THE VOICE OF CHICAGO'S GAY, LESBIAN, BI, TRANS AND QUEER COMMUNITY SINCE 1985

The dramatic, life-changing experience—which saw the couple combining their genes (Jackson's sister's egg, Wong's sperm) in vitrio with a surrogate mother—is shared in Wong's moving, entertaining, enthralling, and honest memoir, Following Foo: The Electronic Adventures of the Chestnut Man (Harper Collins).

Yet Following Foo doesn't just reveal the intensely personal experience of becoming a parent. It also serves as Wong's official 'coming-out.' The Tony winner (for M. Butterfly) has always remained publicly mum on the topic of sexuality. However, he has played gay roles. In 1993, as Kico Govantes in HBO's dramatic adaptation of Randy Shilts' whopping chronicle of AIDS' beginnings, And The Band Played On. And 1991's Father of the Bride and its

1995 sequel saw him as flaming wedding advisor Howard Weinstein.

Some 29 hours before his book's launch party in Upper West Side Manhattan, Wong and I met in midtown's Koreatown. A stretch of 32nd street riddled with Korean barbecue restaurants, supermarkets, video/CD/book shops, spas, and more, it's an underrated, mostly unknown section of the city. He's wearing a simple T-shirt, relaxed hair, very unpretentious. I completely forget this is Oz's Father Mukada, and Law and Order: Special Victims Unit's police psychiatrist George Huang M.D., a regular role that's brought a dose of much-watched mainstream visibility. He's frequently recognized in his home beat of Chelsea.

Born in October, 1962, he made his stage debut 20 years down (as Braddley Darryl Wong) in Androcles and the Lion. Four years later came a first movie role in The Karate Kid 2. But it was 1988 that saw Wong hit a first peak with M. Butterfly, in which he played a gender-bending opera singer, Song. Wong was the first actor to win the Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics' Circle, Clarence Derwent Award and Theatre World Award for the same role. Since then, Wong has appeared in films like The Freshman, Jurassic Park, and Mulan, TV shows All-American Girl and X-Files, and stage productions including B'way's revival of You're a Good Man Charlie Brown (as Linus), and most recently as general Gong Fei in Charles Busch's 30's Hollywood sendup, Shanghai Moon.

Following Foo isn't a memoir/biography in the traditional sense. It was originally a series of e-mails Wong sent to friends and loved ones as the events were happening (in 2000), beginning with the premature birth—at 28 weeks—of twins Boaz Dov Wong and Jackson Foo Wong. Tragically, Boaz perished only 90 minutes after entering this world. And Jackson's survival entailed a roller coaster ride ... .

Later, Wong was asked about these e-mails by a publishing friend, and so commenced the process of forming them into a book. Essentially presented as those e-mails, with plenty of font manipulation, it's clear that as Wong became more comfortable sharing his newfound fatherhood and its adventures, he also became more playful and creative about it: some entries are downright wacky and joyful, like the 'Poem about Poop.'

Thus begins our conversation over Korean barbecue and a dozen plates of kimchee.

LF: How many people were you e-mailing, B.D.?

BDW: By the end, almost a thousand people. You know how people forward them to other people? I was getting all these e-mails from people I didn't know saying 'my daughter sent me your thing, I'm so-and-so's mother and I want you to know this.'

LF: Did anything ever get forwarded to someone horrible like the Rev. Phelps?

BDW: No. Everyone I sent it to was someone I loved, and everyone they sent it to was someone they loved. They would never send it to someone that responded negatively.

LF: In the book you provide excerpts from people who responded to your e-mails, including Joel Grey, Harvey Fierstein, and Julie Halston. Your most surprising responder?

BDW: I have to think about that. I didn't get anything from the President or anything like that. Most remarkably, 90 percent of the e-mails I got from people I didn't know were someone's parents. Obviously something about them reading it made them want to share it with their parents, which was interesting to me.

LF: The e-mail that starts off the book reads: 'Many of you aren't aware of what Richie and I have been dreaming and planning since August of 1998; some of you aren't even aware that there is 'a Richie'...!' Is your relationship something you kept secret?

BDW: No. I did not keep it secret. Definitely, definitely, definitely not a secret. It just wasn't something I ever discussed with the press or public. You have to understand the press is pretty cool about not going there. They never tried to nail me. They just knew my personal life was my personal life. Richie and I went out all the time, to benefits and we were together all the time. But as far as TV Guide, when they do an interview they don't ask you that stuff. This is the first time that my work has coincided with my personal life. So he wasn't something I kept secret, but something I was aware not everyone knew about because I was sending [the e-mail] to so many people!

LF: What about your sexuality in general?

