Gale: Quotes
He said:
“My point of view on taking this job is that I’m interested in real work… and it’s just something that happens. It’s not like we’re making it up or doing it to try and say, ‘Look at this! Freak out! Feel uncomfortable!’ It’s a real experience, it’s something that goes on. And if people are not aware of it, then it’s for a variety of reasons that I can’t really be worried about.” — on taking a role in Queer as Folk. ‘Introducing Queer’s Gale Force’, TV Guide, December 2-8, 2000
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“You are preparing yourself for a scene, and the most important thing is to remain emotionally available and remain in the moment with your scene partner. You don’t want to let your own self-consciousness block the flow of creativity that’s coming out so that you can act and react, and play what the scene is all about. For me, the only thing that you can do is step off and go for it. And when I did, it was amazing. For those scenes, it’s some of the most relaxing and fulfilling work because you really have to forget about everything other than just playing the action and the moment. That really is an amazing sort of freedom because you don’t always get to do that. The stakes are not that high usually.”Entertainment Tonight interview, December 2000
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“I mean, let’s face it, it’s 2000 and people are beginning to wake up on some level. I think that, as I was saying earlier, there’s just no denying the impact that showing people the truth can have. It allows people to understand themselves, and when you understand yourself you can understand the people around you. And then you can begin to let go of all the bullshit that leads into things like world wars, racism, stereotypes, and bigotry.”
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Men have been watching women make love to each other in magazines and films forever. If you’re sexually attracted to men, it stands to reason that you might like to see two men in a sexual situation It’s a real baseline dynamic! And it changes the power struggle, because women never got to see that. That’s a bizarre sociological result of the show (Queer As Folk).
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“I want to keep developing. I want to become relaxed in my own work and go deeper. Just growing and studying and trying new things and hopefully having professional access to work that’s good and interesting. I don’t want to be on the treadmill of artificiality.” – ‘Full Force Gale’. Los Angeles Magazine
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“I’m grateful for the attention, because it validates that I’m doing something worth talking about.”
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“I think it’s good that men are being objectified because since forever women have been objectified. We’re flipping the coin because things have been lopsided on TV and film for so long. Another good point to the show is that it portrays men`s sensuality. They’re not just all about sex and only sex.” — about Queer as Folk
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“I’m more interested in the quality of the work than its medium.” — ‘Queer As Folk’s Gale Harold … landing a role off Broadway’. HX Magazine, April 28th, 2001 issue
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“If anyone can crack the publicity nut, and figure out how to not come across hammy and contrived, I’d love to talk to them.”
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“If being famous means that you get to work on great projects all the time, with great people, then I’m not all that ambivalent. My idea of fame may include that. But it doesn’t necessarily include…fame.”
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“If someone doesn’t want to work with me because I’m playing a gay character, I don’t want to work with them. They can fuck off.”
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From Showtime Chats, January 2001 & February 2002
“Criticism is a surreal state, like a good drug gone bad. When it’s bad you wish it would stop, and when it’s good, you can’t get enough.”
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“Question: Hi Gale, saw you in the Aztec commercial. Have you done any other commercials?
Gale: Oh, that wasn’t me, a lot of people get confused. That was my brother.***
“Question: What is the significance of the shell bracelet? The one Brian wears.
Gale: When I was 17, I seduced and romantically exploited Jacques Cousteau and the whole crew on the ship ‘The Oddessy’.***
“I’m sure [fame has changed me] on some levels, maybe more subconsciously. It hasn’t been intensely bad or good. It’s just different and sometimes very strange.”
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“You have to like your character, because if you don’t, no one else will either.”
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“He doesn’t care—apology never comes into it. So, he has the energy that just drives him forward and I think that that can be really captivating.” — on Brian Kinney. E-Now interview.
