Where There�s a Will

As Will & Grace enters its seventh (!) season, gay fans of the show are finally seeing something they have been waiting for a long time: Will has a real, honest-to-goodness boyfriend. We caught up with Eric McCormack, who plays Will, to talk about this revelation, as well as what he did on his summer hiatus. So, what have you been up to this summer? I did a movie! Its called The Sisters. Its basically Chekhovs Three Sisters set in modern times. Where do they want to go? Not Moscow? They are in New York and they want to go back to North Carolina. Naturally. I play the crazy bastard that murders the teacher, in this case the teacher being Chris ODonnell. The sisters are Maria Bello, Erica Christensen, and Mary Stuart Masterson. Its totally indie, so hopefully someone will buy it. It was really fun to do. So Bobby Cannavale, who was featured in Outs October issue, is back. Will officially has a real boyfriend! Now, tell me, for the gay people who watch the show, this is good news, right? Because hes so handsome and hes so funny... And theres real chemistry. For people rooting for Will, its great. Well, weve tried [giving Will a boyfriend] in the past. With Patrick Dempsey for a couple of episodes, it was a good, sort of a toe in the water thing. Then it was the four episodes where I made over Dan Futterman. I loved those episodes but we lost numbers. People were a little scared. They didnt know what to make of it. So again we kind of backed off and thought, How do you do this? And how you do this is you find the right guy at the right time and this was the right guy at the right time. It was a funny storyline and a funny way in. Do you think that with the political landscape and whats going on with gay marriage, people are a little bit more ready for Will to be in a relationship than they were? I hope so. I dont know. A friend of mine was telling me that he recently went to movie or a play and it was clearly a gay story but as soon as the two men kissed, people went Ew and left. I used to say to political journalists who would ask, When are you gonna kiss?, Trust me. You dont want us to kiss. We wont be on the air for seven or eight years if theres a kiss. We wont. Our numbers will drop, the network will drop us. How does that help anybody? Whats helped is to be in peoples faces, just the way we have been, for a long time. If we last 10 years, how much more good did we do? And you know what, I dont want to watch sitcom characters kiss anyway. Gay or straight. Its a sitcom. Think about Mad About You. Do you wanna see them kiss? Nope. Rob and Laura Petrie. And thats it. Thats what Im talking about!