In July of 1998, the groundbreaking sitcom Ellen was winding

down, headed off to the blissful land of syndication. The loss of Ellen meant GLBT lead characters on

broadcast television would be non-existent in a vast, bleak desert of breeders.

Fortunately, that September a small but happy tidal wave called Will &

Grace came triumphantly crashing over the horizon, landing on NBC’s

must-see-TV line-up and quickly becoming the gayest hit show in the history of

network television.

Criticized by the Queer as Folk crowd as a neutered and

tepid version of our real lives, and mocked by a few edgy comedy writers for

being “the same gay joke” over and over, Will & Grace nonetheless

garnered enormous artistic respect within the Hollywood

community. Nominated for 73 Emmys, winning 14, it also won the hearts of a

broad-based American audience reaching peak ratings on a par with that other

“must see” Thursday night hit, Friends.

The writing team responsible for this cultural phenomenon

was David Kohan and Max Mutchnick, notable for their friendship since high school

and the fact that one is straight, one gay. Mutchnick, the gay half of that

partnership – and the model for Will & Grace’s Will Truman – recently spoke with AfterElton.com as part of our upcoming look into gay

characters on primetime television.

In these excerpts from that conversation, Mutchnick looks at

his own gay creations Will and Jack, talks gay internalized oppression, and

gives us the dope on the new gay Kohan/Mutchnick pilot script picked up by ABC.

He also reveals why he chose not to make Will & Grace too butt-f ... Um. We’ll let him say it.

AfterElton.com: This past fall GLAAD came out with their

annual report on GLBT representation on the networks that was pretty grim. They

did say some positive things about ABC, mentioning Ugly Betty, and the character of Kevin Walker on Brothers &

Sisters.

Max Mutchnick: I recently came across some comments

that Greg Berlanti [former Brothers & Sisters showrunner] gave about

how once you’ve seen a show like Six Feet Under and you see the way that

the gay characters are drawn on that show, you can no longer be behind that

eight ball.

AfterElton.com: He actually said that in an interview he

gave to AfterElton.com.

MM: I thought it was so interesting … I used to

believe that Will & Grace was the litmus test. And I no longer think

that that’s the case. And that’s because of guys like Alan Ball, but more

recently Greg Berlanti, and of course Robbie Baitz [referring to Jon Robin

Baitz, creator of Brothers & Sisters. Ball, the creator of Six

Feel Under, Berlanti and Baitz all happen to be gay.]

from left to right: Alan Ball, Greg Berlanti, Jon Robin Baitz

AE: Greg said that one of the reasons he thought that Robbie

Baitz had the balls, or even thought to write the gay character of Kevin Walker

on Brothers & Sisters so explicitly was because he came from theater

and wasn’t enmeshed in Hollywood attitudes.

MM: Yeah. He wasn’t using the internal oppression

that I used to use in my everyday experience.

AE: Do you feel that that came into play as a writer with

Will & Grace?

MM: Yeah. I think we said a lot, but I think we could

have said a lot more.

AE: Originally Will and Grace were part of an ensemble

which were mainly straight couples. Correct? And it was an executive who said -

you know these are the two interesting characters?

MM: We [Mutchnick

and writing partner Kohan] were given the assignment to write another

heterosexual romantic comedy that they could turn into a franchise a la Mad

About You. We went about creating a hip San Francisco couple that had two other

couples that they hung with, and one of the couples was Will and Grace – who we

of course understood the best of everybody we had written. [Former NBC

president of entertainment] Warren Littlefield could see that and said, “You

seem to understand and know that world. Why don’t you write that as your

series?”

AE: [taking a moment to check tape recorder.

Mutchnick hears his voice on playback]

MM: There’s my Bea Arthur [voice]. You know what my

entire life has been? “Hello. This is information, how can I help you?” And

then I say: “I’d like the Paramount Theater on Main street.” And she says to me: “There

is no Paramount Theater Ma’am.” And I say: “I’m not a ma’am.” And then

she says: “I didn’t call you a man, Miss.” I keep having this exchange over and

over again.

AE: [laughing] Well, there’s your next little sample of

sitcom dialogue.

MM: Exactly.

AE: So do you think you were exercising some self-imposed

restraint by not initially pitching a Will

& Grace?

MM: No. That wasn’t the case at that time. I think

the only time I started to exercise restraint was in the body of the show. The

things that got us to create Will & Grace were beautiful fortuitous

moments in a development process, which certainly didn’t start from any sort of

reluctance. That said: My writing partner David Kohan, the straight half of the

team, deserves all the credit for making sure that we told a gay love story.

AE: So he really pushed it?

MM: Yeah. He for sure is the singular reason that [Will

& Grace] is here today.

AE: Now how do you explain that?

