Interesting Q & A With Michael Urie
July 30, 2008 by Tom
There’s a great Q & A with Ugly Betty’s Michael Urie in UK’s Metro. He reveals some things that you might have known, but I had no idea.
He’s not worried abut being typecast as a gay man. In answering the question, Urie says the most profound thing. “You’ve got to be typecast before you can be cast at all. I’m not worried. During the writers’ strike, I did a play where I played four very different characters. When you go into TV, you assume you’ll play the same part for the rest of your career. Maybe that’s true of mainstream TV but I can always do theatre. There’s always someone who will give you a chance.”
About Juilliard: “It isn’t for everyone. I went on a trip there when I first started college and they gave us a tour. It seemed so great but so beyond my reach. My teacher told me to audition. I got in and that was how my acting career started. It’s 14 hours every day for four years. It’s a lot of pressure and soul-searching. It was exhausting but good prep for working in television.”
Wow. I don’t even want to do something I like for 14 hours per day.
Urie hasn’t picked up pal Becki Newton’s habit of buying expensive clothes, apparently. When asked about it, he says, “When I first started earning a living, I bought a £100 pair of jeans. Now, I realise this isn’t expensive for jeans but until then I’d never spent more than £20 on a pair. Everything I know about fashion I’ve learned from Ugly Betty. Before then, I was the kind of guy who’d wear a brown belt with black jeans.”
You’re not supposed to wear a brown belt with black jeans?
Does Urie have a bender after a day’s filming? Hmmmm. “No. It’s too scary. I don’t want to go to jail. I don’t want to end up like Mel Gibson.”
Very wise.
Urie simply never reveals much about growing up in Texas. But he does share this: “It’s the sort of place that you need to leave if you want to be an artist. I go back sometimes. I host a theatre awards show in Dallas and they are the most genuine, nice, good-hearted people. I wish George Bush would stop pretending he’s Texan; he’s from Connecticut.”
You can read the entire interview here.
