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mean girls

Get To Know “Looking” Star & Gifted Actor Daniel Franzese

by Ryan Shea

Manhattan Digest, Daniel Franzese

For any person in the late 20’s to early 30’s, they know how much of a fucking rockstar Daniel Franzese is.  The uber talented and incredibly handsome actor & activist has been at the forefront of many people’s minds and laughter since he shot to superstardom as the “Too Gay To Function” Damian in the megahit Tina Fey/Lindsay Lohan movie “Mean Girls”.  Damian possessed a huge comedic wit in that movie that paired incredibly well in his scenes with Lindsay Lohan and star of Masters Of Sex Lizzy Caplan, that there was no doubt in my mind that he had quite a bright future ahead for himself.

Since Mean Girls, his popularity has continued to be on the rise.  He has had guest starring roles on shows like “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” and my personal favorite TV series, “The Comeback.”  He also has launched a hilarious Youtube series called “S**t My Italian Mom Says” which has reached millions of views since its inception.  Now Daniel is starring in the 2nd season of HBO’s critically acclaimed series “Looking” in which he plays Eddie Bear, a openly HIV positive counselor in a homeless gay shelter who takes a liking to Agustin’s character, played by Frankie J. Alvarez.  Although the show has had its back and forth critiques, something that seems to be a constant with social media and critics is the positive feedback his character gets.  He has breathed a new life into the 2nd season of this show, and his ever growing relationship with Agustin’s character on “Looking” is a great distraction from the very present main character’s story lines of Kevin & Patrick.

With the season finale airing tonight at 10PM eastern, 9pm Pacific on HBO, Daniel was nice enough to sit down with me and discuss his rise in the entertainment world, his take on “Looking” and his new series that is debuting on ABC Family this coming fall.  Take a look at what the Brooklyn native had to say.

Hey Daniel, thanks for sitting down with me!  So I just saw that you went to TBRU (Texas Bear Round Up), one of the biggest bear events in the world.  Did you have fun and have you ever gone to one of those events before?

I’ve gone to bear parties before but I have never been to an organized bear event like that, ever.  It was absolutely wonderful and the bears there couldn’t have been nicer to me.  The friendliest group of people I have ever met.  This was a great indication of how I am known in the bear community as there wasn’t a bear there that didn’t recognize me from my work, which was quite the awesome feeling.

Let me ask you about the show you are on at hand and what everyone is talking about, Looking.  I’ve been a fan of the show since the first season and when i found out you were going to be on the show I was ecstatic for several different reasons.  How did this whole thing start for you?

Well I was having a conversation about the show with my friend Lori Malkin who is a casting director.  She asked if I was watching the show, which I wasn’t.  When she asked why I said no, I simply replied, “Because they never have bears like me on a gay show like that”.  She then followed up simply, “Then why not become the bear on that show?”.  I was all about manifesting destiny so I looked up the casting director who happened to be the first one I ever encountered when I did my first movie “Bully” back in 2001.  I wrote her an email, sent her some photos, and said “If you ever need a sexy bear!” to which she said “Well, you never know!”.  It turns out they were already thinking of the character Eddie and even further thinking of me to play him and then offered me to play the part.

Daniel Franzese, Manhattan Digest
Credit to: Andrew Jefferis

Not only are you the only bear on the show, but your character Eddie is also openly HIV positive which is a big part of your storyline with Agustin’s character, in particular the past two episodes.  Can you get a little bit into the process of how you immersed yourself into this character?

My neighbor and one of my best friends Ryan is HIV positive and we have coffee every morning together.  I knew him before he was poz and when I was getting the script and talking to him about it. The look on his face said it all as he was so excited that Eddie wasn’t being played as a victim and living a full and well adjusted life.  I know that was the intention from the beginning for Andrew Haigh and Michael Lannon was that they wanted Eddie to be someone who just happened to be HIV Positive and that it really wasn’t affecting Agustin’s decision to be with him.  Going into that portrayal I was excited more than anything to represent a very underrepresented community.

You surprised a lot of people by doing a full frontal sex scene with Agustin a couple of weeks back on the show.  Was that the first time you’ve done a scene like that and was it tough to film?

