Cheyenne Jackson: The Entertainer

With a plum new role on Glee and a repeat gig on 30 Rock, Cheyenne Jackson puts to rest the old Hollywood axiom that being gay doesn't pay.

Fast-forward past the small-town childhood, and the stubborn, insistent facts of an austere upbringing -- an outhouse, no running water (“I promised my mom I would quit talking about it.”). Skip the reproving sign atop the TV set -- If Jesus lived here would you be watching this? -- and the ban on unwholesome music. Start, instead, in the Gulf of Mexico with the bang of an epiphany -- every good story needs one, and Cheyenne Jackson’s is a peach.

It is July 1993. Along with his fellow teen missionaries, the young Jackson is handing out New Testaments, bumper stickers, and smiles. The bumper stickers read diga no a la pornografía (say no to pornography), and the trick is to catch drivers as they pause at the stoplight. “It was so bizarre and misguided,” says Jackson. “People were shamed into letting us put them on their car, but then the light would turn green and -- you know, bumper stickers! You have to do it clean and smoothly.” He mimics the act of smoothing out the wrinkles as cars lurch forward, the smiling missionaries staggering in their wake. It’s a funny image; the kind of thing Tina Fey might crib as back story for Kenneth the Page, the doltish office drudge on 30 Rock, in which Jackson has a recurring role. But it’s not a punch line on NBC, and the memory stirs complicated emotions for the teller. Jackson’s instinct is to charm and entertain, but the easy grace he projects is also a smoke screen. There are things still being worked out, processed. “This is gonna get deep,” he warns. “I don’t know if I want to say this.” He swallows, composes himself, and summons the memory.

It is July 12, and the missionaries are at the beach to celebrate Jackson’s 18th birthday. There is a cake, dyed blue. There is Jackson’s girlfriend, Willow (“We always said we were gonna name our kid Shiloh. Like, combine our names.”). The boys and girls are singing Jesus songs, playing guitar, weeping tears of gratitude and joy, but Jackson is not among them. He is out in the ocean, treading water, gazing back on the scene.

“I never felt further away from who I really am,” he says. “I’m ready to go out in the world and be who I’m supposed to be, but I am so conflicted because the church and everything in that world is telling me that who I am is wrong, just wrong. And I know I’m a good person, I know that I treat people with kindness and that I try to make the world a better place. How can who I am be wrong? And in that moment I just know that something has to change. I have to acknowledge it. I’ve never said it out loud, like ‘I’m gay.’ I go pretty far down underwater, not trying to hurt myself, or anything, but it’s the sense that I want to sink. And I look up and I can see the sun above the water, and it’s almost as if I feel something reach in and pull me up. And when I surface I am totally different. I’ve made a decision. And I look at the kids, and for once I don’t feel disdain or wish I could feel what they are feeling. I don’t wish that I could have real tears when I close my eyes to pray. I feel like this is the first day.”

Jackson turned 35 this summer, celebrating with a small birthday party at Paris Commune, a restaurant in New York City’s West Village. It was a typically low-key affair. The actor Alan Cumming came by with his partner. Ricki Lake stopped in for a quick toast. Jackson ordered the halibut and a gin and tonic. It was a busy time for the actor. He’d just filmed an episode for the eighth season of Curb Your Enthusiasm and was due to start filming a movie, The Green, starring opposite Julia Ormond, in which Jackson plays the partner of a drama teacher (Jason Butler Harner) caught up in a sexual harassment case. Although a project with HBO had recently fallen through, the actor had just been told that Ryan Murphy had written him into the third season of Glee, as the new coach of Vocal Adrenaline, and his mood was buoyant. In the eight years since he moved to New York City, he’s built an enviable résumé of successful Broadway roles, including Chad in All Shook Up and Sonny in the Tony-nominated pop opera Xanadu, as well as his role in 30 Rock, but he wears his fame lightly, never playing the diva or taking his success for granted. It’s a quality that sets him apart from many of his peers. “He’s just so low-key and undemanding and unpretentious with his approach and his delivery -- there are no boundaries, no rules, which is unique in that business,” says the designer Kenneth Cole who knows Jackson through his work for amfAR, the AIDS research foundation of which Cole is chairman. For David Mixner, a long time gay activist and fundraiser, Jackson is “a man who not only has heart but gives it to this community unconditionally.”

A few months after that birthday dinner, Jackson and his partner of more than 10 years, Monte Lapka, walked into New York’s City Hall and registered as domestic partners. “We wanted to get as married as we could,” says Jackson. “I think we were filling in some forms for wills or insurance, and I just thought, Let’s just make this as legal as we can. It was with a bunch of Russian mail order brides, literally. And it was hilarious and it was romantic, just he and me, our little secret.” Although Lapka, a trained physicist, is apparently ambivalent about marriage proper, his status on Jackson’s Wikipedia page is already listed as “spouse.” The boy of 18 who had never said “I’m gay” has come a long way.

Truth to tell, Jackson’s journey has its roots a decade before his dunk in the ocean, in the showers of a local health club in Newport, Washington (population 1,921), where a young Cheyenne found himself staring a little too intensely at his Christian scout leader. He was 7 or 8 at the time. “I remember seeing him and feeling just different -- my stomach was tingly, and I felt weird, and I liked it,” he remembers. As casually as possible, Jackson asked the scout leader if he knew where he might find his father, though the question was superfluous. “He was like, ‘No, Cheyenne, I haven’t seen him.’ And I ran back upstairs and pretended that I was still looking for my dad and ran down again so I could get another peek. I was like, ‘I can’t find him anywhere, know where he is?’ ‘No, I still don’t know.’"

