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WEST HOLLYWOOD - A clutch of stylish-looking women are gathered around a sleek SUV that has pulled up to the curb on a trendy avenue.
Just another location shoot in La-La Land; nothing too unusual about that. So why does a woman passer-by suddenly scream with joy and tear across the street to get a closer look?
Because she's just realized the femme bunch is the cast of "The L Word," which usually doesn't film in Los Angeles.
Showtime's series about a diverse group of L.A. lesbians shoots mainly on soundstages and locations in Vancouver, Canada. But how many palm trees can one show fake?
So production for the series' fourth season, which debuts Sunday, moved to Southern California for several days of shooting at places where the characters live, love, work and play.
Series co-creator Ilene Chaiken hesitates to dub Los Angeles a "character in the story." There are, after all, at least 12 main women characters whose stories she's got to fit into this season's dozen episodes.
But she acknowledges "the cultural dynamics of L.A. are embedded in our show. The characters do have L.A. values and are affected by L.A. values to some extent, so I think the series has the specificity of a unique
culture and environment but it is dominated by universal emotional experiences that everybody can relate to."
Among the series' leading women are Jennifer Beals as Bette Porter, Laurel Holloman as Tina Kennard, Leisha Hailey as Alice Pieszecki and Daniela Sea as Max Sweeney.
Newcomers this season include Cybill Shepherd as Bette's boss, Phyllis, who comes out later in life after a conventional heterosexual marriage; Marlee Matlin as Jodi, a deaf artist who has a relationship with Bette, and Rose Rollins as Tasha, who has served a tour of duty in Iraq.
Serious issues — such as the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy, the legality of same-sex marriages and the challenges of transgender transition — underscore story lines, but "Sex and the City" style wit and laughter also hold sway.
"In the sense that we deal with the issues of the moment, we deal with them because they affect all of our lives," says Chaiken, who doesn't presume that her show will necessarily change people's attitudes, but does hope that depicting lesbian stories in all their human variety may shift opinion.
Talking briefly on the West Hollywood location, Chaiken notes that her aim this year was to "slightly notch up the melodrama while trying to keep it real ... and to keep the humor, not get too dark, too heavy." She wants the series to show "happy lesbians" at least a good portion of the time.
In a later phone chat, Chaiken elaborated on the new season and how she works hard to avoid becoming hidebound, which is something she feels too often happens to long-running series.
"Every time I go back to it, I treat it as if I'm doing a new show ... we really do try to shake it up ... and I think that it's much more true to life in that this is a show about a group of friends, and one's friends change all the time, romances change, and where people are in their lives changes," she explains.
To help sort out who has loved or does love whom, the plot line has always included Alice Pieszecki's wall chart, which chronicles all the romantic hookups. This season, the chart goes online and interactive.
That concept also has moved from fiction to reality, as Chaiken has just announced the formation of a company, OurChart.com. It's an online social space for lesbians and their friends. Beals, Moennig and Hailey are among the founding partners.
Chaiken is pleased the series has "a larger audience than we assumed it would have." Much of that audience is, naturally, gay and lesbian, a fan base that she says is "loyal and passionate and watches the show devotedly," but also "rips it to shreds and rants and raves about it."
Chaiken is "amused and intrigued" by such highly charged response. She respects what she hears from those fans, but she knows "there's no way on Earth that we could please everyone."
Women, both gay and straight, are the core audience, but, Chaiken says, "we seem to have more and more men, who watch the show. I love that. And straight men as well as gay — and not just for lascivious reasons."
"Yes, the show has very hot sex scenes in it, but why not!" exclaims Rachel Shelley, who plays heiress Helena Peabody. "But there are a lot of other story lines that are poignant and relevant to all our lives. It's got great scope."
from The Daily News
Cybill Shepherd, who plays a married woman in her 50s who comes out of the closet in the season of Showtime's "The L Word" that debuts Jan. 7, is also at a crossroads in her personal life.
With her daughter Clementine now 26 and 19-year-old twins Ariel and Zack starting college, Cybill is caught up in empty-nest syndrome — and it's hitting her big time.
"It squeezes your heart. You can't believe the silence," she says of home sans family. To cope, she's moved many of her things into the twins' bedrooms, "and I hang out there — it helps," she says.
The role of mother is so important to Shepherd that she refrained from signing on for "The L Word" until her schedule could be adjusted to accommodate her personal obligations.
"They wanted me on location in Vancouver the same day the twins were graduating high school in Los Angeles. I was very torn. I didn't want to miss an extraordinary work opportunity but needed be there for my children. I explained to the producers that I had to be free to help the twins select their colleges, to move them into college, to attend parents' weekends ... It worked out beautifully. The show bent over backward, I bent over backward — I made 14 rounds trips to Vancouver in three months to shoot my 11 segments."
Daughter Clementine plays her daughter in an episode of "The L Word" that brings out the heartache that hits home hard when Cybill's character comes out of the closet. "There's an incredible family struggle," says Shepherd, and her daughter — playing her L Word' daughter — declares, "Mom, you can't just decide one day you're a lesbian."
Actually, Cybill and her children are strong supporters of gay and lesbian causes — her daughters have even taken part in human rights marches in Washington, and she says, "You can't decide that someone is less of a human being because of any leanings.".
from The Long Beach Press Telegram
In the 29 years since Billy Crystal outraged — and later won over — critics with his mostly sympathetic portrayal of a gay man on the sitcom "Soap," prime-time audiences have come to accept straight actors playing gay parts, in everything from groundbreaking hits (Eric McCormack in "Will & Grace") to all-but-forgotten flops (John Goodman in "Normal, Ohio").