This is why I think it is good that you brought up the bear community as growing up as the chubby kid who wore my shirt in the pool all the time to having an opportunity in my first movie “Bully” in which I take my shirt off was really uncomfortable for me.  I have since then become very comfortable with my body and just from talking about guys in the past who have been into bears that aren’t bears themselves even and where their first inkling of where there attraction to a larger man came from.  I heard several people reference James Gandolfini being naked in a film was when they realized they were attracted to bigger guys, and I knew that being part of an underrepresented community that displaying nudity in “Looking” would possibly do that for future generations of guys to see the male form in a different view.   We all come from different shapes and sizes and I thought this was a way to see it sexualized in a different way.

Eddie is so vulnerable in that moment and has so many walls up and is trying to figure out if Agustin is really real and can handle his baggage.  I think in that moment he feels that “Oh no, this is where the HIV gets in the way and I lose this great thing, that’s why I don’t want to get serious”, and I think its such a difficult  moment for him because he is naked.

What is your take on how gay men are portrayed in the entertainment world in 2015?  Do you think we have hit our stride or do you think we still have to push forward in order for us to become more normalized to the general viewing public?

I’m not sure that Hollywood will ever get any minority right because it is totally judged off of a bunch of people’s different opinions and based on each individual project.  There will always be women that are marginalized, there will be African Americans that are marginalized, and in the same token there are gays that are. I feel like I love the way how “Looking” does it and how they show gay people in that story in San Francisco.  We get to see so many kinds of levels of stories and places that straight people live and I think there is a lot of pressure on “Looking” to represent the entire gay community, but I think that they are just telling a story about some people in SF and I think that is interesting in an under-looked at subculture.

Daniel Franzese, Manhatan Digest
Credit to: Andrew Jefferis

On top of looking, you have a new show set to air on ABC Family this coming fall called “Recovery Road”.  What can you tell us about it?

One of the coolest things about this is that it is written by my roommate in college Bert V. Royal who wrote the movie “Easy A”.  The other show runner Karen DiConcetto is a friend of mine for over ten years who played Snooki in the musical that i co-wrote called “Jersey Shoresical: A Freaking Rock Opera!”.  It is so great that I have two of my dearest friends that are going to be creating the part for me.  It is about a 17 year old girl named Maddie who has some problems with drinking and drugs in school so she makes a deal with her guidance counselor so they won’t expel her if she spends certain nights and weekends in an adult sober living facility.  I play a gay man who has addiction issues contributing to a weight gain; essentially I was a former gogo boy with a cocaine issue.

So these are some pretty deep roles you have been taking lately, however a lot of people know your comedic side from “Mean Girls” and your part on season one of “The Comeback”.  Do you prefer the dramatic side of things or the comedy parts?

Well “Recovery Road” is actually a comedy.  I think on “Looking” I’m pretty funny and definitely do love comedy.  It is my first love.  However I love horrors if they are scary and I love comedies if there is drama and dramas if they are poignant and meaningful. I just love good stories so if there is one there that is where I will go ultimately.

On a complete sidenote here, I hope that when they submit you for the Emmys that at least you and Lauren Weedman (Doris) get nominated for Guest Actor & Actress in a Supporting Role because you both really do great work on that show.

Actually, we are being submitted in the supporting categories.  I am being submitted for Supporting Actor In A Comedy.

Oh!  Well in that sense I hope they give you and “Looking” some love because it has kind of been the same shows winning year after year there and they could use some sprucing up with some new blood.  I mean, enough with “Modern Family” winning.  In other words… I WANT YOU TO WIN!

Thank you :).

You had a hit on Youtube with the hilarious “S**t Italian Moms Say”.  How did that whole thing get started?

My mother was the big inspiration for this, and she is sitting right here next to me while I’m chatting with you. My mom thinks that you said that i might get an Emmy is phenomenal!  The “Shit Says” meme was happening everywhere and I was waiting personally for an Italian one to happen.  Around the same time, right before the meme happened, my friend Michelle said to me “You can come to my apartment but I don’t have anything to offer, not even a piece of cake”.  We laughed for an hour over that and then we thought of all the things we could say or do and then my friend Lisa said “Let’s do this”.  We pulled it together one weekend and did two episodes and then the following weekend did another one.  It was really fun and hit a million views in six days.  It was really fun to watch it unfold.

