This week: Did Matthew

Bomer lie to AfterElton.com? How great is Allison Janney? Is the voice

behind “robot skeleton” Geoff Petersen

gay? How excited was Parvesh Cheena

to go Bollywood?

Have a question about gay male

entertainment? Contact me here (and be sure and include your city and state and/or

country!

Q: Will Allison

Janney be my friend? Because I know she’d like me, and I know I’d like her too!

– George, Waterville, MN

A: I met her recently, and I can say that you almost

certainly would like her – I instantly did. But how did we both

know that even before I met her?

I think it’s the combination of intelligence, obvious

talent, and unconventional beauty – she can play both sophisticated and gawky

with equal ease.

It also has something to do with those big,

thoughtful eyes, put to good use in movies like The Object of My Affection

and Juno,

TV shows like The West Wing, lots of stage roles – and even a gay-themed viral

video, Prop 8: The Musical.

When I met her, I told her that she had a big gay

following. “I love that!” she said. “I’m very flattered.”

I wondered if she was aware of it. “How would I be

aware of that?” she said. “I’m so bad on computers. I don’t remember my

password for Facebook. I don’t like to read things about me, because I have

skin that’s so thin.”

That said, the person who “discovered” Allison was,

not surprisingly, a gay man.

“I couldn’t get an agent to save my life,” Janney

tells me. “And this man Karl Brown

wanted to manage me. I was in town a long time before anybody wanted to work

with me, and he took a chance on me. And I loved him, but he died of AIDS right

before I got The West Wing. He saw me do a wonderful play in New York with Stanley Tucci and Marissa Tomei called Fat Men in Skirts that got me so

much work, and he saw that performance. I think of him all the time, because he

was the first person who believed in me.”

I was curious what her thoughts were on the stage

musical version of the movie 9 to 5 (where she played the Lily Tomlin role).

“That was one of the hardest things I’ve ever

done,” she admits. “I’d never done a musical before, so I wanted to challenge

myself. I sure love that I did it, that I succeeded in my own way. I don’t

regret it at all – I just wish it had been a bigger success. But personally, it

was a success for me, just to have tried it and done it, and now I’m not afraid

to do it. And getting to work with Dolly

Parton – I got a Christmas card from Dolly! Two friends of mine borrowed it

– I was gone for Christmas, and they said, ‘Can I borrow this, and pretend it’s

mine?’ And I said, ‘Of course!’”

Janney’s latest show, Mr. Sunshine, co-starring

Matthew Perry, debuts next Wednesday

on ABC.

“I love playing this character, because it’s so

the opposite of [The West Wing’s] C.J.,”

Janney says. “She is a powerful woman, but she’s inappropriately powerful. She

doesn’t edit herself, she says the wrong things. She has no self-awareness. And

it’s fun to play that because in my life, I’m so self-aware. I get to be as big

or silly as I want. She’s in me, and she’s fun to play.”

Janney at this month's TCA Winter Press Tour with Mr. Sunshine co-star Matthew Perry

Next Page!

Was Matthew Bomer snowing AfterElton.com?

Q: Hottie

Matthew Bomer is always so well-dressed on the appropriately-named White Collar. Does he dress that well in

real life? – Stevie, West Palm Beach, FL

A: I met Matthew

at a press junket in California

a few weeks ago, and he was – not surprisingly – very sharply dressed in an

expensive suit. So what’s he like in his personal life?

“To be honest, I’m a creature of comfort,” he

says. “When I’m around the house, when I’m just puttering around, it’s all

about comfort: jeans, t-shirt, old jackets. I feel comfortable in old clothes.

Anything that I’ve worn that got me through a traumatic experience, I hold

onto. There is something to be said about making an effort. Everyone showed up

dressed [well] today to talk about our show. I think there’s something about

dressing nice that says, ‘Hey, I care that you came here, and I put on my

Sunday best for you’.”

For the record, I was wearing khakis and a polo

shirt, a fact that I think Matthew only noticed after he’d already said what

he’d said. Awk-ward!

I was also curious about the about the fact that

the show sometimes features him in sort of “beefcake” mode – shirtless or in

his underwear.

