Gale Harold is, simply stated, a sexy man. He excels at sexual tension. He’s breathtaking to watch. There are few adjectives in the English language which can adequately describe this man’s ability to exist beyond a well structured, well written scene. Yet, simultaneously, Harold can encompass the entire moment in which the scene itself takes place. He literally seeps into the libido section of a person's brain... whether it's the male libido or the female libido... it just doesn't matter. Gale Harold always maintains a mischievously smooth glint in his eyes that reminds us all to take him in slowly... He exudes an extreme sense of brash confidence and effortlessly enthralls anyone within a 600 mile radius. Gale Harold is not at all an "expected" entity. He's formidable... almost flawless in each and every last  performance. His work is both haunting and playful... He makes you feel and believe in so many ways. And he's so damn comfortable in his own skin that he reminds all who cannot take their eyes off of him of a young Richard Gere, straight (pardon the pun) out of the film 'American Gigilo'... So much so that, at the center of the recently departed hit Original Showtime Show Queer As Folk's universe remains his stand-out interpretation of bad boy Brian Kinney— cruel, insensitive and yet oh so irresistible. It's difficult to imagine anyone would could have been more effective in the role of the tortured, narcissistic predator. Brian’s philosophy was often rather cold yet simple and precise, "I don't believe in love, I believe in fu%$ing. It's honest, it's efficient, you get in and out with a maximum of pleasure and a minimum of bullshit." Played to absolute heights of excellence by Harold, Brian was as uninhibited and sexual as it gets— like the sexual equivalent of a smooth jungle cat, predatory in his overt sexuality. When he was on the screen, you can't take your eyes off of him. Brian could easily have been a stereotypical male slut. But Harold didn't overplay Brian's shamelessly seductive antics or his moodiness. Instead, he gave an exquisitely layered performance that always made you glimpse at Brian's vulnerability and his deepest darkest insecurities.

Actor Gale Harold laughs playfully about his ‘Queer as Folk’ experience— "I was at a club here in Toronto, and these straight high school girls who were all fans of the British version of the show came up to me and they said, ‘You’re playing Stuart’s character? Oh, my God!’ They were absolutely obsessed. But you know, I think that’s a good sign." He laughs a bit more and then breaks into a boyish smirk.

Gale Harold was born and raised in Southwest Atlanta, Georgia. In his youth, his parents were what he refers to as "God-fearing church people". Luckily, the influences of Jack London, Gandalf, and David Bowie quickly infused into his equation and alerted him to the often bizarre inaccuracies of a Southern Pentecostal upbringing. After most of his childhood friends disappeared in the "white flight" exodus of the late 70's, he spent his high school years drifting amongst various socioeconomic harbors finding protection in the veneer of what he calls a "...non committal collusion". Harold acquired a diploma and under a soccer scholarship he begin working toward a Liberal Arts Degree in romance Literature at American University in Washington, D.C. But "creative differences" with his coach resulted in his departure after one half a year. He then left the Capital to study Fine Arts at the San Francisco Art Institute. He squandered his academic scholarship however, and was eventually forced to make other plans.

An obsession with Italian motorcycles led to several years of restoring and pants-set mechanics with Moto Guzzi motor bikes. In 1997 on the brink of financial exile from San Francisco he was persuaded by his compatriot Suzy Landau, producer for Francis Ford Coppola (Dracula & Tucker) to take his act to the stage. After finally being introduced to the luminous actor and director Joan E. Scheckel, he re-located to Los Angeles, beginning an intensive three-year period of dramatic study and exploration. This led to his theatrical debut as Bunny in Gillian Plowman's 'Me and My Friend' at the Los Angeles Theatre Center. Harold also made his feature debut as Booker in Paul Scheuring's '36K.' He was subsequently accepted to and completed the Actor's Conservatory Program with A Noise Within classical theatre company. There he appeared in productions of 'The Misanthrope' and 'Cymbeline.' Having recently starred in the indie films 'Wake', 'Particles of Truth', and 'Rhinoceros Eyes' Harold is also at work on two screenplays of his own.

