Randy Harrison Interview Video, Xtra, 2016

source: www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKBSXVsx7Rs

 

 

Xtra Magazine, X: Randy Harrison, welcome to daily Xtra

 

Randy Harrison, RH: Good to be here. Thanks for having me.

 

X: We're here in Toronto at Fly nightclub the location of Babylon and the American version of Queer as Folk. What it's like being back?

 

RH: It's crazy. It's crazy. I haven't been here in 8 years and walking back into the club at felt the same hearing the music all these memories from, from be living here for 5 years and shooting here. So often partying here. It's coming back. It's amazing.

 

X: You played Justin on the show. What was it like being a part of such a groundbreaking series?

 

RH: It was really humbling, it was really amazing. It was a.. It was amazing.. a.. working with this community. It was amazing knowing that something that I was doing was important to a lot of people. Especially, in retrospect. I mean the farther I get away from it the more grateful I am to for having been a part of something like that.

 

From Queer as Folk

Brain: Sure, you're taking a lot of showers lately, come here.

Justin: Later.

Brain: Now.

Justin: Can't we please do this after?

Brain: I like smelling you. Not soap.

 

X: It spent 10 years since the show aired there still such a huge following there's even a convention which you're going to this weekend. What's that all like?

RH: It's insane. I mean we started shooting, it's started airing 15 years ago. But I just feel like you know there still... Ah.. It's still important to the people and I think it sort of gets to people in different parts of the world actually when they need this kind of representation. I think it is still important that this representation is out there. So I think that's, that's why it has still, has a following.

 

 

X: And there are so many shows that are rebooting, what do you think of Queer as Folk reboot?

RH: I mean we're all game for it. We are all like old people now. (laughing). Umm.. The middle-aged Queer as Folk might not quite do the same. But I think we all, I mean the cast all loves each other, still. We're all friends. We're.. We're all open to it. I mean. who knows?

 

X: What would you like to see on the show, now?

RH: I mean it will be so different. A club like this is so much rare now. I mean Queer as Folk is pre-apes. So like the whole way gay people related to a huge extent was different. Uhmm. I think the difference now would be. You know the way technology has changed the gay community. I think Queer as Folk would need to be, you know more

, have more, more colorful, more, you know, gender-bending, more trans. I mean there's a lot, there's a lot of progress, That's happened and a lot more diversity in the community that could be represented, I think.

 

X: Do you think Brian was still would be together despite going their separate ways on the very final episode?

RH: People ask me that a million times. No matter what I said, people get mad at me. A.. Ahh.. I would hope that they wouldn't just for Justin's sake.

X: Really???????

RH: Yeah, I mean I just feel like. If you are 17 and you start sleeping with 30 year old like you, you're developments going to be thwarted. If you never go out on your own for a significant amount of time. I mean, maybe they can come back together. I don't know. It's such a like romantic fantasy the whole shows, like FANTASYs. So hard to think about rationally, entirely, but For the Fans, I hope they're back together and married and have a family and are living in a cottage in the country 

X: Thanks for being honest.

 

X: On a completely different note. We're here at a gay nightclub and just last week, 49 people were shot and killed in a gay nightclub in Orlando. In that context, what does it feel like to be here?

RH: It feels more important to be here, it feels more valuable to be here. I'm participating in every Pride that I can and every city I can.. I feel like it's so significant that we continue to come together that we continue to support each other. Ahh. Love each other, be proud, be strong, and be active, be politically engaged. ..A.. Not be afraid. Um.. So it feels like more of a political act just showing up and being here and being proud and sharing love with fellow queers and like loving each other, you know.

 

X: I agree, thank you so much

RH: My pleasure.

 

 

인터뷰 보자마자 아니 30살이라니 라고 생각했는데 역시 팬들 마음은 똑같다. 브라이언은 29살이었다고.

시즌2 초인가.. 아무튼 그쯤에 브라이언보고 어린애 데리고 뭐하는 짓이냐고 비난 했던 게이 인권 운동가도 30살이라고 말해서, 브라이언이 사인회에서 29살이라고 수정해준 장면이 떠올랐다. ready to suing도 너무 웃김 ㅋㅋㅋㅋ

 

하.. 하지만.. 인터뷰 내용은 충격적이었다. ㅎ.

진작에 랜디가 저스틴 캐릭터를 좋아하지 않는 다는 건 알고 있었지만. 

또 팬들을 위해서 그들이 다시 만나서 결혼도 하고 알콩달콩 살았으면 좋겠어요~ 라고 말해주기도 했지만..

결국 랜디는 결말이 마음에 들었다는 말이니까.

 

이렇게 Reboot에 대한 내 희망이 또 -100쯤 된 거 같다 ㅎㅎ...

결말에 대한 미련은 나만 가지고 있는거였다.

우리 랜디는 없는거였어.......ㅠㅠ

 

알고 있었지만 확인사살 두 번 당했다.

첫번째 사살은 이젠 우리 너무 늙어서~~ 리부트 뭐 who knows? 했지만.. 이건 마치 은퇴를 한 스포츠 선수가 인터뷰에서 현역으로 복귀 할 수도 있는거겠죠. 세상에 확신할 수 있는 게 얼마나 있겠어요? 라고 말하는 느낌이었다.

아니...... 랜디는 안늙었다고. 저 수염만 좀 밀면 ㅠㅠ

썬샤인!

