Thomas Jane, the star of the HBO series
Hung, says he once worked the streets of Los Angeles.
In a revealing interview published over
the weekend in The
Los Angeles Times, Jane, who plays a struggling divorcee and
father of two teenagers moonlighting as a male prostitute to make
ends meet, said he once prostituted in real life.
“You know, when I was a kid out here
in L.A., I was homeless, I didn't have any money and I was living in
my car,” Jane said. “I was 18. I wasn't averse to going down to
Santa Monica Boulevard and letting a guy buy me a sandwich. Know
what I mean?”
“Being a young artist and broke in
Los Angeles, I was exploring my sexual identity. And probably
because of my middle-class, white blue-collar upbringing, I would
have never had the opportunity to confront some of my own fears and
prejudices had I not been hungry enough to be forced to challenge
myself in that way.”
The twice divorced 42-year-old Jane
also weighed in on whether sexuality was a choice.
The experience “blew the doors off of
my conventional upbringing and thinking and opened up possibilities
for me that were akin to World War III. And then you actually have a
choice, and I chose to be a heterosexual guy because that's what my
DNA dictates and my nurture dictates that I am.”
“I think up to a point it's a choice.
But I'll tell you what – it's not a choice until you're open
enough to experience both male and female sexuality. Until you've
tasted the food, you don't know whether you'll like it or not, as my
mom always said.”
(Related: Thomas
Jane proud of gay role.)