Cheyenne Jackson is alive. At least it seems so. We think. Actually, he refuses to say.
He’s outside at the Fox Studios lot in Los Angeles, leaning against one of the buildings where he shoots his role as fashion mogul turned real estate tycoon Will Drake on American Horror Story: Hotel. The show is a notorious bloodbath, but he’s still shooting. So he must still be alive…right?
“Well, I’m still at the hotel,” he laughs. “But you know, it’s American Horror Story. So just because people died doesn’t mean that they’re not still there. Let’s just say, I’m still working. Which is good.”
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Which is great, actually.
The fifth iteration of Ryan Murphy’s stylishly spooky horror anthology is practically cluttered with Big-Name Stars including Kathy Bates, Wes Bentley, Matt Bomer, Angela Bassett, and a pop diva making her acting debut who you may have heard of: Lady Gaga.
And for Cheyenne Jackson, it’s the biggest and richest mainstream showcase he’s gotten yet, coming after years of treading the boards as one of Broadway’s go-to hunks and making a splash in supporting roles in 30 Rock and Behind the Candelabra. Plus, it’s coming just as the dashing actor turns 40, too. (Not that he looks it, as anyone who saw his, um, impressive nude scene in last week’s episode can attest to.)
“It’s pretty major,” he says, almost like he’s talking himself into believing that he’s part of the show, which thus far has included multiple blood-soaked orgies, more gruesome murders than could feasibly be kept track of, and a scene in which that guy who plays Schmidt on New Girl (Max Greenfield) gets sodomized by a goblin with a conical drill bit as a dick.
“I’ve done some cool stuff with some cool people, but walking on that set the first day and having my first scene be with Kathy Bates—this is what you dream of as an actor,” he goes on. “You’d be lying if you said it wasn’t a daunting, exhilarating, make-or-break moment.”
While strutting into the halls of American Horror Story’s fictional Hotel Cortez as the debonair Will Drake to introduce himself to Lady Gaga’s The Countess certainly is the suavest thing Jackson has done thus far on screen—and a love scene with the pop star that ended with his rump in full, glorious, uninterrupted view certainly the most naked—TV fans might best recognize Jackson from his role on 30 Rock, where he played Danny, the TGS cast member from Canada with trouble understanding sarcasm and a singing voice so beautiful it gave Jane Krakowski’s Jenna Maroney a jealousy-induced nosebleed.
But even before Tina Fey took a chance on him, the musical theater community was well aware of Jackson and his talents, with the Washington native having starred in a hilariously diverse range of productions, from the Elvis jukebox musical All Shook Up to the entirely roller-skated production of Xanadu (yes, based on the 1980 Olivia Newton-John cult film).
His transition to screen boasts a solid 40 IMDB credits, but a gig with as much regularity and exposure—clearly a word with double meaning on the butts parade that is American Horror Story—as this has proven elusive thus far.
“I’ve been in eight pilots in about eight years that haven’t gone,” Jackson says. It’s a frustrating and humbling track record for any actor, but particularly in this case, considering the amount of buzz and sight-unseen expectation for some of the projects he had been attached to.
There was 2012’s Mockingbird Lane, for example, a reboot of sorts of The Munsters by Bryan Fuller, the visionary behind critical gems Pushing Daisies and Hannibal. What was planned as one of the year’s big event series’ stalled and instead burned off its expensive pilot as a one-off TV special.
But at least his work in Mockingbird Lane was seen. Maybe the biggest disappointment was Jackson’s most recent collaboration with Murphy, on a series for HBO titled Open, which was set to explore our culture’s ever-evolving relationship with sexuality, monogamy, and intimacy. While HBO’s pass on the Open pilot was a headscratcher for industry insiders and a blow for Jackson, it ultimately fostered a close friendship with Murphy that led to his role on AHS.
“It’s a very L.A. story,” Jackson warns with a grin in his voice when I ask how he got involved with Hotel.
He and Murphy were taking a spin class together—I know, Jackson is almost embarrassed to even say it—when Murphy began shouting over the instructor and the music about a role on the new season that he thought Jackson would be great for. “It gave me the pep to finish the class.”