The ultra-private, ever-evasive Harold explains his pivotal role with such ease you begin to think he hangs out with him in his spare time. "Brian happens to be the character the show gives life to," Harold says. "It's not just that this character is the sexpot of the show. He's real because you see every facet of his life. All the characters have a real sexual lifestyle but at the same time they're all completely evolved and fully developed in other aspects of their lives, just like real life. He's very strong, extremely clear. He was created as a very sexualized, driven, unapologetic, unsentimental person. Since he's a gay man living in present-day America, the potential for being knocked out of his own orbit is really great. He lives his life at a fever pitch and seems like he's always stepping on scorching hot rocks. I knew it would be a great role to play; but I'm learning that, working on episodic TV, you really don't get to evolve. If the character changes too much, it doesn't make a lot of sense to the audience. You have to let things happen slowly, which was difficult for me to conceptualize. Fortunately, Brian is not the type of guy to go through many changes! "

Harold opted to take the controversial role despite the obvious possibilities of being wrongly typecast by the industry. But he never once flinches when he explains his choice. "I would much rather be involved with a powerful project that pushes itself forward. The character, for me, was so completely bulletproof that it didn't matter what it was about. I felt like he was such a cavalier and such an engrossing and dynamic character that the question of whether I cared about the explicit nature of the show was not an issue. They told me the actor who plays this part will be pigeonholed, and the thing that cancelled that out for me was the fact that it was such an amazing character." When asked to predict where he might be five years from now, the actor pulls out one of his cleverly satirical explanations, "Where else? In a full body cast. Driving a Cadillac. Listening to 'Popcorn' by James Brown. And smoking with George W. Bush."

Now that 'Queer As Folk' has ended its successful run Harold reminisces about the whole experience, "It was satisfying, yeah. There were a lot of things about it that were kind of interesting from varying perspectives, one of the things was that it's television, and it's kind of not the medium I expected to find myself working in. And with the success of things like 'Oz' and 'The Sopranos' and 'Six Feet Under', it was great to be involved in this cable format, even though it is a pay television format. It was really exciting working in the medium of television, but doing something that didn't make me cringe, because that, to me, is what is really shallow. So, whatever the final impact of this show was, however it was inevitably received as a whole, and whether people felt that it was meaningful and/or stereotypical, shallow, or whatever else, at least what I felt every morning when I woke up and went to work, and was presented with the scripts and the actors and the storylines, that were all good, it was all quality. And I realize that because of the nature of the characters and the nature of the subject matter— a lot of people are still going to have strong opinions, and that's satisfying, to have worked on something that was provoking dialogue and response. I get the sense that the audience was really motivated to say something because they were feeling something. It wasn't just some mindless bland sort of rehashing what we were wearing, or whatever. I also think it was the first time that women had the chance to see this part of life, unless they were into buying male gay porn! It was very explicit. Men have been watching women make love to each other in magazines and films forever. If you're sexually attracted to men, it stands to reason that you might like to see two men in a sexual situation It was a real baseline dynamic! And it changed the power struggle, because women never got to see that. That's a bizarre sociological result of the show."

I just had to ask him how he closed one of his first Showtime QAF Chats as it was a bit daring given the fanaticism surrounding his character. Harold laughs, "I believe I typed in something like 'thank you for sharing your precious time with the people who are manipulating you into thinking you are actually talking with me!" As for whether or not he was ever "Brianed" in any of his own personal relationships he breaks into even more laughter. "Yeah, believe it or not I've been Brianed. I think everybody has and there's a whole vast range of people who have Brianed you. You can be Brianed by your mother if you're not careful, right? Everyone's a Brian at some point or another. That's why people related to him. It's just like every archetypal character we watch, it really speaks about something all of us have inside. Whether we display that or not or can keep it up for extended periods of time is a different story but there are facets of my life, my own experience and things I've done that definitely have figured into the characterization and actions I chose to play." UB

Bridget Petrella is the Publisher and Editor in Chief of UPBEAT Entertainment News Online. At this point in her life, she's seriously contemplating a complete and unbridled abandonment of typical network television... opting instead for Silver Surfer comic books, novels with wordy titles, Retro TV Land, HBO and Showtime's Original Programming schedule and of course... Nick at Night.
 

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