MM: Because he was the one that said, “That would be

the most interesting relationship to write, you and Janet [Mutchnick’s best

friend and the basis for the character of Grace Adler].” I was not interested

in that at all, for the reason that I didn’t think that anybody else would be

interested.

David Kohan, Debra Messing & Max Mutchnick

AE: But you opened this interview with your own

internalized oppression.

MM: I just said I exercised that throughout the 197

episodes.

AE: You think that you did?

MM: Yes, I do. I think that I was very acutely aware

that the larger part of the audience of Will & Grace was straight.

And I always was very clear that I was writing that show for my parents. My

proverbial parents. …

I don’t know if I’ve ever told anyone this story. The pilot

had been picked up for Will & Grace, and now it was all about casting.

And I was sitting in the Bel Air home of a very, famous gay director. And when

I told him about the script he said: “Just make sure you don’t make it too

butt-f***y.” And I said: “What does that mean?” And he said, “You never want

the American public to have to think about butt-f***ing.” And it could not have

been better advice. Because it made us understand what our job was. And our job

was to get as many people as possible to be entertained and to watch the show

every week.

I could have gone full-tilt in the first 13 episodes. But I chose

to not do explicit stuff, and edgy, edgy gay stuff. Because I wanted people to

stay with it, get comfortable with it. David and I said to each other, we’ll

have won if by the time this show is over the audience wants Will to be in

love, wants him to be in a relationship.

AE: So your idea was to be a bridge to a place on the

air…

Mm: None of it dawned on me until the show happened.

This literally unfolded as I was doing it. It’s a metaphor for the coming-out

process that a young man has within their family. And that is exactly the way

the show was written. It was: We told you we were gay in the first minutes. And

then we slowly allowed you to absorb it and figure it out and get comfortable

with it. And realize that we’re the same as everybody else in the room.

AE: Do you think that internalized oppression you spoke

of affected you before Will & Grace? In what you thought executives or

audiences would accept?

MM: I think that it did when I was in the closet. And

then the minute that I came out of the closet, I was on a mission to be equal

to or greater than anyone I was with.

AE: I guess I mean in your writing.

MM: There was not even a whisper of gay anything, in

anything we had done before Will & Grace.

AE: And what do you think the reason was for that?

MM: It didn’t even dawn on me to write it. … I just

didn’t see it as a subject matter. I didn’t find myself to be that interesting

or that funny. And it was my straight writing partner who said that whole language

and the colloquialisms used in the gay world – he just found them to be so

humorous and funny.

AE: I think that’s kind of striking that you didn’t see

it as a possibility, that it took the straight guy. Do you think that you

didn’t think of it as a subject because it was sort of off limits? Because

somewhere you just felt like there’s no way the suits are going to accept it,

there’s no way the audience is going to accept it?

MM: I don’t remember now because I’ve been out so

long. I do feel like, I mean – if I’m being very honest – I have a healthy

amount of insecurity and at times gay shame, and all that kind of stuff existed

for me before I really came out. And yeah, I’m sure that affected everything

that I did.

AE: With Will & Grace it was pretty

groundbreaking for America to embrace a fully developed gay character in this

way, and you were in many ways the guy behind it. I’m wondering if going

through this and having Will get all this positive feedback affected your own

self-acceptance as a gay man.

MM: It’s very simple. I was the gay guy who created Will & Grace. Yes. It helped my

self-esteem quite a lot. … I mean how much more accepted can you feel then

making a show that’s telling a story that is very close to the one you are

living as your life – and all these people are watching it every week. What

else is that telling you as the guy who’s writing it - that you’re ok.

AE: What do you think the reason is that there are so few

gay characters on network TV?

MM: I don’t think that people write them well. I

actually believe that the bar is high. And I think that guys like Robbie

[Baitz] and Alan Ball and Greg Berlanti are writing gorgeous gay characters

that work. And I think when you write ridiculous flamboyant – and I know this

is rich coming out of the mouth that was responsible for Jack McFarland – but

if you don’t write them real and true – and a lot of people don’t – then they

don’t work.

AE: And what are the flaws they fall into?

MM: Groundless stereotyping. Jack had a fully fleshed

out life that existed. He wasn’t just a flaming homo. He had family and friends

and values and lack of values. I always have taken umbrage at people that just

refer to Jack McFarland as a stereotype. He is not a stereotype. He was an

innocent. He was very specific. And I think that that’s what the problem is. I

think if and when people run into problems with writing gay characters - or the

reasons why they’re not on TV right now - is because they’re not written really

specifically.

Jack encounters Cher

AE: A lot of showrunners have told me that they feel if

you have a central lead character who is a fully developed gay character, that

it may tip the scales against you in getting something on the air.

