I feel like I've contributed monumentally to the success of the gay movement in America, and if anyone wants to argue that, I'm open to it. You're welcome, 'Advocate.'
— Sean Hayes
You build a fan base over time, and they will accept you as long as it's good. Nothing matters as long as something's good. If it's bad, nobody will see it.
I got 'Will & Grace,' and I thought, 'Oh, this is different. I don't know how to handle this. I'm not bright enough; I'm not quick enough, I don't have the DNA to be a spokesperson for any kind of group of people.'
But I'm guessing every actor is insecure.
And so, I think when I got to college, you discover who you are and find yourself more than you did before.
I like to be busy and I like to have places to go in the morning, when I get up.
Being an actor, the less people know about my personal life, the more open-minded they can be about each role I play.
They might have a long way to go before truly accepting gay people into their lives, but they have accepted the show into their living rooms each and every week.
I actually like working with the other three actors on the show.
Nobody makes me laugh.
Nobody owes anything to anybody. You are your authentic self to whom and when you choose to be, and if you don't know somebody, then why would you explain to them how you live your life?
I did, like, 30 or 40 commercials before 'Will & Grace' where I was the straight husband. I had two spots on the Super Bowl in 1998 where I was the straight dude.
I think because my life is so insane and it's constantly going at 120 miles per hour, my favorite thing to do is sit at home in front of the TV and check out.
I have the most nervous stomach in the world.
And I'm OK being judged as an actor.
The thing about producing is that the pressure is off of being in front of the camera, and being critiqued and judged in that way, but there are other pressures producing.
When I came out of my mom's womb, I had 'sitcom' stamped on my forehead.
No one could have ever dreamed about how well the show would do.
I got one letter at the very beginning, like, in the first season, saying - from a woman who was very religious, very Christian, saying how wrong she thought the show was, but she thinks it's the funniest show on television.
Through that, I got to know Jerry's work, and I am definitely his number-one fan right now, which is interesting because it usually works the other way around: you usually create a project based on your hero.
When I play a gay character, I want to be as believable as possible. And when I'm playing a straight character, I also want to be as believable as possible. So the less that people know about my personal life, the more believable I can be as a character.
Each individual human being has a lot of stuff that nobody knows about. Nobody knows what anybody else is going through at any point in their lives.
So get accomplished what you want to get accomplished in your life. And in the intervals, do what you can to help other people.
At the beginning of 'Will and Grace', I played Jack as the funny next-door-neighbor type, as we've seen in the past. And I thought that was my role.
I'm a huge sci-fi/fantasy/horror guy. I love anything in the sci-fi or fantasy genre.
No, my entire life is planned. It's called time management.
The writers have slowly taken the show, with subjects other gay shows have dived right into, slowly. It was over a year before Will even started to date.
But when I did think about it and looked at the whole package - the producers behind the show, the writers, the cast I would be working with - I would have been a fool to turn it down just because the role for me was another gay role.
And I'd like to believe that's true, you know, kind of showing gay people in this kind of light and - where it's not about that, it's just about the characters for the first time, like those shows were.
You don't have a face to work with, so your voice has to do all the work until you see the animation. So, a lot of it I had to pull back because it was too big.
