The naked man in Andrew Rannells’ New York apartment must have been gobsmacked. This was 2001, and Rannells and the naked man, Brad, were winding down a second date. They'd gone home together. They had sex. They were lying in bed naked when Rannells got the call. His father had just suffered a heart attack and was in a coma. Scrambling, Rannells asked Brad to put on his clothes and leave. It’s not a meet-cute, or a meet-awful. Actually, this is not a love story at all. It’s just—well, it just happened. The unexpected burden of being around someone exactly long enough to bear witness to their life.
Fifteen years later, Rannells wrote about the night for The New York Times’ Modern Love column. When I talk to Rannells over Zoom in mid-September, this moment of his life is on his mind once again. When Rannells got that call about his father he was 22 years old and his mind was squarely on himself and this massive tragedy. But now, like so many of the roles he takes on, he wants to dive in and recognize both people in the room as the flesh and blood humans they are. What was this poor naked man named Brad thinking as tragedy spun all around him? He’s getting ready to head upstate to direct an episode of Amazon’s Modern Love that will tell it again, but on screen.
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“It was really so fulfilling to get to revisit it,” he tells me. His hair, uncoiffed. His Chelsea apartment, uniformly neat. “Because I think that I had a lot of regrets about the way I behaved that evening and the way that, you know, I probably could've been kinder or more generous.” This retelling aims to show both sides of what happened that night. For Brad—his last name has since faded from memory—those two dates, one phone call, and handful of minutes spent getting dressed are a parenthesis of his life. A version of Rannells, for better or worse, lives in the brackets.
In the two decades since that doomed second date with Brad, Rannells has become a two-time Tony-nominated actor. In 2011, he originated the role of Elder Price in The Book of Mormon, an eager missionary misguided by faith. The year after, he landed the role of Elijah, a sharp-witted gay friend on Girls. Then, a sharp-witted gay friend in A Simple Favor. The sharp-witted gay coworker in The Intern. Hollywood loves a gay, provided that he’s sharp-witted. And primarily side-lined. That's why Rannells has spent the recent years of his career looking for projects that invest in creating fully developed gay characters. Stories that bring gay people to the central narrative with qualities that dare to explore who they are beyond their sexuality.
Scott Everett White/NETFLIX
His latest project, Netflix’s The Boys in the Band, allows for something deeper. The stage-to-screen adaptation follows nine gay men, all with differing personalities and narratives. While LGBTQ on-screen representation has improved over the years, it’s a bit like Andrew and Brad’s doomed second date—the details haven’t fully been explored. The story is there, but the nuance isn’t. Not in the way it could be. At this point in Rannells' career, it's not just about playing the gay character. It’s about bucking the notion that there is only one type of gay man to play. And whether it’s The Boys in the Band or Modern Love or an unknown project to come, Rannells knows that opportunities to tell a thoughtful, gay story are rare. And he’s not going to miss any of them.
The Boys in the Band, on Netflix September 30, is a Hollywood treat for Rannells. Reprising the same character he played in the 2018 stage revival of the 1968 original, the Ryan Murphy-produced and Joe Mantello-directed film brought back the entire Broadway cast for the film. Each knew their role intimately, meaning that this rare ensemble of all gay men got the even rarer opportunity to nail a character twice. The film tells the story of a group of men gathering for a friend’s birthday party. As the night goes on, the party devolves into an examination of these nine lives: the parameters of friendship and family, their relationships with one another, and the way they cope with the world in 1968.
Remembering the initial opportunity to revive it for the stage, Rannells says, “It was this really magical moment that like... we were all in this. Matt [Bomer] and I had known each other since college. Matt and Zack [Quinto] went to college together. I've known Jim [Parsons] for a long time.” They’d been friends for years, but getting together for a project like this, even in 2018, was monumental. The play’s first run in 1968 featured a primarily gay cast, too, though all of them were closeted. Despite not running on Broadway, it was a massive success, attended by Jackie Kennedy and Marlene Dietrich and Groucho Marx. A cultural touchpoint that opened up conversations about the lives of gay men. But so much can happen and not happen in 50 years. The year after, the Stonewall riots happened. The AIDS crisis of the late ‘80s and early ‘90s claimed the lives of five of the lead actors. And after all this time, an entirely gay ensemble is still an event.
