In his first sitcom since Will & Grace, Sean Hayes stars as a single gay father of a teenaged girl in Sean Saves the World. Hayes has opened up to the LA Times about how he feels he owes the gay community an apology for not coming out sooner, death threats and how he is so not “just Jack”:
On trying to help Americans see gay parenthood as normal: I want to make people laugh first, and that’s it. If a byproduct of that is enlightening somebody to something they wouldn’t otherwise have been exposed to, then great, but that’s certainly not the agenda or the intent of the show.
On how his celebrity put him back in the closet: I was so young. It made me go back in the closet [with the media] because I was so overwhelmed at 26 or 27. I didn’t want the responsibility, I didn’t know how to handle the responsibility of speaking for the gay community. I always felt like I owed them a huge apology for coming out too late. Some people in the gay community were very upset with me for not coming out on their terms. They don’t stop to think about what’s going on in somebody’s personal life, and the struggles that they’re having. It was all very scary. We got death threats. It was a really rough time for me, but I was also having the time of my life.
On the differences between him and his Will & Grace character Jack: That’s the ironic thing. I’m so boring and grounded, and I like quiet and I like structure and I like goals. I couldn’t be more opposite from Jack McFarland.
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