The cast of Queer As Folk — Michael (Hal Sparks), Brian (Gale Harold, 48), Emmett (Peter Paige, 48), Ted (Scott Lowell, 53), Justin (Randy Harrison, 40), Ben (Robert Gant), Debbie (Sharon Gless), Lindsay (Thea Gill, 48), and Melanie (Michelle Clunie, 48) reunited for the first time in 13 years for a shoot for Entertainment Weekly, and reminisced about their experiences shooting the five-season series, which premiered in 2000 on Showtime.
They shared their thoughts in a new video.
Said Lowell, commenting on new fans discovering the show through binge watching: “We stopped making this like 90 years ago and people are still discovering it for the first time and thinking it’s real.”
Michelle Clunie got weepie, calling Gill “family, forever.”
Added executive producer Ron Cowen: “I think it’s actually so thrilling to know that young gay people are watching this show because they didn’t grow up with all the stuff that we were dealing with at the turn of the 21st century. We all went through a lot of stuff. So they come to the show with a very different point of view, but the one similarity I find with the young people now and the people back then that they’ve all said is that ‘you showed me, I saw myself’ and that meant so much to people. And the other thing they all say is ‘in watching your show, I knew I wasn’t alone’ and that’s a blessing.”
Added Peter Paige. “People came for the queer, they stayed for the folk.”
Watch:
The cast added more in an EW article.
Said Gant: “Two of the survivors of the Pulse attack came up to me and said, ‘We just wanna thank you all for having done that story line about Babylon [nightclub getting bombed.]’ They were just very teary, and I feel that there are so many aspects that have stayed current.”
Added Cowen: “We thought the major backlash would be from right-wing religious people, but we never heard a word. The show received criticism from gay people and gay organizations, but they never said we weren’t telling the truth. As we often said, ‘If you don’t like the reflection you see in the mirror, don’t blame the mirror.’”
