Attitude
BOYS KEEP SWINGING!
April 2007
As if watching the never ending carousel of hot hunks that is Hollyoaks wasn’t thrilling enough, our fave teen soap just got all gay on our ass. Attitude talks to JAMES SUTTON and GUY BURNET about going gay for pay
“For the first time ever, I’ve had people come up and say ’You’re quite good, you know!’” says Guy Burnet, who plays the rather touch-yourself tasty Craig Dean in Hollyoaks as he wraps up another day in the acting sweatshop that is soap and fitting in Attitude photo shoots on any downtime he might be able to snaffle for himself. 
“They’ll say, ‘You’re actually quite a good actor’,” he goes on, smirking. “Normally, if anyone comes up to me, they’ll go, ‘Hollyoaks is sh!t!’ then laugh. But that’s the general public for you. People might not want to admit they watch the show but this story has hit a nerve with a large amount of the audience.” And he laughs again. “I’ve even had a couple of people walk past me and go, ‘look there’s that gay one in hollyoaks.’ And I laugh man! I think it’s funny that people are like that.” If you’re not au fait with the ways of the rather hot-looking and mostly interchangeable Chester youngsters that make up the characters of Hollyoaks, you’ll have missed out on the big gay storyline that has had hungover people getting a bit excited underneath a duvet on a Sunday morning over the past few months. And the actors embroiled in the plot are rather enjoying themselves too… James Sutton, who plays lead gay, John Paul McQueen, freely admits it. “I probably wouldn’t have had such attention had I been playing a straight character on the show,” he reckons, quite rightly in all probability. “I’d like to think my acting had something to do with it but characters like these don’t come up very often.” He has a point and, as a result, he’s been shortlisted for the British Soap Awards where he’s up for Best Actor and Sexiest Male, the sort of attention which is surely a taste of things to come as this storyline shows absolutely no signs of quitting anytime soon.
So, the story so far: John Paul and Craig are mates and dating the best-looking girls in school, who also happen to be friends. John Paul starts acting weird and Craig thinks it’s because he fancies his girlfriend. But things come to a head (add your own joke here) at a party, when they get drunk and John Paul tries to kiss Craig, an attempt that is witnessed by his girlfriend who, in pure soap style, screams out ‘dirty queers’ or something along those lines in front of the whole school. There is, to be fair, quite a lot of shouting in Hollyoaks. As this is a soap, people don’t then hug and say, ‘We love the gays and embrace your difference and value as a positive member of society’: John Paul gets ‘McQueer’ (It's actually "Queen" - Steads) written on his football shirt, is beaten up by Craig and is generally bullied (although his cool handling of getting some men’s underwear shots stuck on the front of his school locker was a real ‘punch-the-air’ moment). He’s also on the receiving end of homo-hatred from one of his sisters – though, in a turn-up for the books, his mum is down with the gays and even accompanies him to the one gay club that always happens to be in the vicinity of soaps, no matter where they are set. All the while, girls with blonde hair scream at their parents about something or other and slam all the doors the hollyoaks designers can cram onto the set.