Jackson’s performance in the showers that day was the first inkling of what was to come, a harbinger of years of nimble dissembling and self-denial. What was, perhaps, less predictable was that the church should be the beneficiary of all those pent-up emotions and repressed energies. But for the 8-year-old Jackson, the church represented music, singing, escape. “Singing was everything to me,” he says. “It gave me hope.” It also gave him an audience. As worship leader at the age of 14, he got to lead the congregation in a handful of songs preceding the sermon, an early platform for his musical gifts and a galvanizing insight into the power of song to connect and inspire. (At a September fundraiser for Fight Back New York, a pressure group aimed at removing anti-equality state senators from office, you could detect this influence in the quiet fervor with which he sang Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come”).

Jackson readily admits that the church planted the seeds of service that now finds expression in his work for amfAR and the Point Foundation. Digging ditches in Mexico and working in orphanages made him feel less powerless, less self-absorbed. It’s not a stretch to say that the church prepared him to be the advocate he’s become, one of the few entertainers unafraid to be out and outspoken. That’s a rare combination in a culture where knee-jerk homophobia keeps most actors in the closet until they’re shamed or driven out of it. Entertaining and activism don’t always go hand-in-hand, but Jackson is helped by his old-school charm. He has a quick, broad smile and a gentle wit that would have made him an excellent leading man in the screwball comedies that Hollywood turned out in the 1930s and ’40s, movies like Bringing Up Baby and His Girl Friday. It’s the kind of quality that makes people take out their checkbooks at the end of a long fundraising dinner.

“He has such a big and tender heart,” says Sherri Jackson on the telephone from Newport. She has been counting off all of the shows in which she’s seen her son perform, starting with Bye Bye Birdie and Li’l Abner in high school -- “he was in a show choir, which was a lot like Glee” -- through his early career in Seattle and his headline-grabbing roles on Broadway. When United 93, in which Jackson played gay hero Mark Bingham, came to the local Roxy in 2006 -- “the town was so supportive, the editor of the newspaper even wrote an editorial about it” -- she circled around every night just to count how many people were there. “I haven’t missed a thing he’s done,” she says, before pausing to correct this sweeping statement. “Actually, the only one I’ve missed,” -- she lets out a long, ironic laugh -- “is The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. That was a little raw. And I think I missed Rocky, as well, in Seattle.”

The omissions are telling. Prominent members of their church and local community, the Jacksons were born-again Christians with a devout belief in the teachings of the Bible. Jackson’s father was a police officer and undersheriff with a love of Westerns (Cheyenne was named after the long-running TV show starring Clint Walker as the eponymous gun-slinging hero, and not the Native American tribe from which he is partly descended). His mother was a police dispatcher. Church was compulsory, twice a week for three-and-a-half hours at a time, plus Sunday School. At home, they played Christian music -- Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith, Sandi Patty, and DeGarmo & Key. Jackson, who still remembers the Spokane Christian bookstore pulling Amy Grant’s CDs in retaliation for her “secular” duet with Peter Cetera, says he’s had to play catch-up on a lot of pop culture from his childhood. (Maybe a little too much; Lapka complains that Jackson is addicted to “what I call train-wreck TV, and I hate all of those reality shows.”)

Although Sherri Jackson does not dwell on the complicated reconciliation that followed her son’s coming out -- he called a meeting to address his parents and three siblings when he was 19 -- it’s clear that it was a long, painful process. “It was a difficult time,” she concedes. “It can be real divisive, but I feel we weathered it very well. I feel it opens your heart. I feel I’ve become more openhearted, because otherwise the world can be black and white, and it isn’t. It’s good to grow.”

Perversely, given the religious tenor of his upbringing, to say nothing of that stern warning on the TV set, no effort was made to deter young Cheyenne from worshiping another major deity: Wonder Woman. Even from a distance of 25 years, the memory of his weekly Lynda Carter fix gives Jackson goosebumps. A few years ago, his father found an old woodburning art kit of the kind once popular among boy scouts. The idea was to use a woodburning pen to etch around a suitably masculine image on a piece of wood, in this case a muscle car. Jackson, however, must have lost interest part way through. “It was as if I started it and was, like, ‘Eh, I don’t want to do that.’ And then I turn it over, and on the other side, I’d freehanded a portrait of Wonder Woman. Not only that, I’d added watercolors. I had her blue undies and her red thing. I just thought that was a perfect encapsulation of me as a child.”

The etching is now up on his fridge in the Manhattan apartment he shares with Lapka. “It’s one of my favorite things just because what it represents is so personal,” he says. “I know exactly what I felt like being that 8-year-old boy in Idaho where there are no gay people -- well, there are two gay people, they’re called the dump dykes, and they run the dump -- and no black people. It’s 40 miles from the Aryan Nation’s compound. So to be different and to know that you’re just from another planet…” He trails off, before resuming with an anecdote about meeting Carter some years ago at Feinstein’s in New York. She was singing Rita Hayworth numbers such as “Put the Blame on Mame,” and Jackson, who has several of her albums as well as one of the few VHS copies of her movie, Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw, was finally able to tell her how much she meant to him. “I told her everything and she was so lovely. And it’s so strange -- so not strange -- but so many people feel the exact same way.”

