Actor John Michael Higgins isn't afraid
to say he plays gay for pay in cabler TV Land's new sitcom Happily
Divorced.
In the highly-anticipated comedy,
Higgins plays Peter, the ex-husband of florist Fran (played by Fran
Drescher) who announced he's gay after eighteen years of marriage.
The series is based on Drescher's own
life. In 1999, Drescher divorced her husband of 21 years, openly gay
Hollywood producer Peter Marc Jacobson, whom she met in high school.
In
an interview with the New York Magazine blog Vulture,
Higgins, who has played gay characters before, says “gay pays.”
When asked, “Do you and your wife
ever get a kick out of how you've played all these gay or ambiguously
gay characters – in Best in Show, Raising the Bar,
this?” Higgins responds: “Oh, she's used to it! The way we say
it in our household, 'Gay pays!' I can't tell you why I keep getting
asked to play gay characters, but I never really considered 'gay' as
an adjective, as a playable thing. Maybe it's an element of the
character, but it just describes a preference.”
Drescher and Jacobson created the
long-running CBS sitcom The Nanny, and have reunited to
co-produce Happily Divorced, which also stars Rita Moreno
(Oz), Tichina Arnold (Everybody Hates Chris) and
Valente Rodriguez (George Lopez).