MM: That’s just not the case anymore. We can’t make

those kinds of excuses. Because we live in a world where if you write a serial

killer sympathetically, it will get on the air and it will do well. People want

to be with interesting characters who are experiencing interesting story lines.

That’s what they want. And as long as they’re well-written they deserve, and

should be, and are on the air.

AE: So writers need to get over it?

MM: I don’t think this is something that we suffer

from at this point. … I don’t mean to sound boring, but [gay characters] will

be on the air if they’re good characters that are well-written. Period. End of

story. …

There’s no oppression. The only oppression that exists that

you and I have been talking about is internal. We’re at the same place again.

It only exists inside these gay writers that keep saying to you that “I don’t

think that it will work”, “I don’t think they’ll ever say yes to it.” When the fact of the matter is that the

straight people that are working in these positions of power, not a one of them

that I’ve come into contact with in my professional dealings has felt reluctant

or homophobic or disinterested in this subject matter. Not once.

[Mutchnick receives an email – then exclaims with great

portent…]

MM: I just got a very important bulletin that it’s

Ellen’s 50^th birthday tomorrow, and I’ve sent her nothing!!!

AE: Us gays have got to stick together, baby…

MM: Yes, exactly! Then let’s send her…? What should

we send her? Come on, you tell me.

AE: Three dozen long stem yellow roses.

MM: [Horrified] Honey!!! You’ve lived in [suburbia]

for too long!

AE: [laughter] I KNOW! It’s pathetic.

MM: It’s orchid country around here [Hollywood] first of all.

And nobody sends three dozen of anything. Next, are you going to tell me I

should send her three dozen peppermint carnations? Jesus Christ.

AE: I’m so glad you read me. Because now I know.

MM: I’m sorry. We will not be interrupted again.

AE: So tell me about this pilot script that ABC just

bought? [The script is one of only four comedy scripts going to pilot at ABC,

and one of the first scripts bought after the writer’s strike].

MM: It is another

gay story. And I’m very excited about it. … I start the casting process next

week. I’m really going to try very hard to make this one work. I think we did

what we could do, and now, God willing, we will find great actors to elevate

this material and make it so it gets on the air. That’s the best I can hope

for.

AE: And say it does make it onto the schedule? What would

you do differently with the gay characters now almost ten years later, then you

did starting out Will & Grace?

MM: I want to be past the story.

AE: You don’t want it to be about that? You don’t want it to be about the gay jokes?

MM: I’ll make as many gay jokes as I make in a given

night. That’s the barometer that I’ll use. I don’t want to make it the drive. …

The gay angle is not the hook. The relationship is the hook. And it happens to

be a gay man and a straight man who are best friends. And I want the

relationship to be more interesting to people than I want the fact that one of them

is gay. But by the way, I think that the thing that people were interested in

with Will & Grace was that relationship [between Will Truman and

Grace Adler]. I think people knew that relationship – they just hadn’t seen it

on TV yet. That was just lucky. I mean that relationship was around.

AE: We’ve all had it.

MM: Mm-hm.

AE: And is this central relationship in the new show based

on you and David [Kohan] in the same way the Will & Grace relationship was based on you and Janet?

MM: Yes.

AE: Do you have any concerns about finding actors for the

gay roles?

MM: That’s not my concern at all. I mean ideally, I

would like to find a gay man to play a gay part, because I think they just will

get it better. But, whoever reads it the best is going to get it.

AE: Will the gay guy have as fully-developed a romantic

life as the straight guy?

MM: Yes. In fact he’s in the thick of a very serious

relationship in the pilot.

AE: One more question? You’ve been really great to spend

so much time with me.

MM: [dreamily] It was nice. [Snaps to] You

have one minute and 19 seconds!

AE: Are you dating anybody right now?

MM: I feel like I’ve been blessed twice in my life. I

got to have this work experience that was blessed and special. And when it

ended another door opened up and I fell very much in love. We’ve had a gorgeous

lesbian love story. We’ve been together since really the first night we met. I

live with Erik Hyman [an LA attorney].

AE: You said this relationship came about right after Will & Grace. I’m wondering if the experience of Will & Grace made you ripe for the

picking? The way you felt about your sexuality, and your self?

MM: Well, I’ll tell you this: I felt like Will

eclipsed me in the finale. And I had never felt that way in my entire life of

writing Will & Grace. I was standing on the stage watching the final

scenes with Eric McCormack and Bobby Cannavale. And I thought to myself, “Oh my

god, this guy is now more evolved than I am.” And for me, it made for a very

perfect ending of a very wonderful eight year romance.

taping the Will & Grace finale

AE: And do you think that affected your future

choices?

MM: I think that I was ready and available. I think

that stuff comes to you when you’re open to it and you’re ready. And there it

is. It’s a glaring difference. I live a very happy domestic life. I

haven’t been out of my house in a year and a half.