Playing it Straight

Photo: Getty Images

The Associated Press has a big piece -- most likely coming in shorter form to a newspaper near you -- about whether out gay actors will be welcomed playing straight on TV. (They rightly call out the scene-stealing T.R. Knight, whose big hetero Vegas wedding on last week's Grey's Anatomy was not only convincing but made everyone go awwwww).

Network executives, Fabian says, fear negative coverage in the tabloids. And they prefer not to cast openly gay actors in straight roles because they want those tabloids to publicize their stars' social lives positively.

"You go in for a pilot, and you're told the casting director loves you, the producer loves you," says Fabian. "Then you go to network, and you have to sign your five-year deal first. I think that's where the real discussion is going on: 'We really liked him, but . . . he's really funny, but . . . how can we get him out there with the girls when he's sitting home with his boyfriend every day?"

Hmm, I bet we could make a list of actors who seem more likely to sit around with their boyfriends but instead get dragged to network events with other cute (and decidedly more female) stars.

In other, only vaguely related news:

> T.R. and Sex & the City's Cynthia Nixon will be hosting the Obie Awards. [Thanks CP]

> Prison Break's Wentworth Miller will anchor the Gap's new khakis ad campaign.

> CNN's Thomas Roberts reappears on late-night Headline News!