“We’ve fought really hard to keep that at bay as

much as possible,” he says. “I don’t think anybody on our show thinks of

themselves in that [beefcake] way. My question is always, if it’s organic to

the scene, in the moment, then that’s great. If it’s indulgent or excessive,

that’s kind of odd. If it informs a relationship, it’s great. But I don’t think

any of us think of ourselves that way. We try to keep clothed as much as

possible.”

Sound good, doesn’t it? But

wait a minute! While I was transcribing my little interview, I came across

another interview he did, with the New York Post,

probably at the very same junket. But he gave a considerably different answer

to a very similar question:

“My goal is to get people

to watch this show that I love working on, and whatever sensationalist photo or

press I need to do to get people to tune in, that’s what I’ll do,” he said. “Let

me put it this way, I don’t see myself any differently in the mirror. I still see

the flaws.”

That’s my Matthew for you – always changing,

always mercurial. Like a river, you can never step in him the same way twice.

Parvesh Cheena got to sing and dance. How excited was he to do that? – Ruben, Los

Angeles, CA

A: Last fall, I panned the pilot of Outsourced,

which I found stupid and even racially insensitive.

I never would’ve watched another episode if I

hadn’t downloaded HuluPlus for my iPad, and there the show was a few weeks ago,

staring at me one day at the top of the queue.

Talk about Most Improved! I was stunned by how

much funnier it was than the pilot.

I’m also happy to see that Parvesh is making such

a strong impression as the hammy, clueless Gupta. What’d he think about the

Bollywood episode?

He was excited – and scared.

“I did dancing and musical theater in Chicago,” Parvesh tells

me. “I’m like, ‘I’m a character actor, so you need to sing and dance.’ And [the

episode] was a moment, but it was unnerving.”

In the end, though, “It was amazing fun,” he says.

“We had Fred Tallaksen, who is a

choreographer for television but who also did two of Madonna’s tours. I didn’t know it was him until the last day, which

was good because I was freaking out during the week.”

Next Page! More on Outsourced and The Late Late Show's robot skeleton sidekick.

How much work was the sequence?

“Lots of sweating,” he said. “And I would

literally go from scene-shootings to rehearsals in this nearby dance studio

near [where they film] Hot in Cleveland, and going back to

film. We even had to lay down [musical] tracks, because they don’t let you sing

or play anything live too much. That was like Glee meets Outsourced

and Bollywood that week.”

Speaking of “A Sitar is Born,” the episode in

question, were you surprised by the beautiful voice of Anisha Nagarajan (who plays bashful Madhuri). You shouldn’t have been: the

25-year-old actress has a strong musical theater background, appearing in Bombay

Dreams on Broadway, and she had even been slated to appear in Spider-Man:

Bring on the Dark.

“She’d done

on the workshops with Julie Taymor and

the Edge and Bono, Parvesh says. “It came down to continuing on with Spider-Man or taking our show. We’re

glad she took our show.”

Q: I enjoy the sarcastic Robot Skeleton Sidekick

Geoff Petersen on The Late

Late Show with Craig Ferguson. His George Takei-like voice is played by

Josh Robert Thompson. Geoff’s sarcastic commentary reads gay. Any idea if Josh

is gay or bi? – CCWayne, Washington, DC

Josh Robert Thompson (left) voices Geoff Peterson

A: Josh Robert Thompson, a voice-actor well-known for uncanny

celebrity impressions of actors such as Morgan

Freeman and Arnold Schwarzenegger,

has a girlfriend.

His “recipe” for the Geoff Petersen voice? “One part Snagglepuss, one part Vincent Price, two parts George Takei,” he says via Twitter.

Craig Ferguson has speculated that Petersen might be gay, but I asked Thompson for his take, and if

he’d heard from George Takei.

Thompson didn’t respond.

Shameless self-plug alert! Hey, all, many of you know that in my "other" life, I am a novelist. Well, I just happen to have a new gay teen book out this week called Shadow Walkers, which is a supernatural thriller about a 16-year-old gay boy who lives on an isolated island and who, when his online access is taken away, begins to experiment with "astral projection" ... which leads to danger, mystery, and maybe even romance! Check it out at Amazon. And here are my seven reasons why you should consider reading the book.

Have a question about gay male entertainment? Contact me here (and be

sure and include your city and state and/or country!)