Coming out is “not a one-time thing”

David gets a good grilling from the San Diego Gay & Lesbian News about why he came out when he did and the politics of being a gay actor in a straight role. Very frank and interesting Q&A!

Oh the irony. On NBC’s Emmy-award winning series Frasier - which ruled the roost of television ratings from 1993-2004 — Niles is a quick-witted, polished, picky girly-man with a heart of gold and a hard-on for his father’s healthcare worker Daphne. He looks and acts as gay as a blue jay in May, but he’s tragically straight, which makes his effeminate nature and delicate bone structure (“Punish a man for being fine-boned,” he says when asked to stick his hand into a small disposal opening) all the more delicious.

But in real life, David Hyde Pierce, the brilliant actor responsible for constructing (after the creators wrote the part for him) the meticulously layered, impeccably mannered and neurotically ‘nelly-fied’ Niles, is gay and married to longtime partner Brian Hargrove. However, for most of Pierce’s multi-faceted career he’s been reticent to speak publicly about his private life and subsequently his sexuality.

According to Pierce, the determined protection of his personal life when it came to the media was rooted more in the manner in which he was brought up than a desire to be safely sequestered in the closet.

“We’re just not a family that talked about private things in public,” he admitted. “So it took me a while to be able to do that …”

Fortunately for us, Pierce has worked through his earlier reservations to speak openly about his life—both on and off the stage—and during our interview, his earnest candor infused with humor was at once endearing and spirited. We spoke with him about his love of theater, his memories of Niles and the Frasier experience, his commitment to Alzheimer’s awareness, the road to wedded bliss with husband Brian, and his upcoming appearance with Michael Feinstein.

Tell us about your show and what fans can expect.
Well, Michael Feinstein and I have known each other as friends for many years … Michael asked me if I would do a show with him, and it’s not the kind of thing I usually do. Since I left Frasier I’ve been on Broadway, spending most of my time there doing musicals. I did Spamalot, then did Curtains after that, so I’ve been doing a lot of singing … This is kind of the biggest event like this that I’ve done and certainly it’s the first time he [Feinstein] and I have ever appeared together doing a show, so it’s probably a huge mistake. [Laughs] Michael is an expert on the American Songbook. He knows really everything there is to know, including some of the more obscure, wonderful songs, and I think what hopefully will be fun is that I bring a slightly different perspective, my training is more in classical music. I tend more toward the Noel Coward, Cole Porter range of American music. So I think we’re going to have fun finding common ground and also showing our different approaches to the songs. I know we’ll have a good time, hopefully the audience will too.

You are such an accomplished actor in all mediums, if you had to give one of them up what would it be?
Oh boy, if I had to give one of them up … It’s funny because I could easily give two of them up—film and television. If I could only choose one [to keep], I would absolutely choose the theater … but if I had to give up one of them, that’s a very hard choice between film and television. I don’t know! Theater is my love. It’s what I started out doing. It’s sort of in my blood. My dad, although he was not a professional actor, he had hopes of being an actor when he was a kid and went on to do community theater all of his life, long before I ever saw him. But years later when I was on Broadway a friend of his would come to see the shows and he’d say, “Oh my god, you’re your father.” So there’s some sort of genetic dysfunction there that led us both into the acting business.

Remembering the interpretive dance skit you did with Jenna Elfman during the Emmys a few years back, you were very graceful. Did you study dance as well? Ballet or something?
No. Let’s see, that particular thing Jenna and I completely made up. It was a parody, that was back when during the Oscars they would frequently have big dance numbers where they would sort of dance the movies of the year, and it was always a little odd. We thought the Emmys could use that too, so we tried to dance all the television shows. But then when I went to New York to do musicals I seriously studied dance … The people who dance on Broadway have studied all their lives, and I’m not that kind of a dancer, but in Spamalot I got to do a bit of dancing. And then in Curtains, we had one spectacular Fred and Ginger number that I got to do, and that was sort of the highlights of my [dance] career.

So is Dancing with the Stars in your future?
[Laughs] Not ever.

