Brett Claywell Talks to Entertainment Weekly About His Remarkable “One Life to Live” Storyline

Brett Claywell’s last appearance as Kyle Lewis on One Life to Live is on April 12th. We all know it’s a dumb move by the show’s producers and the network which has alienated a huge segment of new fans by writing off Kyle and his boyfriend Oliver Fish played by Scott Evans.

But if we have to look at the bright side, the story gave us the opportunity to not only fall in love with the characters, but also with the wonderful actors who inhabit them. Both have built a tremendous fan base that will no doubt follow whatever they do in the future.

Brett, who is straight in real life, has been so articulate about how playing this gay man has changed his life and it makes a lot of us so grateful that the role of Kyle was in such good hands.

Here is an excerpt of an interview Brett has done with Entertainment Weekly:

Why do you think Kish resonated with fans?
We were the first [gay] love scene in daytime. It had a lot to do with the writing, but it also has a lot to do with the way Scott and I played the roles. We made a choice in the beginning that we were going to underplay a lot of this storyline. We just wanted it to be really honest and really authentic and just simple. Just tell a love story. That was the most important thing to communicate — love between two men, honestly, on television. I think that people really responded to that because there weren’t a lot of bells and whistles.

Why the decision to go with a sex scene?
I don’t think they were intentionally building towards something. I think that scene came because of fan reaction. It was more from demand than anything. Because there is a community out there, a large percentage of people who are misrepresented in media, in television, in all forms of art.

Did you think the sex scene was explicit?
No. I keep saying that if you take Milk and you take Brokeback Mountain and you take the work we did, I feel like we stand toe-to-toe with the work that was done. But we told the story differently. The love scene between Oliver and Kyle…it was a moment where one man was finally coming to terms with sexuality after years of denying it and after his family disowns him. He was finally coming to terms and accepting the fact that he is comfortable with this man loving him. For Kyle, my character, it was a moment to be nurturing and loving towards somebody who’s going through a really hard moment to become comfortable with himself.

Read the rest of the interview at Entertainment Weekly.