Besides all of these amazing things, what else do you have going on in 2015?

I have a comedy coming out about five people who get hypnotized while the hypnotist has a heart attack and the people are stuck in its trance. I play a gay man who thinks he is a pregnant woman during this whole thing.  Really looking forward to seeing what people think about that.

Thanks again Daniel for sitting down with us and good luck with “Looking” and everything else you have going on!

Thank you so much!

For more on Daniel Franzese, you can check out his official sites here!

Twitter

Instagram

 

 

 

Filed Under: ENTERTAINMENT, LGBT, MOVIES, TELEVISION Tagged With: daniel franzese, hbo, lindsay lohan, looking, mean girls, tbru, texas bear round up

Gay men make girls look like Mother Theresa. Yup.

by Ryan Shea

Credit to: Tumblr
Credit to: Tumblr

 

I feel we owe it to ourselves to all fess up and say- Yup, I’ve been a bitch to that guy or groups of guys.  We all have been.  Now more than ever there is a strong vibe in our community that gay men start out like the nice Cady Heron in “Mean Girls” but end up being the vicious, backstabbing bitch that she becomes in the movie (sort of like Lindsay Lohan in real life.  Ahhh, how art imitates).  Yet, a lot of men tend to stay in the second zone without ever learning the life lessons which ultimately makes Cady likable in the end, especially breaking her plastic crown and sharing it with the rest of the crowd.  When it did become so socially acceptable for gay men to treat each other with such disdain and rudeness yet millions of us are screaming to the straight world that we want to be accepted? We can’t accept each other.  It’s beyond ridiculous.  Here are some reasons behind this philosophy.

You get the point.  Credit to Paper Blog.
You get the point. Credit to Paper Blog.

 

One- I was bullied growing up, so now it’s time to take revenge. I consider myself a fortunate gay man in the sense that growing up I was never bullied, called names like “fag” and “homo” in a serious matter and physically and/or emotionally abused like many other gay men and women were growing up.  This could’ve been in and outside of the school, but this is something that they take with them the rest of their lives.  This can incorporate itself in the gay community completely when you reach a certain age, find a group of guys to hang with, and become that group of mean girls we all hated back when we were growing up.  In essence, you were becoming that guy or girl that bullied you and exacting it upon other people.  Sure, it can make sense to you and some other people but really what are you getting out of it? In the grown world, these people never went after you, the ones that did it growing up did it for their own insecure reasons.  Don’t turn that around and think that two wrongs make a right, cuz really they never do.

Body Issues... one of the many things men gossip about.
Body Issues… one of the many things gay men gossip about.

 

Jealousy.  Bitterness. Resentment. Oh, he cheated on me.  We had bad sex.  I woofed at him on Scruff and he didn’t say thanks. I took him out to dinner once and he never got back ton me.  Four of zillion reasons why we talk shit behind others backs.  The best ones to me are when men talk about other men they have NEVER freaking met and act like they know them as well as their own family or best friends do.  It’s human nature, I get it.  We all talk about someone behind their backs.  The reasons for men of a certain age to do it in this community once again come off as childish and immature.  I had incident a couple of months ago where someone I knew from brief chats years ago decided to take it upon himself and ruin a couple of friendships of mine.  Luckily, the two in question that he tried talking to were mature enough to understand the shit he was trying to pull, and didn’t let it phase them or our friendship.  It makes me giggle though that people can be that insecure where something that was merely nothing three years back can still influence someone of a certain age to act like a 12 year old girl in order to prove a point.  It gets to be a bit silly.

Kudos if you know what he's saying here. Credit to WordPress.
Kudos if you know what he’s saying here. Credit to WordPress.

 

Maybe it’s just society that has led us to this conclusion. Is it just me or has Hollywood and the media in general embraced the bitchy gay guy? No, I am not mentioning if they are butch or queeny, that has nothing to do with it.  I mean just purely mean and rude in every which sense of the way.  From Jack MacFarland on “Will and Grace” to Anthony Marentino on “Sex and the City”, it sort of seems like there is a bit of typecasting which can lead to real life experience.  Several reality seem to pitch the same concept, in particular “Big Brother” which I am a huge fan of.  Every season (except for season 5) there is the bitchy gay guy.  Really it just makes us look bad especially in the heterosexual world where they already have a preconceived notion about it.  Yet as stated before, it can really lead to real life experiences in how we treat one another.