The sensitive (and yet fabulously sensational) way in which the makers of hollyoaks have tackled the scenes around John Paul and Craig hint that this is not the first time they have dealt with issues of sexuality. The recent Hollyoaks: In The City saw Phillip Olivier (he of Brookie, The Games and ripped abs-fame) playing a teacher confused over his sexuality, with the whole country on tenterhooks as to whether he’d eventually get in on/get ‘em all off. “I think that everyone’s been pleased with it and the channel is absolutely made up with it,” Olivier said of the gay storyline. “And I haven’t had one bad response from anyone from the public; anyone who has seen it has said that they’ve been absolutely gripped and thrilled.” The difference here is that classic Hollyoaks, (as against In The City), is for a general pre-watershed audience so all this ‘sensitive’ sexual information has to be got across without actual bare bottoms ever being on display. “Some of the letters I’ve had have been from people as young as 14,” says James, highlighting that this is far from an adult show. “These kids are not only coming to terms with their sexuality but can’t come out because they’re really scared. Prejudice is definitely still out there.” Which is why a gay storyline in a soap – especially one like Hollyoaks that has a huge young audience – will never stop being timely. “I didn’t know what my storyline was going to be,” says James, who studied drama in Cardiff before coming to London to kick an old lady to death and set her on fire in Trial And Retribution (“That was a joy! We had a stunt granny! Between takes she was asking me to kick her harder. I sh!t you not!”). Then there was The Dream Team, which he mostly remembers because it was freezing cold and he was hanging around in tiny little soccer shorts. On the subject of gratuitous shower scenes, in case you were wondering, he says there were a few: “I think they’re on You Tube. Why am I telling you this?” And then, after freezing his nuts off for that, the work dried up and he ended up putting in months of hard labour in a bingo hall, where the management had talent spotted him and were grooming him to become their next star bingo caller. James was having none of it, the gig in Hollyoaks saving him from more than two fat ladies. “I knew John Paul was going to be a character who eventually came out. I thought it was going to be a challenge, certainly nothing I’ve done before as an actor,” says James, who is knackered after having spent the day appearing in every single scene that was shot: “It’s like Groundhog Day, but in a good way. I love working with Guy.” Ask him if he worries that after playing a high-profile gay man he’s going to be typecast and he just brushes it off, saying that that’s not how it works anymore. Not that he hasn’t been getting attention of a saucy nature: “I’ve had some fan mail which was slightly saucy. Actually very, very saucy. A bit pervy, just describing situations that they’d like to get me into. But that’s as much as you’re getting from me, I’m afraid.” As research for the part, James went to his first gay club in Liverpool. “It was interesting,” he says, adding that as his ‘gay’ scenes hadn’t been aired, he got very little attention. “I just sat with my drink and surveyed the scene.” He also did research, questioning mates of his who’d been through the whole ‘coming out to the parents’ malarkey. “One young lad in particular told me about how he told his dad and that gave me an impression of what it would be like. He painted a very dark picture, but I think he had been pretending for a long time so it was a bit of a shock to his family” but the weird thing for James wasn’t so much playing gay, it was playing someone young enough to wear a school uniform: “When I put it on it felt a bit seedy,” he laughs now. “But I look young enough so I guess I can get away with it.”
"They sold the whole storyline to me by getting me really drunk one night,” laughs Guy meanwhile, in the none-too-glamorous press office just off the Hollyoaks set, which he’s known for the last four years since he first started on the show as a 15-year-old wheeler dealer: a sort of baby Del Boy. “At first I was slightly hesitant because I wanted to justify – to myself and the audience – that this straight character could have gay tendencies. That was the main challenge and it was the idea of a challenge that made me want to do it.” Tell him that the Hollyoaks team wanted him to play a gay man because they actually thought he was gay – even as a joke – and he’ll tell you that a lot of people do think that anyway. “I’m not bothered about it,” he goes, shrugging his shoulders. ”I can be a bit camp with my comedy. Girls who have been interested or have developed an interest in me have always said later that other people have told them I was gay. But I’ve never questioned my sexuality. I guess you always go through that thing where you think, ‘Hold on! Other people think I’m gay, maybe I am…’ 