“We don't get to work together,” Rannells explains. “There's sort of a weird thing that happens in Hollywood where you can have one gay person, but you can't have two. If you have a gay character and he has a husband, probably that other actor's gonna be straight, and that's just the way it is played out for most of us.” It’s an issue Rannells has run into throughout his career. Gay representation has increased over the years, but it’s typically relegated to a specific kind of aesthetic. Being the lone homosexual can be a lonely row to hoe. Even Rannells' fictional husband in 2012’s The New Normal was straight actor, Justin Bartha, and that’s with Ryan Murphy at the helm. In Paul Feig’s queer-adjacent A Simple Favor, Rannells' husband was an offscreen suggestion. Oftentimes, being gay is less of a character attribute and more akin to an ambassadorship.
“Being a gay actor and having played a lot of gay parts, I was so excited by the fact that there were so many types of gay men. I feel like I get that question a lot—that don't you feel like it's limiting to only play gay people, don't you feel like you're being pigeonholed?” he says. “And my response to that is always: that implies that there's only one type of gay person. You can be a whole lot of different things and be gay.” The Boys in the Band puts that hypothesis on display. Written by Mart Crowley, the nine gay characters who front the play vary wildly in personality. The most “stereotypically queer” character still embodies a humanity often missing from queer characters.
You can be a whole lot of different things and be gay.Rannells knows the other side of the equation. His first major gig in New York was playing James in the musical stage show Pokemon Live! back in 2000. James was the first gay role Rannells ever played, but it had the hallmarks of every gay cliche: campy outfit, purple wig, unbelievably grandiose dialogue. It was decidedly not three-dimensional. Instead, it simply scratched the itch of having a gay stereotype. Nothing more. “The problems started when we had to put on the costumes because we rehearsed in Radio City and we were just in our normal rehearsal clothes,” he says, still obviously slightly traumatized. “The day that I had to put on that wig was rough. Oh fuck. Like I kind of forgot for a second what we were doing and then all of the sudden I was smacked in the face with it that I was like, here's the wig.”
That was the last job that Rannells’ father knew he had before he slipped into a coma and eventually succumbed to his heart attack. “If there is a heaven and if he is looking down I hope that he's like, oh he actually did get some better work,” he says, a photo of his father on the wall over his shoulder.
Even with big roles in New York, the Nebraskan roots run strong. Alongside his father are photos of his grandparents, which is his way of bringing them along to New York with him. Family stuff can be complicated and trading coming out stories is a badge of honor, but Rannells insists his Midwestern family might have been tipped off. “No one was surprised,” he says, flatly. “There was not…uh…yeah. No one was shocked.” He came out, immediately moved to New York, and set his sights on acting success. Ten years after Pokemon Live! he originated the lead in The Book of Mormon, one of the most popular Broadway musicals in recent memory.
Kevin KaneAndrew Rannells and the cast of ’The Book of Mormon’ performs on stage on stage during the 65th Annual Tony Awards at the Beacon Theatre on June 12, 2011 in New York City.
It was The Book of Mormon that led to so many other opportunities. While taking meetings at NBC, Rannells sat down in 2011 with then-entertainment president Jennifer Salke and chairman of NBC entertainment, Bob Greenblatt. That’s where he first heard of The New Normal, the Ryan Murphy sitcom in development during the showrunner’s Glee days. “I sat across from Ryan Murphy and it was my last meeting,” Rannells says. “I was going to the airport later that day to come back to New York, and I just said, ‘I heard that you are doing this show about two gay men having a baby and I would like to be in it...’ I was like oh my god, I fucked up that meeting with Ryan Murphy. Like I completely overstepped.” A few days later, standing in the lobby during a matinee of Bernadette Peters’s Follies, he got the call. Murphy wanted him for the part. “It was a real big gay day,” he says.
The series faced an uphill battle though. At the time, conservative boycotters from One Million Moms, claiming the series exemplified the “decay of morals and values,” demanded it be taken off the air. Unlike series like Modern Family, which premiered three years prior, The New Normal had a certain Murphy-esque bluntness about it. Modern Family treats its gay couple like caricatures. The New Normal dared to let them exist as people; it didn’t shy away from homophobia, overt or subtle. Bartha played a football-loving obstetrician. Rannells, a TV producer with a no-bullshit attitude. It was canceled by the end of the first season. “We were telling a different story, and I just don't know if people were ready to see it, unfortunately,” he explains. “I think that Ryan’s work on that show is really beautiful, and I think it was a big swing for him to do that when he did.” Teens find it in 2020 and message him about it occasionally. He asks, somewhat excitedly, “Do you think that people would watch it differently now?” And the answer is yes and no. Fact of the matter is: One in three Americans do not support same-sex marriage. And those are the moments that are hardest to swallow because who knows what control we have over someone’s perception.