You received a record 11 consecutive nominations for your portrayal of Dr Niles Crane on Frasier, which culminated in four wins. You once joked on Letterman that the producers let you borrow Niles’ clothes when you went out … what else did you take away from that show?
Oh boy … I learned so much, we were there for 11 years, and I learned so much from the rest of the cast. I learned so much from our directors. I learned how easy acting is when you have good writing. And, of course, I took from it the friendships with everybody involved. So many of us are still in touch: cast, producers, the writers – even if we’re not on the same coast all the time we’re in contact pretty often. You can grow very close after 11 years, and fortunately we all did. We had a great experience there.

For those of us who know and love you as Niles. How are you and Niles similar?
Huh … well, I’ll tell you something. We’re less and less similar because I keep getting older and he doesn’t. Every time I see a rerun I’m so shocked! [Laughs]

Do you share any of his OCD/anal retentive neurotic qualities?
I’m the opposite of him, I’m a mess. I know about a tenth of what he knows about wine. I’ve been to about one-one hundredth of the operas that he’s been to. One thing we do share is we’re both very close to our families, that’s something we share.

Do you ever miss Niles?
[Laughs] No. I’m always happy when I see the show if I get home late and turn on the TV. It always makes me smile not just because frequently it’s funny, but because I have such fond memories of the whole experience. A real tribute to the writing on that show is that they [episodes] have aged well. They weren’t very topical, the humor was strong, sophisticated and character-driven, and that stuff is as funny now as it was when it was written.

When you realized acting was your calling and you started discovering how talented you were as a comedic actor, were there any actors you looked to for inspiration or to pattern yourself after?
None of it was conscious. I know people I admired … the great British actor Alec Guinness. I loved John Cleese. This is back before I ever got involved with Monty Python, back when I was first in high school and Monty Python came on television. I loved the show and there was something in particular about him that I think I identified with performance-wise. And in television, certainly Bob Newhart … he was a very strong influence. Not, as I said, consciously, but I loved him so much and watched him so much, that I’m sure I absorbed a lot of what he did.

Is there a role out there that you would love to sink your teeth into?
One of the things I’ve been able to do since I left Frasier — well even including Frasier — is create new characters. I find that really fascinating and fun. I’m typically asked if there’s a Shakespearean role or Chekhov or something that I want to do and I think, “I’m sure there should be,” and I would be happy to do anything. But honestly I love that thrill of discovering someone on the page and creating them for the first time. I think that’s a great privilege.

Please tell me that there’s no plan to do a movie version of Frasier like they’ve done with Sex and the City or, god forbid, The Brady Bunch.
Yeah, I don’t think that anyone in their right mind would do a movie of Frasier. [Laughs] I think we did that show. I think we did it as well as it could be done. So I don’t think that any of us — although we loved it and miss it — would really want to try to resurrect it.

Let’s talk about your involvement with the Alzheimer’s Association. Your father and grandfather both suffered from the disease — what is your current involvement?
Currently I’m an honorary member of the national board — I was on the board for years and then you have to rotate off after eight years. They asked me to become an honorary member and I am. So I work as a spokesperson, do fundraising, appear at benefits … When I was in California, I used to come down to the Coachella Valley chapter and have done several benefits there. Now that I’m in New York, I’m mainly doing work with the New York City chapter. But my job as I see it is fundraising and awareness-raising. Trying to get people to understand — especially people whose lives haven’t been touched by Alzheimer’s — what it is, what kind of a threat it is, how it affects all of us, and what we can do to stop it.