Then you think about the pen!s and you’re, “Nah! Nah!” That was when I was in my teens. I haven’t questioned it since then.” Coming, as he does, from a background where the whole gay thing was completely taboo – “My family are too primitive to the idea of it and the couple of lads in my class at school who I’ve discovered are gay would never have said anything back in the day” – Guy was very turned onto the idea that the whole thing should be very unstereotypical. “I would have been absolutely devastated if it had become a cliché,” he says. “What’s happened with Craig is they’ve built it on his sexual confusion – whether he loves or lusts after Jean John Paul or whether he’s just in love with Sarah. The way I see it is that I’m as confused as the character and as the audience are.” He reveals that we do find out which way he swings eventually (not barring the idea that he may swing right down the middle) and says that his lack of commitment is the thing that makes his character interesting to play. “One week the audience is going to love me because I love John Paul and the next they’re going to hate me because I’m beating him up. The gay community love me then hate me. I’m in a lose-lose situation. And I’ll never get accolades for it because he’s not a sympathetic character. With John Paul, you’re just going to love him.” You wonder how it feels, not playing the one everyone’s going to love, but Guy is cool with the way things are and says, when it comes to acting at least, he’s happy to take a step back. “You’ll never see my ego take over,” he says. “In the scene where James comes out to me and tells me that he loves me, I noticed reading the script that I had a lot of lines. They were big scenes. But once we rehearsed them and played them out, I realised it wasn’t about me. It was about him coming out. The way James played it, it was so emotional that I decided to cut my lines and just play it on reaction. Maybe I prefer being the bridesmaid but then hopefully people will realise the bridesmaid is actually making the bride.” Ask him how his friends have reacted to him becoming the biggest telly ‘gay’ since Anthony Cotton and he rolls his eyes. “They’ll have a joke with me,” he says. “They’ll have a little dig here and there, but what’s the big deal with being gay? Actually, I don’t give a sh!t. I’m not arrogant but I don’t give a sh!t what people think.” By now he’s talking about the public reaction. “I remember when I was younger being outside the Royal Albert Hall, when all the people were arriving for the National TV Awards and I remember saying to my mum, ‘Look how lucky they are! I want to be one of those people.’ But now I want to be incognito. I’m not that much of a showman. I shy away from any attention I get. It’s ironic how things work out.” In fact, the whole acting thing is a bit of a fluke for Guy, who always wanted to be a footballer, eventually doing trials in Tel Aviv before coming back to hi native London to finish off his A levels. He reckons he got the part in Hollyoaks – it was only his second audition he ever went for – because he looked like someone else who played a family member. “but now I’m as ambitious as any other actor. But realistic.” “It’s a bit embarrassing actually,” adds James about the whole fame thing. When you mention how hot everyone has got for him, he says: “I didn’t expect this at all. My life has changed like you wouldn’t believe. It’s been crazy. Obviously the recognition thing… I had no idea what it would be like. It’s just everywhere you go. Maybe I was a bit naïve or whatever but people have been lovely. There’s been no homophobic abuse. And I’ve had some letters off some young gay guys that have been really sweet to read saying that they’ve gone through what John Paul has gone through: they’ve been lonely and confused and haven’t had anyone to talk to and watching the show, and watching what my character has gone through, they realise it can all be fine.”
As for the future for these telly gays-for-pay, who knows what it holds. At the moment, Guy is just enjoying it, even if he does worry that any girl he meets might be interested ‘cause he’s on Hollyoaks, while James is dating a member of the Hollyoaks crew: “And no, she doesn’t find me playing a gay man a turn-on,” he laughs. Professionally, he says that he’s surprised how things have turned out. “I never planned to do a long stint like this anywhere,” says James. “When I leave here, I want to go out and do some theatre, Shakespeare, and then films I guess.” And don’t worry about them turning up anytime soon on a reality show: “I’m not a celebrity,” snorts James. Oh, yes you are! “And you certainly couldn’t put me in a house, put cameras on me and lock me away with Jodie Marsh. That’s pretty much my idea of hell!” As for the characters themselves, do they eventually get it on? Well, we do know that John Paul meets another perfectly well-rounded (in the emotional sense) gay in the form of Spike and starts to get it on with him. And we do know that Craig, seeing this new relationship forming, starts to get ants in his pants and – in true character – gets confused about his feelings of jealousy at seeing loves young dream in the form of the John Paul/Spike combo. And… oh, okay then. John Paul and Craig do end up doing the do. Expect repercussions and much shouting.
- Attitude April 2007