For Lapka, Jackson’s guileless quality and big-hearted enthusiasm is both an asset and a liability. “He goes into every situation believing in everyone,” he says. “That’s a wonderful quality, but it also leaves him exposed. If I could change anything about that I’d want him to self-protect more, but I don’t think he’d be the same person if he did.” Tall and muscular, with a keen, dry wit, Lapka loves to quote from books and TV shows (he describes his relationship to Jackson by paraphrasing a line from The Simpsons, in which Homer tells Marge, “Our differences are on the surface, but our sames go all the way down.”) and tends to stay in the background, volleying quips whenever they encounter annoying celebrity behavior.

For his part, Jackson looks to Lapka, who he met in Seattle -- “he was working at corporate Starbucks doing his science-nerd algorithm physics stuff” -- as an example of how to be in his own life -- resolute, confident, fearless. He tells a revealing anecdote about rehearsing for All Shook Up, his first major Broadway role. Harvey Weinstein was one of the producers, and on Jackson’s request recommended an acting coach to help him develop the character. “He immediately just broke down my façade -- all my bullshit -- and challenged me to own my own space,” recalls Jackson. The coach took him to Ninth Avenue in Manhattan, pointed down the busy sidewalk, and commanded him to walk right down the center, not bobbing or weaving as Jackson would ordinarily do. “They’ll move for you,” he told the hesitant actor. “It was very hard,” recalls Jackson. “People were like, ‘Asshole, I’m holding groceries here, what the fuck,’ but I did it. I learned to hold my own space.” He smiles. “That’s when things really started happening.”

To see a slide show of images featuring Cheyenne Jackson in OUT magazine, click here.

Ricky Martin Honored in New York City by amFAR

Life seems to be very, very good for Ricky Martin since he came out publicly this spring. Thursday night, he was honored by The Foundation for AIDS Research (amFAR) at the organization’s annual Inspiration Gala at The New York Public Library.

In his brief acceptance speech, Ricky dedicated his award to a young Cambodian girl infected with HIV that he met two years ago in his work against human trafficking: “Today, I speak on her behalf. This award is for her. This award, I’m going to take to Cambodia again. I’m going to give it to her.”

Among those at Ricky’s table were Broadway star Cheyenne Jackson and his partner, Monte Lapka.

AfterElton.com has all kinds of wonderful photos from the event which was also attended by Cyndi Lauper, Kylie Minogue, Lance Bass, and Tyson Beckford. There was also a fashion show featuring scantily clad guys!

Cheyenne Jackson and Michael Urie Speak Out Against Newsweek Writer

An article by Newsweek writer Ramin Setoodeh with the point of view that openly gay actors cannot play straight convincingly, has prompted some big showbiz names to speak out publicly.

First Tony winner Kristin Chenoweth took the writer to task in a published rebuttal and now out stars Cheyenne Jackson and Michael Urie have also said their piece. AfterElton.com reports that the actors spoke out at a talkback event Monday night following a performance of Urie’s off-Broadway play The Tempermentals.

“It was very veiled self-loathing. Really upsetting,” Jackson said. “Everytime we go forward, some asshole like this takes us back a bit. I was really glad that Kristin Chenoweth wrote what she did [in defense of her Promises, Promises co-star Sean Hayes and other openly gay actors]. She sent it to me before it went out and about. I was very proud of her. For me to stand up and say, ‘F*ck you,’ that’s what you’d expect. But for someone like Kristin, she stands up for what she believes in and is very committed.”

Added Urie: “Cheyenne was f*cking Elvis in All Shook Up. He was sexy and hot. He’s always playing straight. And people buy tickets to see him. No straight critics accuse Sean Penn of not being able to play Harvey Milk or [criticize] Tom Hanks in Philadelphia.”

Update: Setoodeh is defending himself in a piece called Out of Focus in which he writes in part:

…What all this scrutiny seemed to miss was my essay’s point: if an actor of the stature of George Clooney came out of the closet today, would we still accept him as a heterosexual leading man? It’s hard to say, because no actor like that exists. I meant to open a debate—why is that? And what does it say about our notions about sexuality? For all the talk about progress in the gay community in Hollywood, has enough really changed? The answer seems obvious to me: no, it has not.

I realize this is a complicated subject matter, but the Internet sometimes has a way of oversimplfying things. My article became a straw man for homophobia and hurt in the world. If you were pro-gay, you were anti-NEWSWEEK. Chenoweth’s argument that gay youth need gay role models is true, but that’s not what I was talking about. I was sharing my honest impression about a play that I saw. If you don’t agree with me, I’m more than happy to hear opposing viewpoints. But I was hoping to start a dialogue that would be thoughtful—not to become a target for people who twisted my words. I’m not a conservative writer with an antigay agenda. I don’t hate gay people or myself.

Cheyenne Jackson Talks About Coming Out

Broadway, film and television star Cheyenne Jackson talks with Matt Thomas of Canada's Fab Magazine about making it big in New York without keeping it straight.