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“My desire, above all else, is for Brian to be as realistic and human as possible. So, I try, within the constraints I am given, to find a way… I try to let something get through. And I hope that if enough gets through, there will be significant growth for Brian at least to become more self-aware. And hopefully some self-awareness will lead to deeper accessibility to his feelings towards his friends and lovers.” — From Queer As Folk: The Book
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“Yes, I like the character. What would I change about him? I think everybody knows he needs a new car. I might be restless as an actor to do different things with him. I don’t know if I would necessarily change fundamentally where we’re at, but … I guess I would hope for, depending on the future of the show, he got pushed into more and more complex … situations in terms of what his life is about and what he goes through. Moving beyond what we’ve already seen him do, the world he operates in. Maybe more of his professional life and his extended family of friends. And into his own family. I’d like to see him put into, not to say, conventional circumstances … Not so much the drugs and sex. I think that will happen because all of the characters are introduced in transitional stages. For example, Brian is going through a major transitional period. I’m looking forward to him changing my nature of the show.” — on Brian Kinney
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“…What seems banal is challenging. I love it all. If the material is good, and if the people that are putting it together are motivated and have a sense of humor and aren’t afraid of really pushing each other to uncomfortable places, then there’s nothing better.” — Grigware Interview
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“Whatever the job is, whatever the part is … try and find the truth in whatever you’re doing.”
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“I knew it would be considered controversial by conservatives, the far political right and certain types of religious people. I knew that it was going to push buttons with those people and that they were going to have a reaction to it. Let’s face it, homosexuality has been misrepresented in a religious and political sense in this country for a long time. This relates to your earlier question about what I share with Brian. I think we both see the hypocrisy of the church and state being blended together when it suits someone’s political purposes. It’s not what this country’s about at all.” — DNA Magazine interview (December 2004)
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From the Rage Monthly Interview, June 2010
“Most of the artists that I love, have or had a secret and it’s a difficult thing to tell the secret in a new way.”
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“The work is so extraordinary. It’s beyond any normal observation or conviction of passion. He’s got so many different veins of lifeblood, if that’s a way to describe it. I would love to do anything he’s written. It would be an honor to do anything he wrote because he went deeper and was more revealing than most at a time when it wasn’t very safe to do so. And he did it so lyrically and beautiful that it comes through to a reader or an audience and his message keeps coming across long afterward.” — Explaining what captivates him about Tennessee Williams’ work as a playwright.
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“There’s a scene that Sharon and I did in my loft smoking a joint. It’s probably one of my most favorite scenes. I feel it’s some of the best work that I did in the show. It’s a moment where Brian is so alone! He actually gets to jack into someone in a way that’s just about love you know? It’s about what he couldn’t get from his own family; he got it from his best friend’s mother. I think that’s a beautiful thing. It’s kind of how life is more often than not. Sometimes we have to take love where we can find it.” — offering up a memory of QAF that still resonates with him today regarding actress Sharon Gless
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From the TV Addict Interview, August 2011
“Brian Kinney wasn’t an asshole, I just think he didn’t care about towing the line. He wanted to be himself, he simply wasn’t willing to take a back seat or entertain anyone else’s idea of right and wrong and he didn’t hesitate to let that be known, (…) So I don’t think he was a bad guy at all. In fact, he was a very very heroic character that took care of himself and lived to be what he thought what he wanted to be.”– about his penchant for playing the character fans love to hate.
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“(…) there’s nothing wrong with a passionate fan base, ever, because that’s why we’re doing this. At the same time, the media lends itself to extreme passion because it’s so accessible all the time. I’m very flattered, I’m very pleased, I just hope the fans understand that it’s like a partnership. As much as you want, I can only give so much.”
