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Eric Mabius

Advocate, The, Jan 16, 2007 by Brantley Barden

With his lanky, buffed-out bod, he wowed Heather Matarazzo in Welcome to the Dollhouse; then we found him in the bedroom doing the dirty with Josh Jackson in Cruel Intentions. Now, after having his looks fail him with the women of The L Word, Eric Mabius is back to his bed-hopping ways as Ugly Betty,'s resident insatiable himbo.

In Cruel Intentions you played gay when a lot of people weren't doing that. Were you that secure in your sexuality?

Listen, I went to Sarah Lawrence [College]. I went to high school in Amherst [Mass.], and [nearby] Northampton has the largest lesbian population on the Eastern seaboard. So I've been user-gay-friendly for a while [laughs].

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Do you ever get any gay fan mail?

I was quite touched during spring break this past year--some of the soldiers in Iraq got their spring vacation, and I was out for dinner in Hollywood. Quite a few soldiers come up to me. obviously some gay and lesbian, telling me how the DVDs of The L Word got them through their tours.

I love on Ugly Betty what must be one of the first preteen latently gay characters, Betty's nephew,

I've seen some response to that character specifically. There comments about "warping" the youth of today or that it's "immoral." Nobody's making him anything other than who he is. Hopefully, in a year or two that will just be a bump in the road, and there won't be any more of it, It won't be about pointing out ethnicity or orientation; it'll just be part of the fabric. And that's why the show is so good.

I also totally cracked up when we meet [executive producer] Salma Hayek's character, who is a best-selling author of the book Making Your Man a Bottom. Did you know what a bottom was?

I had no idea.

In gay land it's often asked, "Are yoga a top or bottom?"

[Laughs] I didn't get that. In high school I was on the Junior National Luge Team, and in doubles you're either a top man or a bottom man. If you're the bottom man, you can't see: you literally have to do it by feel. So you're going 80 miles an hour, getting crushed by some dude who lies on top of you.

Sounds wildly homoerotic.

It does. In a latex speed suit too. I'm sure my former buddies would appreciate the ... obvious overtones.

Eric Mabius

Advocate, The, Jan 16, 2007 by Brantley Barden

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