America met Neil Patrick Harris as a genius teenage doctor on Doogie Howser, M.D. Years later Harris reinvented his image from teen nerd to slick, skirt-chasing, catch-phrase king Barney Stinson on the long-running comedy How I Met Your Mother, which earned Harris multiple Emmy nominations. Not one to be typecast, Harris moves to stage starring as Hedwig, an East German transgender glam rock singer, in Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Now, for its April 2014 cover story, Harris talks with OUT editor in chief Aaron Hicklin about his career, his family, and his new Broadway turn.
On the insecurities playing Hedwig brought up inside himself:
“Hedwig is bringing up a lot of super insecure things within me. I have never thought drag was intoxicating, I’ve never had a fun drunken Halloween in drag, never been in heels, really. I’ve lived my whole life being attracted by masculinity – it’s why I like guys. I’m not a super effete person, and I have to turn into that, and in doing so it brings up a lot of homophobic insecurities within myself.”
On persuading his Hedwig producers to skip the traditional Wednesday matinee:
“What I didn’t want is to do a matinee and 20 minutes in, have whole groups of people getting up, turning down their hearing aids, and walking out. That would distress me, because part of Hedwig is Iggy Pop in all of his fucked-up glory. So I’m looking forward to squatting down in front of the first row and having people spit in my mouth. It’s that kind of show. I’m anxious, on night, to fall backwards and be led on my back by people with their hands outstretched. I don’t think that will ever happen, but that’s the vibe I’m looking for – that’s the vibe I have to embrace. I don’t fucking care – you gotta go to a nasty place.”
On how his sexuality influenced filming a sex-scene with Rosamund Pike in the thriller Gone Girl:
“We had to rehearse the sex scene with David [Fincher], like every inch of it – ‘Then you put your mouth on his dick here, and then this number of thrusts, and then you ejaculate.’ It was weird because we’re technically breaking down the sex scene. He wanted it to be almost robotic, that we know exactly where we are, position-wise, where everything goes. And yet, through all of that, the whole ‘I’m gay’ element was never even thought about.
On how women view him since his coming out:
“I’ve found that a lot of girls have no issue with me being gay. They still want to marry me. And I love that.”
Read OUT’s full Neil Patrick Harris cover story here.
