Sean Hayes on his heavenly role
SEAN HAYES first won notice for his breakout role on the series "Will and Grace." Now, as Lee Cowan tells us, this past Tony nominee is back on Broadway with a divinely-inspired role:
In his dressing room at the Booth Theater on Broadway, we were trying to get a sense of whether actor Sean Hayes had any pre-show rituals before taking the stage, but somehow he turned it back on Cowan:
Hayes: "Did YOU have any rituals before you started today?"
Cowan: "No, I don't. I wish I did."
Hayes (sotto voce): "Say 'shower.'"
Cowan: "Yes, I showered!"
Hayes: "Oh, you showered?!?! That's fantastic, Lee, that's wonderful!"
Apparently Hayes doesn't need any good-luck rituals -- after all, he's a God. Says so, right on his dressing room.
"This is just my regular placard for every job I have," he laughed. "They just change the title of whatever gig I have here."
Yes, Sean Hayes -- perhaps best known as the flamboyant Jack McFarland on NBC's "Will & Grace" -- has descended to Broadway as the Almighty.
To be more precise, the Almighty has actually inhabited Hayes' body, to help deliver an updated set of Ten Commandments.
It's pretty much all him up there for 90 straight minutes, riffing on the mysteries of life on a divinely white couch.
"'Lord, why do bad things happen to good people?' The answer: to even out the good things that happened to bad people, duh!"
"I'm still nervous," Hayes said. "I still get nervous every single show. Everybody is looking right at you saying, 'Make me laugh.' And I'm playing God, so there's that."
"An Act of God" is irreverent, poignant, and ever-questioning -- which is fitting.
Hayes was raised a Catholic in a suburb outside Chicago, where he had a lot of questions it seemed God couldn't answer.
"I come from a completely dysfunctional alcoholic family," he said, "so we kind of parented ourselves a little bit."
It was his mom who raised him. His father abandoned the family when Sean was only five.
"I remember he was about to exit the door, and my mom said, 'You're not even going to say goodbye to your kids?' And he just goes (sighs), and he turns around and gives me a half-hearted hug, and then left. That's it. That's all I remember."
"So how did that impact you, growing up?"
"Yeah, I don't know, that's why I'm in therapy!" he laughed.
"But clearly it's something that's stuck with you."
"Yeah, I think I have a lot of issues because of it."
He was dealing with a lot back then, most of it all by himself -- things even his mom and four siblings didn't know at the time.
"Knowing you're gay, as a kid in the '80s, is a very scary thing," Hayes said. "I felt like I couldn't fully be myself and accepted in my family, so I would lock myself in my room on a Saturday night and watch 'Saturday Night Live,' and that was, like, the best thing that ever happened to me.
"And I would imitate all those people at school, and at school you find your niches where you are accepted, and that was theater."
But he had another escape: the piano.
He started taking lessons shortly after his father left. He thought he might one day be a concert pianist, but as it turned out classical music helped him find his funny bone instead.
With Mozart as a muse, he and his old friend the piano went off into the world.
Performing put Hayes through college at Illinois State University, and playing helped support his move to Los Angeles, where he eventually landed a part in an independent film, "Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss."
It was that performance that got him the audition for "Will & Grace," the role that catapulted him to fame, and made TV history. Much has been written about the show's social impact. Vice President Joe Biden even credited the sit-com for helping to shape the nation's views on same-sex marriage.
But at the time, despite winning an Emmy, the intense cultural spotlight was a bit too bright.
"It was a very difficult time," he said, "and a struggle with myself, because one, do I come out? Do I not come out? I don't have the DNA to be a spokesperson for an entire community, I'm not that savvy, I'm not a politician."
"Did you feel that pressure though?"
"Absolutely. I felt so much pressure to come out on other people's terms, you know? I should have come out. I should have used that platform to show people it's okay and to educate people that I'm okay with myself and if you're not, it's your problem, not mine. But I just wasn't smart enough. I was too young and naïve, and I was scared. I was so scared."
The fear eventually subsided. He did come out publicly after "Will & Grace" ended,
And he would soon meet the love of his life -- his husband, music producer Scott Icenogle. Perhaps there's no better measure of their blissful life together than their recent Facebook videos, posted under the banner The Kitchen Sync.
The homemade lip synch performances started as a joke ... but they quickly went viral.
In fact, they grew so popular, they started getting some music executives' attention.
"Now the record companies call us and say, 'We thought it'd be fun if you did this song,'" Hayes said. "And we say, 'We thought it'd be fun if you PAID us to do that song!'"
At 45 there is a lightness about him now, he says -- and yet on the way to his opening-night after-party he explained there is still nothing like the feeling of being frightened.
"It's a love-hate. You scare the crap out of yourself, and like, why would you choose to do this with your life? I don't know, it drives me crazy, but I still do it."
His castmates from "Will & Grace" are still close. Debra Messing came to cheer on her longtime friend.
After all, how many times do you get to party with God and ask, "What are You doing down here in the first place?"
"The overall message is, you can believe in God, you can't believe in God, whatever you choose, but you should believe in yourself first, and look within yourself to better the world first, before relying on an outside source," Hayes said.
"That fits pretty well with where you are in life now, huh?"
"Yeah, I guess so. Look at you, wrapping things up! Yeah, that's really good!"
"But doesn't it? It seems like you're comfortable with who you are and what you're doing but that took a while to get there," Cowan said.
"Absolutely, and it's neverending. It's an endless journey trying to figure out who you are and your purpose in life."
He may still be on that journey, but as he prepares for his summer-long run as an all-knowing, wise cracking deity, Sean Hayes has found a peace and happiness that seems truly heaven-sent.
For more info:
- "An Act of God" at the Booth Theatre, New York | Tickets
- The Kitchen Sync videos on YouTube