Is this something, because there is evidence that it’s genetic, that you’re afraid of for yourself?
Well, you know the genetic component is still very poorly understood. A very rare form of the disease called ‘early onset’ does have a strong genetic component. But for the rest of it, it’s a little bit vague. I think honestly more than being afraid of it, I’m angry at it. Seeing my grandfather have Alzheimer’s, my dad having some form of dementia, possibly Alzheimer’s — that was enough for me. Seeing the toll it took on my grandmother and my mom, that’s what really made me realize that this is a very particularly cruel disease. One of the greatest things that has happened since I’ve been working with the Alzheimer’s Association — I’ve been with them almost 15 years now — is that we’ve made such strides in this country in how we deal with Alzheimer’s, how we take care of people who have it and their families. It’s not such a dark scenario anymore. We haven’t found a cure; we haven’t even found real treatments for it even if just to ease the symptoms a little bit. But it’s become an understood part of our lives. Alzheimer’s is no longer the thing that no one talks about, that families are afraid to admit. As the disease has spread, as more and more people have gotten it, and as organizations like the Alzheimer’s Association are able to spread the word, light has been shed on this. People more and more are realizing that they’re not alone in fighting this. And that’s a huge, positive thing that I have seen over the years.

You thanked your partner Brian when you accepted your Tony award for Curtains. How did it feel to be able to do that?
Well, in some ways times have changed, although I think that Brian and I always tried to be [pauses] public about our relationship without calling attention to ourselves, mainly because we don’t like to call attention to ourselves in any respect. And I think over the years I would find times to mention him when it seemed appropriate, when it didn’t seem odd, whether it was at a public gathering or an interview. And I think at the Tony Awards it was the point where it was the most public, it was the most televised, so it got a lot of attention. I guess I couldn’t not thank him, too many years together, too much life together. I’ll tell you what has happened, to me at least, you sort of have to come out over and over and over again. Years before, the tabloids had written articles about Brian and me, when Frasier first started on the air. We didn’t hide it, we didn’t deny it and nobody really paid that much attention to it, and it kind of disappeared. We’d go to the awards shows together. I might occasionally mention his name, might not, trying to walk the line between being honest and open and preserving our privacy. And I think that’s a hard line for anyone in public life to walk. I don’t know, maybe I could’ve been more specific and more public sooner, but it had more to do with kind of the way I was brought up. We’re just not a family that talked about private things in public. And I certainly didn’t go into the acting business to talk about my politics or my personal life or anything else like that. So it took me a while to be able to do that and depending on who you talk to, some people felt that I did it at the right time, some people felt like it was too late, some people felt I shouldn’t have done it at all. In the end, I think you just have to follow your heart and follow your instincts.

Was there ever a point that someone associated with Frasier, the producers or anyone, told you or intimated that maybe you shouldn’t be too open about it because of the character’s relationship with Daphne?
No, nobody ever said a word about that. One of the creators of the show is gay, several of the writers are gay — that was never presented to me. Was it something that I thought about? Yes. In the sense that I felt a responsibility to the character and to the characters … I remember when I was first interviewed — this is many years ago, the show I did before Frasier — I wouldn’t tell them the names of my dogs. I was so guarded about privacy … Many people feel that when you’re becoming a celebrity, you should know what you’re getting into. Well, most of us who went into acting, especially those of us who started in the theater, we didn’t do it so we could go on talk shows, we didn’t do it so we could have cameramen hiding behind trees outside our home to take pictures of us. We did it because we wanted to act. So it took me a while to get used to what I felt I could talk about and I would leak out a little bit at a time — whatever the subject — my dogs or my family and ultimately talking about Brian. But it’s funny, I did The View sometime this past year and we were talking about the whole issue of same-sex marriage. I talked about — I was very open — how Brian and I had gotten married in California while it was legal. And there was this huge sort of [buzz] in the media and once again apparently I had come out. This was after the Tony Awards … Anytime you meet someone who didn’t know you were gay, you come out again. It’s not a one-time thing.

How are your dogs, Maude and Mabel?
Well Mabel passed away, so Maude’s on her own now, but she won’t be for long. There’s a puppy coming.

If you could do your life over again, is there anything you’d do differently?
[Pauses] No. I just turned 50 and one of the great things of getting to be my age is I get to look back at my life … I started out in music as a pianist, and maybe if I had practiced more that would’ve been my life. But would I have traded that life for this life? Never.

Would you say you’re a happy man?
Yeah, I would say that I’m … content.

View the original article here: Looking back while moving forward