“The way I came to know about theatre was through yard sales. I was always going to them and buying cast albums for shows like Annie. I wanted to be the first boy to play Annie, that was my dream,” recalls 34-year-old triple threat Cheyenne Jackson, flashing a dashing smile. Since moving to New York eight years ago, Jackson has carved out a career that rivals those of the show business icons he grew up admiring. His classic good looks, crooner’s baritone and leading-man screen presence have made him a casting agent’s wet dream — an achievement he never dreamed possible as a choirboy in northern Idaho.

“I’m not really a bondage, tie-up kind of guy, but every time that Valentine’s Day Popeye cartoon would come on, the one where he ties Bluto up, it would make me feel weird in my stomach,” says Jackson. Growing up different in a conservative religious household in a town of fewer than 1,200 people, Jackson remembers his rustic childhood well. He describes it as “very Little House on the Prairie,” complete with well and outhouse. “I wasn’t privy to a lot of things other kids my own age who had money were, but what we did have was music,” says Jackson. He jumped at any opportunity to perform. “The first time I said a line and everyone laughed, it was the biggest cliché in the book, but I knew I was home.”

“When I was 13 and in eighth grade, I was obsessed with my best friend. I was in love with him. He had blond curly hair and he was a Mormon,” says Jackson of his first crush. “I just thought I wanted to kiss him all the time, so I thought ‘Hey, I’m totally gay.’” Jackson waited until he was 19 to come out to his religious family, including his brother, a preacher once featured on the 700 Club. He describes the process as “terrible” and notes it included a suggestion he enroll in an ex-gay program.

“The idea of the ex-gay movement as a philosophy is one thing, but the comedic side of me thinks 20 guys staying in cabins in the woods, all trying not to be gay…. That’s a Sean Cody movie,” jokes Jackson, who promptly said “No fucking way” to the idea. “I realized they were grasping. You have to let your parents mourn the idea of what they think your life is going to be. It’s them that has to deal with it. We’ve been dealing with it our whole lives.” His family eventually came around, and he gleefully mentions that he brought his parents with him when he sang on the Rosie O’Donnell Gay Family Cruise last year.

Fresh out of high school, Jackson moved away from home. He eventually landed in Seattle where he met his longterm boyfriend Monte (“a handsome physicist”) and tried his hand at regional theatre while working at a local magazine. After a death in the family and the polarizing events of 9/11, Jackson decided to move to New York, with Monte in tow, to pursue his Broadway aspirations.

“I don’t like to tell actors this story, but when I moved to New York City, I was literally on Broadway in three weeks,” says Jackson bashfully. Connected with an agent through an actor friend from Seattle, Jackson was signed immediately and, after his first audition, scored his debut gig as an understudy in Thoroughly Modern Millie. Jackson would go on to understudy Broadway heavyweights like Gavin Creel and Adam Pascal before getting his big break — by chance.

“Having a $12-million musical on your shoulders is exhausting,” says Jackson of his starring role as a lady-killing ’50s heartthrob in All Shook Up, a period jukebox musical full of Elvis songs. Originally cast as the understudy, Jackson got the role after the original lead’s contract fell through. Suddenly he found himself front and centre. “There was a billboard four storeys high of my face in Times Square. It was surreal; you can’t really wrap your head around it,” remembers Jackson.

Jackson casually confirmed he was gay during an interview with the New York Times, while doing press for All Shook Up. “I have friends who are in the closet and I’ve seen it go either way. But I thought, if someone has the balls to ask me flat out in an interview, then I’ll say ‘yes,’” explains Jackson.

“My people at the time were flipping out, saying, ‘You’re playing this womanizing great character and you do so many things, and now people are only seeing you as a gay dude,’” says Jackson, who later fired his PR team, eventually replacing them with Monte. “If audiences just see me that way, then first of all, I’m not doing a good enough job convincing them otherwise, and secondly, then fuck ’em if that’s the case.”

Jackson’s public admission didn’t affect his career in any way he feels was substantial. His newfound gay fan base helped ticket sales for his next musical endeavour: as the lead in Xanadu: The Musical, a stage version of the campy 1980 film starring Olivia Newton-John. The show ran for more than 500 performances, was nominated for two Tony Awards in 2008, including Best Musical, and featured Jackson singing and dancing on roller blades, sporting a tiny pair of denim hot pants.

“I didn’t want to do it at first. I thought it would be too distracting because I have a lot going on down there. It’s a really funny and witty show, and I didn’t want it to be about my ass,” says Jackson of his costume. Uncharacteristically shy, he eventually embraced his new sex symbol status and refers to Xanadu as “the most fun from top to bottom I’ve ever had working.”

Jackson’s performance received a lot of attention. He started landing roles playing straight guys on TV shows like Ugly Betty, Lipstick Jungle, Life on Mars, Glee (he had to drop the part after getting violently ill but expects to be back) and most recently the recurring role of Danny Baker, the naïve new Canadian cast member of TGS, on 30 Rock.

Like Neil Patrick Harris, Jackson’s had no problem getting straight roles and is happy to usher in a new age for openly gay actors. “Last week I screen tested for the biggest movie of my life with Cameron Diaz. There were five other guys and me, and I was the only gay dude. We read together and she laughed, and it made me see that everyone may know my deal, but they are into what I do as an actor,” says Jackson.