BDW: I didn't discuss it. I wasn't comfortable on a career level, totally on a career level. On a personal level I was totally like 'gee, I wish I didn't have this career bullshit because I feel like I'm not completely myself.'

LF: I was aware you had never officially come out, but on a Web site of 'famous gay people,' your name was included.

BDW: What's the criteria for being on that list? Because you were seen in public? Because you were seen in a sling at the Mineshaft? Or because you actually declared yourself verbally?

LF: Has anyone tried to out you?

BDW: No. People were always trying to ... not out me ... but they would try and get me to talk about [being gay] when I didn't feel comfortable, I guess. It seems so long ago actually. I don't feel that way anymore. For me it was about respecting my privacy. Not as a gay person, but as a person. I didn't really care about being gay that much but I didn't want to talk about my personal life. Now this is the way I'm doing it—a whole-hog, bring-it-on kind of thing.

LF: You've worked and are friends with tons of openly gay people. In the past, had any of them ever urged 'come on, BD, come out.'

BDW: No, because everybody knows that you can't get a job if you come out unless you're. ... First of all, I'm kind of a low-level celebrity. People would say Ellen and Rosie and people like that come out and it makes a huge impact. And here's this person I feel, maybe it's my own low-self-esteem, I need something to help me do it. Not need. I want a reason. And this [book] became a reason and that allows me to do it 1,000 percent. Not just 'OK, OK, I'll do it.' I'm perfectly happy doing it now. I'm perfectly happy going on TV and saying I'm gay, I'm a gay man, I'm happy and proud to say that. Or not ashamed to say that, as it were.

LF: Has your TV work given you a self-confidence push as well?

BDW: It's not that. Well ... it's me. It's my writing this book and having a lot of very intense, personal experiences in the last three years since the babies were born, which taught me that I need to declare. And when I say declare I mean define for myself who I am. Fatherhood somehow acted as a catalyst. Sept. 11 definitely acted as a catalyst. And writing the book became a catalyst. Creatively, personally, emotionally, spiritually, all this stuff happened and made me want to declare. The book, tangibly, says this is who I am. As a creative person, as an artist, I created this. Me. And then there's the idea of what coming out really represents. Sure it's a political statement and contribution to gay politics. But personally for me it's not anything about that. It's me saying this is who I am to myself.

LF: How big of an issue in your keeping sexuality quiet professionally was the fact you were Asian as well?

BDW: It was a huge factor. The gay community has a thing about Asian men, and Hollywood has a thing about Asian men.

LF: Elaborate on gay men having a thing about Asian men.

BDW: Asian men are very low on the gay food chain. Go to any personal Web site, AOL chatroom, personal ad, mixer, or bar, and your average Asian gay man is invisible. If you're not playing the Chelsea [gym looks] game! But just being an Asian guy or whatever, take it from me, it's not pretty out there and Hollywood is the same way. There's just no employment of Asian men.

LF: Unless you're Jackie Chan or Chow Yun-Fat.

BDW: Who aren't even Asian-American! So there's no Asian-American male [actor] on the radar.

LF: You're the closest we've got, BD.

BDW: And that's the point. If I'm the closest that we've got, one may be able to understand why it's so difficult to come out. Add that to the variables and it changes the outcome. Or does it? I used to think it did, but I don't know if it does now. Here's the controlled experiment. I'm an Asian man, I don't come out, I work my ass off, I go to the gym, I make sure I don't look repulsive and I try to do the best work I can do. Do I get hired? Yeah, I have a good job, a small part on a TV series. Two great jobs on two great shows. Have I come close to being given a leading role in a TV show or a movie?

LF: Not yet.

BDW: Not yet, but it's still no. The other experiment is here's the same person and he comes out and tells everyone he's gay. It's just going to be worse. That's probably what influenced my behavior and decisions prior to this book.

LF: So are you resentful of the closeted, pre-9-11 BD Wong?

BDW: I do feel he was a different, almost separate person for me. Do I resent him? No, because I really believe everything happens for a reason. It's more interesting to have all this happening to me because of him. Anything remotely negative enhances the positive. That's in the book. If you don't have the bad stuff there's nothing to enjoy about the good. The good is flat line, so unfortunately we have to have bad things about life.

LF: How understanding has Richie been throughout your life together?

BDW: Well, he's a talent agent and he's totally understanding of everything. The most understanding person. Of all the things he is, he's a very very loving and understanding person. And I'm not easy.

LF: In a behavioral or slutting around sense?

BDW: No ... I'm a very complicated person, I think. I think it takes a lot of ... I don't know. He's been great over the years.

LF: Are you guys monogamous?

BDW: Yes.

LF: There was a moment of pause.

BDW: Well, there was but ... that's definitely the answer and I'm not being untruthful. That's really personal.

LF: Did you always think you and Richie would last so long?

