Actor Stephen Guarino, who came out at the age of 15, says he was a popular gay teen.

Guarino, who turned 36 last Monday, is best known as a cast member of all-gay cabler Logo's The Big Gay Sketch Show. He also provided comic relief in the 2009 film BearCity and its upcoming sequel BearCity2, to be released next summer.

(Related: BearCity sequel has the gang partying in Provincetown.)

Guarino also plays the recurring role of Derek, a screaming, over-the-top gay man, on the ABC comedy Happy Endings.

The comic actor told gay glossy The Advocate that he got lucky coming out in the early 90s “when it was suddenly fashionable to be alternative.”

“Grunge was on the scene so anything different was hip,” Guarino said. “It was popular for jocks to have boyfriends, which sounds insane. We had a group called the Lake Mary Fags and it consisted of skaters who took pride in being bisexual. They'd have boyfriends to impress their girlfriends. It was very in vogue.”

He added that having a popular best friend who looked like Mariah Carey didn't hurt.

“She was my prom date, so we lucked out. I had no childhood problems at all. My parents were overeducated, WASPy, bored Bostonians. They didn't blink an eye,” he said.