A Quote by Andrew Rannells

When I was a kid, there were hardly any gay story lines or characters on television that I recall. Then when I was in college, 'Will & Grace' started up. — © Andrew Rannells
When I was a kid, there were hardly any gay story lines or characters on television that I recall. Then when I was in college, 'Will & Grace' started up.
When I was growing up, we didn't have 'Will & Grace.' The one gay character was Monroe from 'Too Close For Comfort' - and he wasn't even gay! At least they didn't say he was. Same with Mr. Furley from 'Three's Company.' You know, these were the characters that people would always make fun of.
When we have gay characters on TV, they're just, kind of, gay for the sake of being gay. That's their personality. That's their whole backstory, that's their future story, that's their present story - it's just gay. Nobody's just gay.
It started back in 2002, when there was hardly any reality television. 'Survivor' had just started. My hope and dream was that 'The Bachelor' would last one or two nights on network TV, so I might meet somebody in the network and then I could get a real job.
"Let's say we discover the gene that says the kid's gonna be gay. How many parents, if they knew before the kid was gonna be born, [that he] was gonna be gay, they would take the pregnancy to term? Well, you don't know but let's say half of them said, "Oh, no, I don't wanna do that to a kid." [Then the] gay community finds out about this. The gay community would do the fastest 180 and become pro-life faster than anybody you've ever seen. ... They'd be so against abortion if it was discovered that you could abort what you knew were gonna be gay babies."
I started working as a kid doing dubbing, and then I started doing television when I was 11 or 12, and then movies, and I worked mostly in French, and then I started working in English, and then I moved to New York. So I think I managed to find a way to always make it a challenge for myself.
When I started doing television, I had no idea that people were watching it. But then things opened up for television in such a way that it's no more 'small' screen, as it is called.
When I meet gay kids and they know who we are, I remember that's amazing because literally every gay person in every gay story I knew growing up was doomed to die. There weren't any positive gay stories and it's incredible that has changed.
I started with the chorus of that song, kind of like a fun bouncy thing to play, and then one of the lines popped up: 'I got things to do today, people to see, things to say.' I wrote about a dozen verses for it, but no song needs to be that long unless you're Bob Dylan. So when we recorded it I started to tear it down to some of the lines I thought were the funniest.
If any proof were needed of the progress of the cause for which I have worked, it is here tonight. The presence on the stage of these college women, and in the audience of all those college girls who will some day be the nation's greatest strength, will tell their own story to the world.
I kind of cheer the presence of any gay characters at all - I think the more we can saturate television with any gay character or lesbian character or transgender character, I think that's a really great thing. We're kind of getting past the fact that they're the punchline or that they're the novelty.
My performances in auditions were so inept that I hardly got any jobs in film or TV. I just could not learn the lines and the thought of doing theatre terrified me. What if I forgot my lines in the middle of a scene with an entire audience watching?
At the breakfast table we are footnoting everything that we read. We don't recognise it as such but we encounter an article in the newspaper and then suddenly we recall that a friend had a certain comment on that particular story, a certain bit of news that we saw on the television applies to that and we immediately assemble an idea of a story.
Grace stands in direct opposition to any supposed worthiness on our part. To say it another way: Grace and works are mutually exclusive. As Paul said in Romans 11:6, "And if by grace, then it is no longer by works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace." Our relationship with God is based on either works or grace. There is never a works-plus-grace relationship with Him.
When we were done and not picked up to series yet, they wanted us to read lots of writers. I was like, "No." Then we finally were picked up. It is hard not to start thinking of story lines. It is like doodling.
I've made the decision to adhere to three general truths when it comes to my novels: There will be a love-story element to the story, the novel will be set in eastern North Carolina, and the characters will be likeable. Then, I make each novel unique through differences in voice, perspective, age and personalities of the characters, and of course, plot.
I don't know if I'm a gay icon or not, but with 'A Taste of Honey,' the audience were so touched by the whole story that it certainly helped matters. The characters were so sympathetic that it was as if you had met them.
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