But will viewers prove as welcoming toward gay actors in straight roles, especially — and this is the heart of the issue — as romantic leads? Several high-profile cases in the news lately suggest that we may be about to find out, as Americans continue to grapple with their conflicted and ever-evolving views on gays and lesbians.
Last month, T.R. Knight, who plays the romantically yearning and unquestionably heterosexual Dr. O'Malley on ABC's smash "Grey's Anatomy," came out as gay with a statement to People magazine, adding somewhat forlornly, "I hope the fact that I'm gay isn't the most interesting part of me." Knight's real-life sexual orientation evidently was a factor in a now-notorious on-set altercation; Isaiah Washington, who tussled with costar Patrick Dempsey, reportedly directed an anti-gay epithet at an unnamed actor believed to be Knight. (Washington later apologized.)
Then, two weeks ago, another coming-out message landed on the editor's desk at People, this one from Neil Patrick Harris, who plays the womanizing cad Barney on CBS' comedy "How I Met Your Mother." "I am a very content gay man living my life to the fullest," Harris wrote, after his publicist at the time initially denied Internet rumors that the actor is gay.
Last week, the Advocate, a gay and lesbian magazine, published an interview with Kristanna Loken of "Terminator 3" and newly of Showtime's "The L Word." In it, she talked playfully of her relationship with another actress.
Television industry insiders agree that in just the past few weeks, gay actors in Hollywood have reached a critical new turning point, one that will reveal what restrictions may or may not be placed on their careers if they brave coming out of the closet. Ultimately, what happens next is up to prime-time viewers.
"This is new territory," said Damon Romine, entertainment media director at the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, an advocacy group. Harris and Knight in particular, he said, "are doing something that's not been done before: Come out when being on a TV series."
Ron Cowen, executive producer of Showtime's drama "Queer as Folk," said Harris, known to millions from his years on "Doogie Howser, M.D.," is furnishing "a test case" for other gay performers.
"If not a big deal is made out of it, Hollywood will adapt to it," Cowen added. "But if it turns out it's not a good thing — if the ratings for 'How I Met Your Mother' drop, for instance — people will say, 'That hurts shows, that hurts the business.' "
Fear of sexual disclosure is among the most persistent of the terrors that govern Hollywood's upper echelons. Trying to cover up a gay star's romantic life has been a frequent obsession of publicists and agents. In one of the most famous examples, Rock Hudson married his agent's secretary in 1955, when his movie career was rapidly ascending, largely to shield his homosexual affairs from tabloids and the public. The thinking was that mainstream viewers would never accept a gay actor as a romantic lead. As a result, while his sexuality was an open secret in Hollywood, Hudson never confirmed publicly that he was gay, even when he revealed he was dying from AIDS in 1985.
For all the advances that gays and lesbians have made on other fronts, some facts remain unchanged since Hudson's day.
Sarah Warn, founder and editor of Afterellen.com, a lesbian entertainment site, said she knows of one top Hollywood handler who tells her gay clients never to discuss their sexuality publicly.
"She tried to spin it as 'It's nobody's business,' " Warn said. And when rumors crop up, "most publicists deny those kinds of claims without even checking with the client."
Indeed, while top straight-identified actors have for years received praise and prizes for playing gay characters — Tom Hanks in "Philadelphia," for example — executives, casting directors and maybe mass audiences still seem to have a block when it comes to gay people in straight parts.
Rupert Everett, who's been out since 1989 and has played both gay and straight characters in major films, admitted in one interview that viewers may wonder "if a queen like me can butch it up enough to play a convincing straight man." But several factors are conspiring to change things, albeit more slowly than some activists hoping for A-list gay role models might like.
The legislative and court battles over gay marriage have increased general popular awareness, if not acceptance, of gays and lesbians, much as the initial AIDS crisis did 20 years ago. Then too entertainers such as Rosie O'Donnell and Ellen DeGeneres have come out and watched their careers soar, which may help embolden younger performers.
"You can use it to your advantage in a lot of ways," said Howard Bragman, an openly gay man and veteran Hollywood publicist who helped former sitcom stars Dick Sargent and Sheila Kuehl when they came out of the closet.
Meanwhile, Internet gossips such as Perez Hilton — whose notoriety depends largely on outing celebrities — have made it tougher for stars such as Harris to keep their private lives under wraps. (Through a spokesman, Harris declined to comment.)
"Celebrity rumors that used to be spread around by phone or tabloid are now online in minutes," Romine said.
All that leads some to believe that a renaissance in attitudes is underway. When it comes to stars' sexuality, Bragman said, "It's a generational thing. Kids do not care." He predicted that in another decade, gays playing straight characters won't even be an issue.
Others aren't so optimistic. Cowen pointed out that in Hollywood, no issue can be separated for long from the core concerns of ratings and box office.
"The question is, how liberal can Hollywood afford to be?" he asked.
from The Los Angeles Times
WEST HOLLYWOOD - A clutch of stylish-looking women are gathered around a sleek SUV that has pulled up to the curb on a trendy avenue.
Talking briefly on the West Hollywood location, Chaiken notes that her aim this year was to "slightly notch up the melodrama while trying to keep it real ... and to keep the humor, not get too dark, too heavy." She wants the series to show "happy lesbians" at least a good portion of the time.
