo? I had no idea who Stuart was, truth be told, and now I’ve got to deal with Geraldo Rivera, who, Stuart says, was “just a doll.”
As for who Stuart is, well, he’s been busy building up what reads like a variation on your typical gay Hollywood r鳵m頨assuming you’re lucky enough to be an out gay performer who still gets work in Hollywood): a stint on Will & Grace as a high-strung cabaret manager; an upcoming gay independent film comedy, 10 Attitudes; and a recurring role as a gay psychiatrist on the Damon Wayans sitcom My Wife and Kids.
Coming out, Stuart knows, probably cost him some choice role on Diagnosis: Murder, but it transformed his comedy “an incredible amount. I was able to be honest and not worry. All of a sudden, my voice came out, you know?”
Though Stuart is comfortably open—and, as we’ve established, comfortably naked—he’s not sure that means a helluva lot to the rest of the gay community, which, he notes, is happy to go giddy over Margaret Cho but doesn’t yet line up for one of the boys.
“Gay men don’t run to support other gay men,” he says. “Not yet, anyway. There’s still that self-hate thing. I think that we don’t have enough role models.”
In the meantime, along with the laughs he hopes to get this weekend, his life’s goals are simple.
“I want to do a wonderful role in an independent film with a wonderful director where I have the creative experience of my life,” he sighs. “And I win an Oscar and then play the same part, over and over, in big studio pictures for a lot more money.”