But not everyone in the industry has an ambivalent attitude toward his sexuality.

“E! Online asked me, ‘In your 30 Rock co-star Alec Baldwin’s new movie, It’s Complicated, he shows his butt. Do you want to see it?’” says Jackson. “First of all, it’s a trick question. There’s no way you can answer that correctly. So I said, ‘Sure, I’d totally see that. I have a total talent crush on Alec.’ Of course the headline read: ‘Gay 30 Rock cast member wants to see Alec Baldwin nude.’” Jackson later told the anecdote to Tina Fey, who weaved the concept into an upcoming episode. “Nothing’s funnier than real life,” adds Jackson, shrugging off the scandal-hungry American press machine.

Jackson says he’s turned down his fair share of “terrible gay comedies, the ones that are so poorly written and go straight to video,” but that doesn’t mean he’s afraid to play gay roles. His first major film role was playing gay rugby player Mark Bingham in the 9/11 hijack film United 93, and he played a gay man with a secret hit out on his meth-loving husband in a recent episode of Law & Order. Jackson also just landed a major part in It Takes a Village for ABC, the biggest pilot he’s done yet. The show revolves around exes Karen, played by Leah Remini, and Howard, who’s now gay. They struggle to raise their 15-year-old son while juggling relationships with their new significant others. Jackson plays Howard’s first boyfriend and says of the role, “Being gay is a part of who I am, and hopefully I can bring some truth to it.”

He hasn’t abandoned his musical roots though, and he grins like a schoolboy as he lists previous stage partners that include Barbara Cook, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Idina Menzel and even Meryl Streep, with whom he sang “Sodomy” from Hair at a fundraiser. Jackson’s favourite collaborator is Michael Feinstein, the Grammy-winning, openly gay musical theatre legend who studied under the Gershwin brothers. The pair, united over a shared love of traditional musical art form and the American Songbook, have written shows together, toured together and recently released a CD of duets, The Power of Two. “As a gay mentor, as a musical mentor, as someone who has Nancy Reagan on speed dial, he’s full of bizarre, amazing connections. He’s really one-of-a-kind, and we’ve learned a lot from each other,” says Jackson of Feinstein.

Jackson is always busy and has a lot of upcoming projects. A Mormon-themed musical by the creators of South Park and Avenue Q is off the table for discussion due to a gag order, but it’s to be previewing this summer in New York, and Jackson previously admitted his involvement to the press. He’s also working on We Have Always Lived in the Castle, a new musical by Canadian-born playwright Adam Bock and composer Todd Almond, based on the Shirley Jackson novel. However, Jackson’s most passionate new role is as a hands-on international ambassador for amfAR, a leading organization for AIDS education and research.

“I had a very good friend from Seattle; he and I were two peas in a pod. We whored it up all through Seattle in our early 20s. We were like salt and pepper; he was blond and I had black hair. He recently became HIV positive and it really just shook me to the core. With all the risky behaviour I partook of in my early 20s, that could so easily have been me,” explains Jackson when asked about his involvement with amfAR. “My mom and dad always said to give back to your community. It’s one thing to say you will, but it’s another to get your hands dirty.”

Whether it’s the dirt thrown at him from Hollywood or the dirty costumes of Broadway, one thing is clear: Jackson is totally okay with being a little dirty if it means being honest about who he is, and that’s why gay men and the rest of the world can’t get enough.

Cheyenne Jackson Reveals His Secret Shame (Kissing Canadians & Watching "Real Housewives"!)

AfterElton.com editor, Michael Jensen has interviewed Broadway superstar (and hottie), Cheyenne Jackson.

Here's the interview in it's entirety (be prepared 'cause it's a long one):

Far be it for us to say, "We told you so."

But we told you so.

Regular readers of this site know that we've been thoroughly in the tank for Broadway star Cheyenne Jackson for some time now — one of very few leading actors who have been out from very early in their careers.

So we weren't at all surprised when he finally got a big television break on 30 Rock, as Danny, the hilariously irony-free Canadian performer hired for TGS, 30 Rock's Saturday Night Live-like show-within-the-show, to appeal to Middle America.

We also aren't surprised that he's making such a strong impression in the role.

In addition to his reoccurring gig on 30 Rock — he makes another appearance this week — Cheyenne just finished a run in Finian's Rainbow where he received rapturous reviews. It was yet another stage triumph for the actor after his very well-received turn in Xanadu last year.

Musical theater? Sitcom comedy? Dramatic acting like his role in the 9/11 movie United 93?

Yup, Cheyenne can pretty much do it all. Next we'll tell you he wants to direct (okay, not that we know of).

Recently, we rang Cheyenne up for a chat about everything from kissing Canadians, to his latest album, to — seriously — his recent underwear-clad lockerroom encounter with Neil Patrick Harris.

And it confirmed something we've been saying all along: the world has not seen the last of one of the most talented (and nicest) guys in the business.

AfterElton: So to fulfill Liz Lemon's fantasies on 30 Rock, you recently got to dress up as Poncho from CHiPs.

CJ: No, it was Larry Wilcox. That’s the one she liked. Complete with a blond feathered wig, all of that.