그리고 받아쓰기 하는데 pre-apes라는 말 이해가 안되서 몇 번을 들었는지 모른다. 처음엔 pre apps라고 하는 줄 알았다. 근데 app이라니 그럴리가... 곰곰히 생각해보니 pre-apes였다. 

저기요.. 16년 전이 선사시대는 아니거든요?????????

 

더 이상 날카롭게 반응하지 않는 것도 이젠 흘러간 과거의 추억★ 나의 옛 모습★ 이라고 생각 하니까 저런 소리도 나오는거 같다. ㅠ.ㅠ

 

랜디는 본인을 늙었다고... 얘기했지만........... 

그게 벌써 5년 전이고 ^^;;;

5년 전에도 우리 너무 늙어서 middle-aged Queer as Folk를 찍어도 될랑가 몰라~ 이랬는데. 이제 21년이 지난 지금에는 누가 리부트 얘기하면 또 허허허 하고 웃으면서 who knows? 하겠지...

 

Cowlip들만 쪼아서는 안될일이다... 그래도 Gant나 Peter는 진심으로 리부트에 참여하고 싶어 보이던데.. 말하는 내용이 굉장히 구체적이고.. ㅠㅠ..

 

하지만 우리 랜디와 게일은 그럴 마음이 없어 보인다 하하하하

예전에는 게일이 절대 참여하지 않을 거라고 생각 했는데, 요즘와서 보면 랜디가 더........ㅠㅠㅠㅠ

 

 

 

Written Interview source: xtramagazine.com/culture/catching-up-with-queer-as-folks-justin-71267

Catching up with Queer as Folks' Justin.

Randy Harrison talks television, acting, and not being a twink.

Randy Harrison became a gay icon playing Justin in the US version of Queer as Folk. Credit: Primary Stages

Queer as Folk’s Justin is coming back to town. That is, actor Randy Harrison will play host at a Queer as Folk-themed dance party. Called Club Babylon, it will take place in Fly, the actual club where the show’s Babylon club was shot. Daily Xtra caught up with Harrison for a little chat about the party, the show, and what he’s up to now. Here’s the edited and condensed Q & A.

 

Daily Xtra: What did you think when they proposed the idea of Club Babylon?

Randy Harrison: I thought it was an interesting idea. I’m excited to come back to Toronto . . . We’re going to celebrate the show and all the people involved — the community that was very much involved in the show at the time. Woody’s was a huge part of the show. Fly and the gay community was a huge part of the show. They were our extras, our background players . . . It was very much a Canadian [show].

 

What do you think of the character Justin, and do you think gay characters are more complex today?

Yes, I do think so. I mean, I think Justin was very complex, but I do think much of the relationship dynamic [between him and the character Brian] was somewhat heteronormative — in a very, you know, romantic way. It was a very archetypal thing to draw viewers in, in a certain capacity. I think it didn’t enormously challenge power dynamics in a way that I find even most straight relationships do.

 

Do people still think of you as Justin? Do people fetishize you?

I think it made it so I can never quite have a normal social life, which I accepted a long time ago. I mean, I’m much older than I was then, so people are pretty delusional if they’re still fetishizing me as a 17-year-old twink.

 

Justin is a twink. Did you ever feel like you had to live up to that label in real life?

Well, I never was that. I never was that in real life. It was a role I played. I never was a club kid, I generally have facial hair . . . so it was very much a role I played. It’s been over for so long now, but it was something to be that young and to represent something very specific to people that I was not necessarily. And to sort of just have to accept that for a while, I was going to be this thing for people, regardless of what I actually was.

 

Did you ever try to force it on people’s minds that you’re not a twink?

Yeah, a little bit. I definitely sort of overcompensated . . . making sure people know I’m something else. But the fact is they don’t want me to be something else — I mean, if they’re like that, that’s just what they want to see.

 

Many of us watched the show in our teens. And it was a formative time for Justin too. Was it a formative time for you?

I’d already gone through it all. I came out six years before I started shooting Queer as Folk, and my coming out experience was very different from Justin’s. It was formative in different ways, but it wasn’t formative in what Justin was going through. I felt very much like I was playing a character seven years younger than me — and I was. But your early 20s are a whole other thing.

 

What do you think of all the sex and makeout scenes you had to do for the show?

It was very technical. It was kind of the boring part of work. It was like, let’s just shoot this out very quick because we have to get it, and the network wants a certain amount of it because it sells the show, and then let’s actually play the scenes and do the fun stuff. It definitely became the more tedious part of work. There was a lot of it though — god!

 

You were recently in the show Mr. Robot. You’re currently touring in Cabaret. Which do you like better — TV or stage acting?

Onstage you have much more power as an actor . . . in film and television you come in and play the scene and a bunch of other people take the raw material that you’ve given and reconfigure it in whatever capacity they want and they create the story. [But] I like both a lot . . . I think I’m a better stage actor from the television I’ve done, and I’m a better television actor from the stage acting I’ve done.

 

Do you have any other big plans while you’re in town?

I’m flying from Vegas, where I’m going to be playing Cabaret, and then coming to Toronto just for the weekend. And then I’m flying to San Francisco . . . So, unfortunately, I’m only going to be in Toronto very briefly, but I’m hoping to catch up with a few friends, and I think I’ll be pretty busy though. But I’m excited to see the city and how massively it’s changed.

 

Club Babylon
Friday, June 17, 2016, 10:30pm
Fly 2.0, 6 Gloucester St, Toronto