Billy Eichner

[to the question whether he ever felt threatened by the reaction to his impromptu street interviews] Nine times out of ten, people are game. You know, pardon the pun. But they are. They might not want to participate, they might just walk by me, but they're not angry. Once on a while I've had a handful of occurrences where they are. An old lady slapped me across the face really hard.

There's almost nothing in the cultural world that's harder to get right than a Broadway musical, but when someone does, there's nothing more invigorating or satisfying. In an increasingly digital age, it's so refreshing to see real people telling a story on stage. No filtered photos, no holograms, no VR - real human beings sharing a moment together. It never gets old.

Gay actors are never, hardly ever, I should say, allowed to play our own gay icons. Harvey Milk, Freddie Mercury, Elton John. Where are the gay actors? And it's not to take anything away from those performances, which were all excellent. But why don't we get to tell our own stories? I have a lot of friends who are openly gay actors in Hollywood. Many of us are successful, and have carved out lovely careers, to varying degrees. But when it really comes to some big project about a gay icon, the one everyone's throwing awards at...we love the spectacle of rewarding a straight actor, for quote unquote, transforming himself into a gay person.

When someone comes out of the closet, we celebrate them. We applaud them. We put them on the cover of magazines. We say, thank you for living your truth, and thank you for being brave, and you're such a role model for our gay kids. And then instantly, that actor gets taken off so many casting lists in the business.