They said:
“[Gale] does things because he wants to, not because he feels obligated. If he doesn’t feel like showing up someplace, he just won’t show up. But on the last day of shooting, he brought flowers for everyone. And when I broke up with my boyfriend and I couldn’t quit crying, he just held me. He’s a gentle, enigmatic and aloof spirit.” — Michelle Clunie (TV Guide)
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“Gale Harold is the best shot we have in the future for onscreen brilliance!” — Leanne Campbell
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“[Gale]‘s a dork in the body of a God.” — Peter Paige
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“Gale is a committed and talented actor, not just a pretty face.” — John Philbrick, Gale Harold’s co-star in Wake
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“Gale is brilliant, enigmatic, screwy.” — Scott Lowell, when asked to use 3 adjectives to describe the QAF cast members
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“Gale is an incredible talent with a raw and unbridled quality. He stuns, he smolders, and he sets the stage for a new era of leading man.” — PMentertainment
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“Gale is, he’s just gorgeous, you know! What can I say? He’s a gorgeous man, inside and out. I always look forward to working with him on my scenes, because there is a receptivity to him that is so complete, and wholesome. He has a real wholesome nature about life. He’s very down to earth, and that’s what I think makes him so attractive, because he just really stands on his own two feet, and lets the world come to him, and he will give back to the world. He has a real sort of give and take philosophy about life, and I think that makes him a terrific and deep actor. — Thea Gill
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“Gale is totally cool and secure enough not to be threatened by anything. He knows who he is. That makes him more than an actor; it makes him a very fine human being.” — Ron Cowan
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“He’s intense, and he likes that people think that about him… he seems more intense than he really is, though. Gale’s sillier and laughs more than Brian does. He’s kinder. And I don’t think he’s quite as manipulative.” — Randy Harrison
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“I met Gale and others during the filming of Wake… Gale stood out from the others for me because he had this incredibly fragile beauty to be such a tall, lanky guy’s guy, and yet he seemed to accept that as a fact no more remarkable than having size-whatever shoes, not use it to any advantage. I think everyone who met him developed a small crush on him, and I am not excluded from that. That has to be his fate for all of his life, I expect. You just kind of tell yourself, “I have a man crush on this guy” and move on. Lol.” — crazed_surgeon (Gale Harold’s IMDb board)
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“Someone who looks like [Gale], it’s hard to be that angry with.” — Randy Harrison (TV Guide)
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“In walks Gale Harold, and we’re looking at him and he’s reading the scene, and Ron and I are looking at each other, and it’s like, Is he fucking fabulous? He fell out of the sky.” — Ron Cowan and Daniel Lipman, about Gale Harold’s audition for Queer as Folk
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“We kept pushing back the shooting date, and people were getting tense. But when Mr. Gale Harold walked in, Ron and I looked at each other and absolutely knew. He had a certain kind of cockiness. But he’s very, very charming underneath all that. He has his own direction and agenda. There’s no bullshit with him.” — Daniel Lipman (TV Guide)
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“When we met him, Brian and Gale just fused. Gale has such sexuality as a person that it’s kind of daunting. How many people could be as open or fluid and bring that to a character? It doesn’t have anything to do with being gay or straight. He’s breaking new ground for bringing sexuality to a performance, and not just gay sexuality. I don’t think any other actor has ever done what he’s doing. I think it’s kind of historic.” — Daniel Lipman & Ron Cowan (TV Guide)
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From Queer As Folk, Paley Fest (2002)
“Gale Harold: (with a Southern twang) I won it in a raffle!
Ron Cowan: Talk.
Gale Harold: That’s it.
(…) Tony Jonas: The role wasn’t part of a raffle.
Gale Harold: But I won, man.
— about how Gale got his role on QAF.***
“Ron Cowan: It was Friday night at 5:45 and we got a call saying “He’s here!” and Gale walked in and he was incredible. We told him, “Gale, you have to test for Network at 8:30 Monday morning and he said in a Brian-esque way (smokes a fake cigarette) “I don’t know. I’m striking a set for my theater I work with. I don’t think I can do it.” So we had to send him the script for him to read and we had to send it to the Cat and the Fiddle (which everyone died laughing about because it’s a bar).
Gale Harold: Didn’t you read it to me?
Dan Lipman: No.
Hal Sparks: The bartender read it for him.
Gale Harold: Oh, right, right.
— about how Gale got his role on QAF. Queer As Folk, Paley Fest (2002)***
“Tony Jonas: We couldn’t find this guy (Brian). We needed him to be fascinating, sexy, arrogant, a total prick and confident.
Peter Paige: And in walked Gale.
Randy Harrison: Peter, he’s right here!
Ron Cowan: Everyone kept telling us to wait, we’ll find our Brian. Everyday: “He’ll come, he’ll come, he’ll come.”
Tony Jonas: He was the last person who walked in before we went to Network. He walked in and we said, “We got our guy.”
Gale Harold: I sound like an impulse buy.