AE: What was the favorite character to dress up as for you?
CJ: Well, I mean, that whole episode was very like Halloween, because they go full out. I have to say that even though the cop was fun and you go all sexy and that whole deal, I kind of like the Grizzly Adams just because of the whole flannel – I grew up in Idaho and my Dad was in the Forest Service for a while, and I just felt like a manly man for once in my life.

AE: I hate to go someplace controversial in your interview, but given that you’re on 30 Rock, I have to ask this. As an actor, did you have any qualms playing Canadian?
CJ: That’s funny. Well, you know, that comes with a whole lot of baggage and once somebody sees you play Canadian, they’re gonna think, “Oh, that’s all he can do.”

AE: Is this the first time you’ve played Canadian?
CJ: It is the first time I’ve played Canadian. My co-star in [the Broadway show] Finian’s Rainbow, Kate Baldwin, her husband is Canadian, so I had so many references in some of the actions and things, I was throwing off her. And I’ve gotten a lot of response actually from Canadians, especially at the stage door of Finian’s Rainbow. Thumbs up on the accent, or whatever.

AE: You then would be actually willing to kiss a Canadian?
CJ: Yes, I am not discriminatory when it comes to that. I will kiss a Canadian if need be.

AE: Obviously 30 Rock is comedy and lighthearted, but having you as an out gay actor playing Liz’s love interest is yet another chink in the bias against the idea that gay men can’t play a straight love interest. Did you even think about that at all, or given your Broadway stuff, do you just figure people shouldn’t even be thinking about that?
CJ: Yeah, that one. Definitely. I think a lot more people are hung up on that than I am.

I definitely understand that line of thinking, but for me it’s never been an issue. That’s kind of been my MO since the beginning of my career. When they told me that I was going to have an office romance, I would have been fine with whoever it was. If it was Kenneth or Jack or Tracy or Jane . . . I mean I knew it would be funny. And that’s the most important thing, is being able to find the truth in the comedy.

The fact that it was Liz, I was like, “Jackpot!” Although this could be the demise of my character really quickly if I have this torrid love affair with the head writer, and then if somebody doesn’t like it, and they kick that new guy out. Yeah, this is, like you said, one more chink, one more step, one more example of where being the right actor in the right role is the thing that takes precedence over who that actor happens to sleep with.

AE: Now that you’ve done a little TV, would you like to do a sitcom?
CJ: Yeah, I’d love it.

AE: Build a sitcom around Cheyenne Jackson. What would the premise be?
CJ: Oh, God. Who knows? But I would really, really love that.

As I do more and more of it, I realize that it, I wouldn’t say it comes easily for me, but I definitely understand how to do it better than I had thought I would. The language, all of the technical aspects, it’s really fun, and it’s a hell of a lot easier than doing eight shows a week on Broadway. As much as I love that, it’s a grind.

AE: Cherry Jones who is on 24 said the exact same thing to me, that it’s so exhausting.
CJ: It is. It’s your whole life and that’s good, because that’s what it should be. It should take all your focus and energy, but it is so energy focused and draining and your whole day is focused on that three and a half, four hours a night.

AE: I think your sitcom should be a guy moves from small town to NY and becomes a Broadway star. I think that’s rife with comedy potential.
CJ: I don’t think anybody would believe that.

AE: You have such a great physical presence, so I’m not surprised that you have found you are good at comedy.
CJ: Thank you. It’s great on that show in particular, with so many folks that come from stage. I was wondering how big you could be and still be real.

Case in point, my very first episode where at the end of it I’m yelling at Kenneth, the page, and I had this huge scene where I’m supposed to just really let him have it and scream, and the director kept telling me, “Bigger, bigger, bigger! More!”

And I felt like I was just so huge and so giant and that’s many a Broadway actor’s fear that once they get on screen, they’ll just be so massive that they’ll just break the screen, but I trusted him and did what he thought, what he said, and watching it back, it plays totally fine and totally real and I thought, “Well, I guess on 30 Rock they have a different set of parameters of what – you can be big but you can still be real and it works within that world they’ve created.”

AE: Have you been doing any potential pilots?
CJ: We just started pilot season here in the city. Went on one last week and yeah, things are just starting to get green-lit and so, yeah, we’re just getting ready to get cracking.

AE: In sad news, Finian’s Rainbow ended up closing sooner than anybody expected. Do you have any thoughts about that?
CJ: Well, it just goes to show that in this economy, you can have across-the-board raves and you can have great word-of-mouth, and you can have audiences that are truly just blown away and touched every night, and it’s not going to guarantee a long commercial run.

It was a little baffling to a lot of us just because going through such a long process from encores and then moving it to Broadway, it all kind of seemed like a pipe dream, and then it actually happened and then we got these reviews, and then the numbers kept coming in, and then we noticed the houses weren’t all the way full.

It just goes to show that there’s just no sure thing in this business. It’s a sad reality. I feel bad for a lot of the kids — because I think we had nine or ten people, it was their Broadway debut, so that’s always tough.

It’s such a high-low, high-low, you know. You get jerked around emotionally so much. There are rumors that they’re trying to move it to a smaller Broadway house. I’m not speaking out of turn by talking about it. Because really, we were filling like 65, 70% of the St. James Theatre, but the St. James Theatre holds, like, 1,800. It’s one of the biggest theaters on Broadway, so.