BDW: I did, yeah.

LF: In the book you say you like seeing him in daddy mode.

BDW: He's a great dad. He's a great guy. An incredible guy, I'm very lucky to have found him. An incredible person.

LF: How many guys had there been in your life before Richie?

BDW: That's too personal. ... What do you want me to say?

LF: I want to know if there have been any relationships before Richie.

BDW: Yeah. Of course. He wasn't like my high school sweetheart. I suppose it's a valid question. I've never been asked that question before because I feel like ... it's [opening] a can of worms. I will say I've never really had a relationship like the one I have with Richie. There were boyfriends and stuff like that, but never anything like this. ... [They were] very young and short. It's taken me a long time, even to this day, to understand how to treat people. I really have learned, partly through fatherhood, partly through growing up, how you treat a person. If you asked [my] old boyfriends, there was probably a lot of really bad behavior. I was really young though!

LF: How would you describe yourself as a kid?

BDW: I was very creative, very sensitive.

LF: In the book you claim you're shy.

BDW: I never used the word 'shy,' but I think I said I don't like to talk about myself. When people who don't know me ask me things or expect me to be forthcoming about things that are maybe natural to most people, I would rather talk about something else. I think you're right to ask about some of the things you have. I'm generally a private person and writing a book like this isn't. But it's made easier by the fact I can control how private I want to be. Nobody made me do it so I'm totally cool with it because I chose everything that [the book] says. I was telling another interviewer today ...

LF: You media whore!

BDW: You have no idea. I want to and have to. I was telling him writing a book is one thing. Doing Barbara Walters is another thing. You're sitting there and she says 'I hear that in 1989 you were found in a sling in the Mineshaft.' and you're like omigod. And I find that, all kidding aside, that's not me. I don't want to be those people who are on Barbara more than willing to say 'this is my shady past, my deep down most innermost thoughts.' I don't mind saying a little bit here and there, but I don't want to rip myself open. Certainly not now at this time in my life. But I am comfortable with this.

LF: Are you glad you don't have more mainstream fame?

BDW: Yes. I don't covet it, I'm not comfortable with it, I don't want it at all. And book publishing has become almost as commercial as movie making or TV. Not quite, but to the point where a publisher will say the more famous you are the better it will be to sell your book, to make it a success. 'If you get on Oprah your book will be huge!' But can't my book just be good, and people will buy it because it's good? And they'll say 'no' because it doesn't really work that way. That's sad and freaks me out and at the same time it makes me want to be famous less and less. I want to reject all of that.

LF: Is there something unusual about gay people wanting to have children? Some queers feel, and espouse the idea, of 'yay, we're gay, we don't have to do all the proscribed societal stuff.'

BDW: First of all, that attitude I don't disrespect. If that's how you feel, if that's your RSVP Cruise thing, that's great, I support it. But ... the desire to be a parent is a human instinct on some level. We're trying to show the world how not better and not worse we are and how individual we are. There are some heterosexuals who don't want to have anything to do with kids. They don't have the same drive. And gays who don't want kids shouldn't have kids. But they shouldn't say I shouldn't want kids. I'm not wanting kids for some political agenda, because I have no desire to contribute to the agenda in that way. It's too much of a pain in the ass to have a kid just because you think it's great as a gay person to do that. Marriage is a different thing. Some people I suspect want to be married because they have the idea that it normalizes them or something. Which is a whole other debate. I had a real strong impulse to be a father, to share a relationship with a person ... a parental blood relationship.

LF: What sort of connection DO you have with Jackson that you don't with anyone else?

BDW: I think that he's the only person who really trusts me. The only person I can tell you a hundred-and-one percent trusts me unconditionally. Trusts that I won't drop him on his head, that I will feed him and get him somewhere on time or make sure his clothes are clean and diapers are dry. At this point and time in my life that's an extremely important thing for me to experience. That doesn't mean I'm untrustworthy. It just means that as people grow older trust becomes a factor that I guess is some kind of an issue.

LF: Do you feel that Richie has two percent less trust in you then?

BDW: No. Don't make it something I don't mean to make it. I just know that a baby has all of those things that babies have.

LF: Let's talk about some of your roles. So was Father Mukada bicurious?

BDW: No. Did you see the last season? There were no examples of ...

LF: At times he shuddered when the sexy redhead guy taunted him.

BDW: Wouldn't you? I don't know what to say about that. It was clear to me he wasn't.

LF: How gay was the Oz experience?

BDW: It was in fact gay, a very gay-friendly show. It was a place you didn't have to feel like hiding you were gay.

LF: I went on set, and Chris Meloni and Lee Tergesen flirted up a storm.