The series ended, but as those in Murphy’s rolodex know, once a Murphy character, always a Murphy character. Though Murphy’s grand sitcom about two gay dads flopped in 2012, he kept Rannells in mind for the future. When Murphy moved to revive The Boys in the Band, Rannells was on his mind for the role of Larry. Also on the list was Tuc Watkins, who plays Rannells’ onstage love interest, Hank. The two of them unfold their own narrative in the play—Larry is a mid-century gay man with a penchant for being flirty along with a distaste for monogamy. Hank is a previously married father who left his life, expecting a new version of his old normal, but with a man. “Hank is coming from a more typical heterosexual world with kids and a wife and that's sort of the structure that he's putting on Larry,” Rannells explains. “Larry is bumping up against it a little bit, but at the root of it they really are in love and that's why they're together.”
Rannells says, “A lot of young people came to see The Boys in the Band on Broadway and here's this play from 50 years ago that still really resonated with these young couples coming to see it.” Their discussion of open relationships and how to navigate the quirks of monogamous love feels distinctly relevant to 2020, despite being written in an era before the Gay Rights Movement. Perhaps most shockingly, Crowley’s words still drip when wrung tightly. Even five decades later, the nuance of internalized homophobia, heteronormative expectations, and toxic masculinity ring too relevant.
Bruce GlikasTuc Watkins, Matt Bomer, Andrew Rannells, Brian Hutchison, Michael Benjamin Washington, Tab Hunter, Robin de Jesus, Zachary Quinto and Charlie Carver pose backstage at the hit play "The Boys in The Band" on Broadway at The Booth Theatre on June 5, 2018 in New York City.
There’s a line at the end of the play where a character cries, hunkered on the ground, “If we could learn to not hate ourselves so much,” and it just reverberates through the screen. By this time, Larry and Hank are upstairs, out of sight. “Mark wrote that in 1968, before the Gay Rights Movement happened. That was a year before Stonewall that he wrote that,” Rannells adds. “Tuc and I, when we did it on Broadway, got to hear that scene every night, and it really did resonate in an incredible way. I think a lot of people—gay, straight—you do judge yourself. You are hard on yourself.”
Now that it’s over and Rannells prepares for the film’s release (and his upcoming role in another Murphy-Netflix project, Prom), he’s counting his spoils. Namely, that involves Tuc. What started as acting grew into something greater. After the show ended, Rannells started dating Watkins. The two have been together since. “It's called a showmance,” he jokes, leaning into the camera wide-eyed. “It was weird to do that on stage and then fall in love with someone as you're doing it.” The two of them are settled into their relationship at this point. They’re spending this socially distanced, early fall watching HBO’s The Vow. Rannells tells me that recently, he discovered that Watkins’ niece watches Big Mouth, the sometimes raunchy animated series about a group of middle schoolers navigating adolescence. Rannells voices Matthew, the sharp-witted gay friend who is actually more of an articulate bully than he is any kind of victim. Three seasons in, Matthew’s story is explored. He is the product of an all-American home. The son of a father who aspires for his white-pant, sweater-vested son to marry none other than America’s sweetheart, Carrie Underwood.
But the thing is, despite being animated, Matthew is not two-dimensional. Remember? When he can, Rannells chooses the stories that allow for enough time for a story to be told. “Matthew's gonna be fine,” Rannells says, cooly. “Matthew is totally fine.” The idea is not to get a character like Matthew right and call it a day. It’s about getting as many different kinds of queer characters out there as possible and letting them suck up as much air as they can. Let them exist as three-dimensionally as possible so that a limp wrist isn’t the only punchline in the script or that a hate crime isn’t the only way for a character to die.
In some ways, it’s why Rannells is returning to that terrible night with Brad. That night, the story was only about Rannells, but he’s interested in all the stories in the room. “I got to sort of write this and think about, well what was that guy thinking? What was his experience in that night?” Rannells says, stopping for a second to collect his thoughts. “And I can only imagine what it is, but it was...I also wanted to give that guy an opportunity to also have a say in what was going on rather than it just being my story about what happened.”
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