Maybe that’s a possibility or maybe this Sunday won’t be our final performance. Who knows? It’s always a gift to be in a Broadway show and if you happen to be in one and it’s well received and it’s a hit, it’s just icing. Yeah, it would be nice to have a little bit of a longer chance because everybody was just beginning to settle in. [Editor's note: The show did close last Sunday after our interview.]

AE: Your new album with Michael Feinstein has been well received. Anything else you are working on next, music-wise?
CJ: You know, right now I’ve just really been focused on promoting the album. Because you know we produced it ourselves, so we don’t have the luxury of having a huge record company behind us to promote us so we’re just using our own little connections here and there and getting on shows.

I knew it would be fun to do the show with him; I knew it would be fun to record with him. I just didn’t expect the whole process to be as artistically fulfilling as it has been because I just learned so much in the process. I do have a fire lit under me now to finally get my debut album set. I just have been dragging my feet for so many reasons and then something pops up and fills that spot.

AE: What kind of style would you go for?
CJ: Well that’s the million-dollar question. I grew up with so many different styles of music and I am moved by so many different types of music, it is really hard to fathom putting together an album that is linear and that has a through line and that’s not completely disjointed, but can still have so many influences that influenced me.

What I think I’m going to end up doing is just putting out several different albums all from different parts of my life. I love country music. I love folk music. I like Broadway music, obviously. I love the 30s and 40s, I love singer-songwriters, and gospel music. And all of them equally. All of them have influenced me and moved me equally.

I need to get with a great producer who can help me focus and who can help me — let’s just start with this. Or I need to just shut up and do it. Probably both.

AE: Do you have any projects booked if Finian’s Rainbow closes on Sunday?
CJ: Not really. I have some concert work. There is a movie that is in the works that we’re talking about, which would be wonderful, which would be in I think June or July. Really great people involved. I can’t talk about it yet because it’s not done, but it would be wonderful.

AE: Can you say what genre it is?
CJ: It’s a drama. It’s a drama and it’s about relationships and it’s exceedingly well written with really big stars in it, and I’ve already been cast as one of the leads and I think we’re just now dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s.

I think it would be a huge challenge and it would be my hardest and best work to date, so I’m hoping, like I said, if it’s meant to be, it will so I don’t lose sleep over it, but I do think it will happen. I think we’ll find out in about a month or so if that’s going to go.

AE: Does it ever get hard chasing the next gig, trying to sell yourself?
CJ: You know it’s a little of both. It’s part of the excitement of it — the excitement of not knowing where your next job is is exhilarating and terrifying.

Like today, I’m going to a call-back in a second for something and, you know, it’s terrifying, because if it doesn’t happen, then that means it’s not that, but it’s going to be something else. It’s exhilarating because I could get it and then things could change. It’s definitely a mix of both for me. As you get older, you still have to audition. You still have to go on the road and prove to them that you’re the guy.

Sometimes I think gay actors especially, the few of us that are openly gay maybe have a little extra to prove. I feel like things are changing though.

AE: Things are changing, but I have talked to many actors who are so tight-lipped – we don’t out anyone or stoop to gossip, but many don’t want to talk.
CJ: And also there’s a trend lately that’s a little bit disturbing to me, and that’s people speaking out and saying that it’s better for young gay actors to stay in the closet.

AE: Talk about how the Internet has changed how actors feel about their privacy: where do you draw that line? People who are your fans and who pay to see you perform, how much do they deserve to know, what can they expect? You and your partner are in the limelight and your partner doesn’t want that.
CJ: Right. It’s a gray area, and it’s up to each person to draw that line for them. I’ve made the decision to be completely open, honest, what you see is what you get when it comes to me.

But when it comes to [my partner] Monte and my personal relationship with him, that’s off limits. It’s difficult because he’s at every event with me and he’s there, and someone says, “Why don’t you bring your partner,” and I keep saying, “He’s at everything.” You just see his arm or the side of his head.

To answer one of your questions, what their right is or what are they owed: fans are so important because they’re the ones that support you and the throngs of people at stage doors after shows when you’re signing autographs, if those people weren’t there, you wouldn’t be on stage doing your job. From the very beginning, when I very first started on Broadway, I decided that my job isn’t done when the curtain goes down. My job is done when I sign everybody’s autograph and take everybody’s pictures and then walk down the street. I feel like that’s the least that I can do.

But after that, then it’s my time. That isn’t to say that if someone comes up to me on the street and says something, I’m going to be like, “F**k you!” But I definitely value my privacy and value my relationship and my time.

As I’ve gotten a little more of a modicum of success in New York and visibility, it becomes a little more difficult especially because now Monte, you know people know who he is now or what he looks like and will write on blogs, “I saw Monte and Cheyenne at the gym and they were wearing this . . .” and it makes just you feel really kind of exposed and strange – you just have to deal with it though.

The whole Chris Colfer thing — these kids and they’re so young. I just never believe in outing people. I never believe in forcing them to do something until they’re ready. It’s nobody’s business. I don’t like all the blogs — it’s like this witch-hunt. Everybody has their own journey. Everybody has to do it in their own time. But that’s for the person to set, their own parameters.

AE: Do you read about yourself online?
CJ: No. I read interviews that I do or press that I have a stake in, definitely, but I don’t read like the Broadway message boards or chatrooms.