As has become the notorious way with Murphy and his casting of American Horror Story, details about the role were sparse at first, and then unveiled in fits and starts. First was the news that he would be a fashion guy, and a dad. “Think Tom Ford,” Jackson remembers. Then the news that he was going to be bisexual, maybe gay. Then, Murphy’s biggest reveal: “I think I’m going to have you do stuff with Lady Gaga.”
He remembers calling his husband the first day he was set to shoot with Gaga: “I was in my trailer and I called my husband and was like, ‘I’m going to meet Lady Gaga!’ He was like, ‘Holy crap!’”
When he found her on set he was ready to reach out and shake her hand when, in character, she purrs, “Will Draaake.”
“The hairs on my arms stood up,” he remembers. Then she put out her hand for him to kiss. “I was like, ‘Oh, Ok. I’m kissing her hand now.’ And then she laughs as if, ‘I’m not going to make you kiss my hand.’ And then we hugged.”
He asked her what she would like him to call her, and she said Stefani. (Lady Gaga’s real name is Stefani Germanotta.) And she’s been Stefani ever since. “She really is so just Stefani on set,” Jackson raves. “Prepared, and real, and cool. She’s a theater girl! She reminds me of all my Broadway girls.”
They became close very quickly, which is a necessity on a show like American Horror Story.
The shocking three-minute orgy that highlighted the Hotel premiere last month, it turns out, was just a hint at the ramped up sex and gore that has colored the season so far. Last week’s episode featured scenes with Gaga that, as Jackson puts it, was “stuff I’ve never done on screen before—something my parents will be skipping.” (The Internet is a wonderful place, however, and the scenes can be easily Googled, and you’d be smart not to skip.)
For all that Murphy and American Horror Story are praised for—reviving the horror genre, edgy storytelling, seamlessly melding the grand and the grounded, balancing camp and gore and making it all look creepy-beautiful—it deserves high merits for the unabashed sexualization of its attractive male stars, equaling a playing field that has long served the straight male gaze for an audience that’s been starved for the likes of Wes Bentley and Matt Bomer and Cheyenne Jackson nude on their TVs.
“One of Matt and my’s first scenes together is when he’s naked,” Jackson laughs. “You know that it’s just inevitable that we’re going to be naked on set at some point.”
Yet beyond showing us—quite literally—more of these actors than we’ve seen before, one of Murphy’s great skills has been the way he’s shown us that actors are capable of more than we’ve seen them do before. Whether it’s Jessica Lange in multiple seasons of American Horror Story or Gwyneth Paltrow on Glee or Matt Bomer in The Normal Heart, he has a knack for getting audiences to see actors we’ve known for a long time and as one type in an entirely different light.
“He sees in actors something that potentially I don’t even think they see,” Jackson says. He recently just found out where his character, Will Drake, is going to end up at the end of the season, and the kind of acting challenges that will be required to get him there.
“I just thought, oh my god, he thinks I can do that, so that’s what I’m going to do,” Jackson says about Murphy. “I thought, you know what? If he trusts me enough to do this he must see something in me that maybe I don’t totally see, but I’m just going to go with it.”
There’s a remarkable amount of happiness in Jackson’s voice as we discuss this stage of his career. The reason, it turns out, is simple: He’s just really happy.
Three years ago, Jackson made the decision to be sober. “It’s made everything better, every possible thing,” he says. “In terms of performing, I feel so much more in my body and able to jump into the unknown. Before I would be numbed in order to go to these places. But I feel a safety now.”
It’s made turning 40 a far more pleasant experience than one might expect, given the typical amount of paranoia that circles the milestone age in Hollywood.
“Honestly, 30 was a bigger deal because it was like, shit, I’m not in my twenties anymore,” he says. “My thirties were great, but also I really had to get it together. There was a lot of pain. There was a lot of life stuff. I got divorced. I had two deaths in the family. I got sober. It was all kinds of stuff that I was dealing with.”
Plus, he reminds me, “I didn’t start acting professionally until I was 27, so I feel like I’m just starting.”
Then with a dramatic pause that would make Ryan Murphy proud: “Even though I’m 40, I feel like I’m just beginning.”