BDW: It's because they knew you were watching. They're like that. They're what you call gay-friendly exhibitionists. They really go to extremes, they know it drives people crazy. They love to go to the GLAAD awards and make out onstage in front of everybody.

LF: While the first dramas are unfolding in Following Foo, Boaz's death, Jackson's being in critical care, you were also shooting a role in the film The Salton Sea. I want to go back and watch Salton Sea just to see if it registers on your face.

BDW: I've seen it and it doesn't. In my line of work you don't ever take a day off. You have to, especially when you're in the position I'm in, which is not powerful enough to say 'I'm not coming in, do whatever you have to do.' They would say 'you have to come in, we need you.' So how do you do it? To put it in perspective, how does someone cut off their arm off while mountain climbing with a dull pocketknife? This isn't the same thing at all, but somehow there's a thing inside you that makes you do something you don't really want to sometimes. Maybe there were times it felt a little bit like escaping into work, which was a positive thing. In the beginning I didn't know how I would get through it at all. I got so sad.

LF: How was the experience of making And The Band Played On?

BDW: It was a wonderful experience.

LF: Your character dumps Ian McKellen's. How could you?

BDW: How could you, yeah. [Ian] says the same thing. But that wasn't anything like the real-life person. The real-life person was a much more interesting one.

LF: What's the most personal role you've played to date?

BDW: I'd say my part on Oz was the most three-dimensionally emotional person that I could relate to and get the most out of feelings-wise. There's no how do I feel, how does this affect me on Law and Order.

LF: Did the stereotypical roles stop coming to you at a certain point?

BDW: In some ways yes, but I still get a script every once in a while where I go 'ohhh ... forget it.' But less and certainly less so the pressure to feel like I can try to make it work, which is what I used to do.

LF: I heard in the Charles Busch show you played with the conventions of Asian stereotype roles.

BDW: And it was amazing. That was the new me. The post-Sept. 11 me.

LF: What is your gayest role?

BDW: Oh, I think those guys in Father of the Bride were definitely gay. ... Part of me is very fond of that character. I had a wonderful time, it was a great opportunity for me. I had to get outside of myself to do it. I would do it again, maybe a little more refined at it.

LF: Has there ever been a role you turned down for political reasons?

BDW: Nothing that comes to mind. I would, though. Maybe there are meetings I turned down, before I even got offered a part. I got a script ... about the events leading up to Sept. 11. It was a TV pilot and it was bad. Offensive, like Middle Eastern characters ... the way it described them. I was like, I can't imagine doing this. I'm not sure if it got picked up or not but they definitely made it. One of the worst scripts. Where every single one of the female characters was introduced, and there were maybe eight, described as 'pretty.'

LF: How do you feel about the possibility of Jackson being gay?

BDW: Well, Richie and I make jokes about it all the time. He'll be devastated if he's not. It will have to be a whole coming-out process for him. But those questions are ridiculous to me as a gay person. It's ridiculous because how could I impose upon my child that same ... to perpetuate the pattern of caring about anything about him.

LF: But a gay person, knowing what its like being discriminated against, can still be a racist.

BDW: Yeah. Right. What I mean is, it doesn't even occur to me to even think about it. Him being gay or not. He's just a person. Most people think about us, oh he's left handed. These are personality traits.

LF: Let's say you're transported back ten years ago. Would any of this be happening? The book, the child?

BDW: [Science was] on the frontier of in vitrio fertilization. I was a very different person. I'm much more comfortable with myself now. I was in a different stage of development, I was more selfish. I don't think I would have thought to write to everyone and try to make them feel better and relay the story the way I did. I think I would've been more self involved with my work ... I probably wouldn't have chosen to be a parent maybe. ...

This was a way for me to connect with people I specifically knew, which I think is important. Strangers, even people forwarding to their moms and dads, there's a few degrees of separation but still a connection. ... I would've done a blog for something else maybe. I might do one just for me now. But not with this particular thing happening.

LF: Does a baby bring a couple together?

BDW: In many ways. Certainly an experience like this does. And when you're a gay person having a baby is not at all the effortless event that it is for a mixed-gender couple. It's an event. Huge planning, expense, raising the kid, on top of that the way we had it and on top of that what happened afterwards and during.

LF: Who does the baby look more like?

BDW: He looks most like Mike Piazza. And the controversy with all our friends—'you know, he doesn't look at all like Mike Piazza.' I don't look like Piazza and Richie doesn't, so I don't know what to say. Although he does look a little bit like both of us.

LF: Does he ever exhibit BDisms?

BDW: He likes to laugh. I really like a good laugh. And he eats like a pig. Those are the two things I think are closest. And he's pretty happy to be here on earth.

LF: Are you still e-mailing?

BDW: I e-mailed to tell [my NYC friends that] I was reading at Barnes & Noble. Yeah.