About two years ago is when I finally put the kibosh on that. It’s just too hard. Once you start getting so caught up in that, you can’t get it out of your head. You can hear ten nice things, but if two people write that you’re a useless piece of shit and should never be on the stage again or whatever, that’s the thing that sticks with you, and you have realize if you believe the good you have to believe the bad.

So, no, for the most part – occasionally someone will say, “Hey, you’re on Perez Hilton!” And I’ll – curiosity will get the best of me and I’ll go look it up, but no, it’s much better to embrace the phrase, “Your opinion of me is none of my business.”

AE: I see that you’re coming up on an episode of Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen. How did that come about and how are you preparing for that?
CJ: I’ve known Andy for a few years, and I actually did a pilot for Bravo a couple of years ago that didn’t get picked up, so that’s how we met. I work really hard in my life and I try to be a really good person, and how I reward myself is by watching Bravo. And I’ve watched Bravo for years and years and it’s not necessarily something I want to admit, but I will definitely out myself by saying that I watch all of the Real Housewives of all those cities. It just relaxes me. It’s just fun to see these crazy ladies and these crazy scenarios, acting a fool.

So every time I would see Andy at something, we were at some fashion show, I would just give him this list of the shows that were on, what was working, what didn’t, who I liked, who I didn’t like – even if he didn’t care, I would just make him listen anyway, because I said, “Listen. I’m your demographic, so you need to listen to me,” so I would tell him about this and that.

Then this show came up and he’s like, “You wanna come on?” So I think I’m going to be on with one of the real housewives of the OC.

AE: I saw Andy at a party two nights ago, and he said you told him there are two housewives you don’t want to be on with and he wants me to find out who they are.
CJ: Well, I ended up telling him who they were because I said, “Honestly Andy, if you put me on with either of those two ladies, it ain’t going to be pretty.” I wouldn’t be able to be nice. It wouldn’t be good TV because I would be too snarky. Nobody wants to see that. Or they probably do want to see that, but my mom doesn’t want to see that.

So he’s putting me on with Gretchen, I believe. Two of the others, I would have had a hard time. But it’s all in fun. It’s all entertainment. It’s all just silliness.

AE: I know you ran into Neil Patrick Harris at the gym during AfterElton's Big Gay Battle. Did he lobby you for his vote?
CJ: No, he did not lobby me. Well also we were standing in our underpants so you can’t, you kind of have to just keep the conversation to a "How’s the weather?" He had just gotten back from vacation with David. I said, “Can you believe how big this has gotten?” I think I brought it up. He said, “I know. Now it’s become like this UK versus America thing.”

But I just assured him that the perception is it’s all in fun, and any time we can be on top of John Barrowman, it’s good.

AE: [laughing- Great. You just ruined the interview because if I include the line “Neil and I were standing in the gym in our underwear," that’s all the comments are going to be about.
CJ: Well, listen. You gotta give the kids something to write home about.

Cheyenne Jackson, from Broadway to '30 Rock'

Either Cheyenne Jackson has a great agent or the actor's really on a roll. Maybe both.

The 34-year-old actor opened this week on Broadway in the revival of the musical "Finian's Rainbow," which has received nearly unanimously positive reviews. And now comes word that Jackson is set to join the cast of NBC's "30 Rock," starting with the November 12th episode.

A post on http://www.afterelton.com/ reports that Jackson will play an actor on "TGS," which is the show-within-the-show. The story says that Jackson's character is named "Danny / Jack Baker" and that the other characters aren't entirely happy with his arrival.

The site even has pictures from "30 Rock" showing Jackson acting alongside Tracy Morgan and others. It's not clear if Jackson is joining the series as a regular cast member or a recurring guest star.

On top of that, Jackson and Michael Feinstein will release their album of show tunes titled "The Power of Two" on November 3rd.

Jackson, who is openly gay, is a staple of the New York theater scene and has performed in such high-profile Broadway musical productions as "Xanadu" and "All Shook Up."

In "Finian's Rainbow," playing at the St. James Theater, Jackson plays the character Woody, a small-town lad who finds himself caught up in a comic plot revolving around a pot of gold. The reviewer for Variety wrote that "Jackson's supple voice and relaxed leading-man confidence are a smooth fit" for his character.

Some actors only dream of career synergy like this. We hope Cheyenne is enjoying it while it lasts.

Broadway's Cheyenne Jackson Headed to 30 Rock

Rumors are flying that Cheyenne Jackson, known to fan's of the Great White Way as one of the more accomplished Broadway actors around, may be joining Emmy-winning sitcom 30 Rock for the show's upcoming fourth season.

E! Online reported they'd been hearing chatter that Jackson was about to join the cast as a permanent or semi-permanent member of the show, and that he's already been shooting episodes with cast and crew. NBC pseudo-shot down the rumor, telling E!, "Unfortunately, at this time, the show is not commenting on any castings. Sorry about that."

Still, showrunner and star Tina Fey did recently drop hints that the show would be hiring for the love-interest of Jane Krakowski. The Tony-winning Krakowski, no stranger to the stage, did co-star with Jackson in a recent staging of Damn Yankees. So for now, we'll say this rumor has some legs behind it.

Star Sighting: New Yorkers for Equality

Several New Yorker celebrities, including Cheyene Jackson took part in a massive rally on Sunday which had some influence on those undecided politicians and residents who fear that doing the right thing will hurt them.