So if you’re one of the too few people devoted to the beloved but canceled show, Firefly, you remember Sean Maher, who played Simon Tam, the brother doctor of the kick-ass River Tam. You’ll also remember that he was the cute one, as opposed to Nathan Fillion‘s smoldering good looks and Adam Baldwin‘s hot-but-clinically-insane physique. Anyway, he has a new show out on NBC, The Playboy Club, and in order to promote it, Simon finally came out as a gay man in an interview with Entertainment Weekly!
“I’ve never discussed it publicly,” the 36-year-old continues. “I’ve never been asked about it publicly, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t paint a different picture.” Maher says that not coming out wasn’t so much a choice as much as it was a reality of the business when he first came to L.A. fresh out of college back in 1997. Publicists working with him during his first Tinseltown role as the title character on Fox’s short-lived cop drama Ryan Caulfield: Year One assumed he was straight — and he didn’t tell them otherwise, out of fear. “I’m 22, I move to L.A., and it’s such a cliché, but the day I arrive, publicists from the show took me out to The Ivy for lunch,” he remembers. “They’re telling me, ‘You know, gosh, we’d really appreciate it if you could keep your girlfriend on the side because we want to appeal to the female demographic of the show.’”
To be honest, I don’t altogether blame him for not coming out straight out of the gate, because Hollywood is fickle when it comes to casting and people don’t quite seem to understand that gay people can play straight people because that’s how acting works. But whatever, he finally came out and it’s good to have him on our team! Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be in my bunk.
