"Embassy Sweet "
OUT Magazine
April 2002
by Joshua Lyon

Cerveris dons a dress - again - for a new role.

For a straight guy, actor and musician Michael Cerveris has a lot of experience in heels to draw for Gary, the wise cross dressing neighbor in FOX's new London based dramedy, The American Embassy. Having once taken over for John Cameran Mitchell's lead role Off Broadway in Hedwig and the Angry Inch, the Yale grad learned early on how to get wig hair out of his throat. Cerveris met Mitchell in the early '90's in the New York audition circuit and they eventually got cast together in a workshop for a musical about the rock group Queen. "John and I were the bad kids in the back of the class", cracks Cerveris, who also played gay in last year's The Mexican. In 1998, Mitchell asked Cerveris to take over for few weeks. Cerveris was no stranger to rock music in theater. He originate the title role in the 1993 Broadway adaptation of Tommy) and he ended up moving to Los Angeles and London before taking time off to focus on recording with his band Retriever.

When he received the casting call for Embassy's Gary he wasn't interested at first. "My character in the pilot initially felt like a sight gag but the writers made it clear that they didn't want him to be a stereotype. Although a pivotal scene for Gary was cut from the first episode, Cerveris says we will see more of Gary's life as the series progresses. "I think I feel more responsibility to the role because I'm straight playing a charcater who, at the least,a fuzzy sexuality. I know there are people who are going to be pissed off about it and I wouldn't blame them. Just like there are going to be a lot of English actors who are going to be pissed that an American is playing a Brit. At some point you just have to say, I'm an actor." OK but why is a straight man repeatedly getting cast as sexually ambiguous cross dressing roles? "It's probably my willingness to shave." Cerveris says wickedly. "And I mean all over"

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