Queer As Folk' twink all grown up

Let’s temporarily defrost for some more recent nostalgia involving a whole other queer icon. As the sunny yet troubled Justin on the Showtime hit Queer as Folk, blonder-than-springtime Randy Harrison became known as the ultimate twink, which the actor now tells me was both a blessing and a curse. “It’s far enough in the past that it’s just become a blessing,” he explained, “but for a while it did limit me.”

A bigger problem with the show was that it was shot in Toronto, so Randy didn’t get to establish himself in terms of meeting casting directors and other key business people. “So after five years of working on that show,” he told me, “I had to start from scratch in New York.”

Jump ahead eight years and Randy’s all set up, having done nonstop theater and film work of all types. And he’s currently in Harbor, Chad Beguelin’s play at Primary Stages about a girl and her mother popping in on the Sag Harbor home of mom’s brother (Randy) and his new husband. Randy’s character is anxious to stay away from his white trash roots as embodied by sis, so the simple act of doorbell ringing proves to be a rude arousal for just about everyone onstage. 

“We all undergo an awakening,” explained Randy. “The play connects with me. Just reading the script I understood it. I think people will really relate to it.” Is it another one of those message plays? “No!” he exclaimed. “It’s actually wonderfully funny. It’s human and idiosyncratic. It’s about all the things we sacrifice to save face.” 

And he’s showing his face on other stages too. Randy is involved with the Qwan company, which does performance-art-style parodies of campy movies like Notes on a Scandal and Black Swan, and they sound extremely Jinkx Monsoon. “It’s the most fun thing to be part of,” Randy exulted. 

The kid is just so nice. (And the kid is now 35, by the way.) Do people ever walk all over him because he projects a “hurt-me” likeability? “I don’t think so,” Randy replied. “I don’t let that happen. I feel like it’s taken me longer than it should to have confidence in shaping my career and going aggressively after what I want to do, but even in my weakest moments, people haven’t been walking over me.” Yay! Twinkdom, be gone!