Listen, the moral here isn’t for us to hold hands, go to a yoga class and be super nice to each other because that would really make us look like a bunch of assholes.  I just think that this treatment of each other can lead to serious problems within gay men such as depression, body issues and a ton of other things that can ultimately hurt who they are in the long run.  Just think about what you are saying the next time you go to gossip.  That’s all.

Filed Under: BREAKING NEWS, LIFESTYLE, OPINION Tagged With: cady heron, gay, jack mcfarland, lindsay lohan, mean girls, sex and the city, will and grace

The “infamous” bear article- What a response!

by Ryan Shea

100_3691

 

100_3691
Credit to Blogspot

Beyond grateful to the “Modern Bear” folks who posted my first article and got quite a healthy discussion about the bear community out there. I am very happy with the responses that it got, both negative and positive, because to me this has been a forum that I have wanted to open for a long time and now it has.  So thank you to everyone in your comments and critiques (except the one who called me a Kindergartener.  26 with two college degrees here and started my own site with no one else’s help.  Yup.)

I don’t really think people understood what I was trying to convey in the first article so let me change up a couple of things that I wrote in the first place.  One- I have a great appreciation for all types in the gay community.  The “muscle bear” comment was mainly an observation of a great amount of guys I see in the New York City area.  They aren’t all like that, but a good portion that I see are.  I was told that I should try communities outside of the NYC playing field that aren’t on such a larger scale, and in that response I have.  I lived in Providence for five years and that has taught me that communities in smaller towns tend to be less jaded and more outgoing and friendly.  You can take what you want from what I just said there, but please note that this is just from my viewpoint.  We all have different ones.

The other factor here is the origins of the bear community. I have done my researched and watched documentaries on them as well.  That is how I gathered information to write the article that I did.  I think the bottom line is people are so hell bent on figuring out what their label is that they forget who they are in the process.  It is like that scene in “Mean Girls” where the lunch room table is mapped out as to who sits where.  It is very similar in the gay community.  We should all just be ourselves and get along with each other so these raging hypocrisies and stereotypes can settle down a little bit.

I am more than welcomed to one or two people writing a rebuttal on this.  Once again thanks to everyone that let their voices be heard and spoke their minds on this.

Filed Under: BREAKING NEWS, LIFESTYLE, OPINION Tagged With: bear, community, grateful, labels, mean girls, modern bear, muscle bear, NYC, providence, response

Queen Coco, One-Hit-Wonder, & Warped Tour ’04: Inspirations & Secrets of HFC Style for Repeat Outfit Annonymous

by Ryan Shea

Nothing is more unhealthy and so last season than being a Repeat Outfit Addict.  HFC’s Repeat Outfit Addict is a babe who goes through the motions of wearing the same outfits with the only creativity of figuring out when she wore it last. FASHION TRAGEDY!   [Read more…] about Queen Coco, One-Hit-Wonder, & Warped Tour ’04: Inspirations & Secrets of HFC Style for Repeat Outfit Annonymous

Filed Under: BREAKING NEWS, FASHION, LIFESTYLE, NEW YORK, STYLE Tagged With: A Hot Mess, be you, Bold fashion, chanel, Coco, Coco Chanel, costume jewelry, cute outfits, emo, fabulous, fashion, fashion tips, fashionista, Fun., Girl Look, hfc style, honestfrugalchaos, Hot Mess, jewelry, kimora lee simmons, Kimora Lee Simons, manhattan digest, MD Fashion, mean girls, NEW YORK, ny fashion week, nyc fashin week, One-Hit-Wonder, Outfit styling, outfits, pretty glam, repeat fashion addict, Repeat Outfit Addict, stay weird, street style, style tips, Styling by HonestFrugalChaos, taking back sunday, the starting line, vintage, vintage jewelry, Warp Tour, Warped Tour

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