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Still true to his character, Harold hasn’t resorted to any melodramatic 180s in portraying Brian’s admission of feelings and concern for boytoy-turned-love Justin. Instead, he has depicted the concession of Brian’s emotions with a decidedly understated, almost anticlimactic resignation; the subtlety is infinitely more effective than any hit-you-over-the-head epiphanous response, E.g., the scenes with Justin’s mom, when she asked Brian to take in her son and “touch him,” in the hope that his emotional wounds from the beating might heal. Or the quiet tenderness he showed toward Justin when Justin halted their first post-attack attempt at lovemaking because he wasn’t ready to be that vulnerable to another person again, even the one he loves. — Robert Schork, Soap Opera Weekly
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“Gale has very strong opinions, and he’s very political. Sometimes I think he’s the smartest person I’ve ever met. I know a lot of smart, well-educated, well-read people. But there’s something about Gale where it takes a leap from education or keen intelligence to some other place. Genius is a cheap word, especially in Hollywood. But he’s really smart.” — Ron Cowan to Michael Rowe of the Advocate. ‘Gale Force’, May 2th, 2002
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“If you’ve ever seen Queer As Folk, I don’t have to tell you about Gale. As gay anti-hero Brian Kinney he garnered an impressive following of female fans. Yes, Ladies, the man is Straight. And Gorgeous. And Smart. If the usual eye candy like Brad and Tom just doesn’t do it for you – or if you’ve ever wished Ashton Kutcher had a brain – You might want to give Gale a closer look. Gale Harold is the thinking woman’s sex symbol.” — Morgaine Swann, H.Ps. (So you’d like to… Get to know Gale Harold @ Amazon.com)
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On Gale in ‘Orpheus Descending’
“For his part, Gale Harold is sinfully delicious and his fans should not miss this tenderly wrought portrayal. (…) Harold understates his sexuality letting it ooze naturally instead. Like a snake charmer, Harold weaves a magical spell, especially when he sings along with his strumming. By no means a professional vocalist, (the role does not require it) Harold does show creative control over his power and range as his character “finds his voice” literally in each act.”
— M.R. Hunter (Eye Spy LA)***
“Harold, ideally cast, beautifully ignites with Crosby (…)”
— David C. Nichols (LA Times)***
(…) the tension in the play escalates with the arrival of Val, thanks to Harold’s perfect mix of smoldering sensuality and vulnerability. This is the type of role one easily associates with an actor like James Dean or Marlon Brando (who played it in the film adaptation, “The Fugitive Kind”). Harold’s interpretation is a bit softer than expected, but it works well. He tempers the angry-young-man character with great sensitivity, making the tragic climax all the more affecting. The chemistry between Crosby’s menopausal misfit and Harold’s wayward boy-toy is the production’s strongest suit.”
— Les Spindle (Backstage.com)
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“[Gale Harold] has some awesome taste in shoes! I believe he said they were Serbian. HOT!” — Jim Halterman, TCA 2011
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On Gale in ‘The Secret Circle’
“(…) Also working in THE SECRET CIRCLE’s favor, (…), is that the show features some incredibly exciting adult characters, most notably QUEER AS FOLK’s Gale Harold FTW!, who will surely play a far more integral role in the show than your typical CW parent. (…)
— theTVaddict (FALL TV Preview ‘11: THE SECRET CIRCLE)***
“(…) As Diana’s father Charles, who is secretly the biggest pot-stirrer amongst the empowered adults, Harold oozes malevolence, no more so than in the pilot’s cold open or when he exchanges “words” with Adam’s blabby drunk of a dad. (…)
— Matt Webb Mitovich (Fall TV First Impression: Is The Secret Circle Magically Delicious?)***
“(…) I get to work with the wonderfully talented Gale Harold who plays my arch nemesis, Charles Meade. Our history goes back to when we were teenagers in the series so it’s quite fun to play off of him. (…)
— Adam Harrington, talking about his role on The Secret Circle (Chevronone Interview)***
“We feel like Gale Harold is going to steal every single scene he’s in on the show, just like he basically stole this extended trailer. He was creepy as hell threatening Adam’s father (Adam Harrington) and even creepier when he was putting on the nice guy act for Cassie… after killing her mother. We already love to hate him.
— Tierney Bricker (Zap2it)***
“Gale Harold just turned Gatorade into something dirty.
— Andrew Miller, The Secret Circle executive producer, on the 2nd day of shooting
Sources: celebrina.com, lucywho.com and several interviews
