The Education of Doug Spearman

By Keith Boykin, in pop culture
Wednesday, September 20 2006, 12:00PM

Doug Spearman is not your stereotypical actor. In a Hollywood culture where everyone is busy watching what they're saying, Doug is not afraid to take a controversial position and let you know what he really thinks.

Many of you know him as Chance, the bookish college professor married to a recently fired businessman on the LOGO television series "Noah's Arc." In real life, however, he's probably a lot smarter than the college professor he plays on TV. And the good thing is that he's not nearly as uptight. When I spoke to Doug a few weeks ago, I learned a lot about the man behind the character. In a fascinating and revealing interview, he talks about his life, his education, his role on Noah's Arc, and that pesky issue about the sexual orientation of the actors. And for the first time ever, he tells the world about his experience as an eyewitness to the Stonewall Riots in 1969.

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INTERVIEW WITH DOUG SPEARMAN

BOYKIN: Hi Doug. So how's life on Noah's Arc?

SPEARMAN: On a lot of different levels I love it. It’s great to be a working actor. It’s fantastic to have a steady job as a lead on a television series….And it’s also pretty amazing to be a part of the first of anything…I feel like one of those actors on TV in the 50s…you know you’re working and you know you’re doing a show, but in the back of my mind I know I doing something that no one’s ever done before.

BOYKIN: When did you get involved?

SPEARMAN: Patrik called me about the show probably two weeks after he decided to create it. It was called "Hot Chocolate" back then….Originally Chance’s name was Solomon and I read for [the part of] Ricky. And I really wanted to play Ricky….

BOYKIN: Really? Why is that?

SPEARMAN: When I work as an actor I like to find the pathology. I want to know what makes him tick. What’s he love and what’s he afraid of. And I think a guy who would spend that much time online hooking up and that much time having sex is hiding a lot.

BOYKIN: How do you relate to that?

SPEARMAN: I’m a gay man. When the whole Internet hooking up thing came up, I did that. And I know how obsessive that can be. Hell, even myspace. It’s the validation. It’s the gay bar in your bedroom. But hooking up like that doesn't feed your soul.

BOYKIN: When you first heard about the show, what was your reaction?

SPEARMAN: I said yeah, I’d love to do it. First and foremost, I loved Punks and I wanted an opportunity to work with Patrik. And second of all, to have a job. And third, it looked like it was going to be interesting and entertaining, and you know TV has been changing for a couple of years, and I know Patrik doesn’t like to pull punches, so I wanted to go along with that...

BOYKIN: How do you compare to your character?

SPEARMAN: I think he’s really afraid to be by himself and I’m not. I think Chance works on the fact that he loves deeply, but he doesn’t know how to communicate how he feels. I think Chance has a really big heart, but he lives in his head, but I don’t. Which I think is Patrik thinks I do because I'm always asking questions about how and why Chance does anything.

I think a lot of people think I’m more cerebral than I am. I go from my gut and Chance goes from his head, and I’m not nearly as uptight about things. And Chance wants to do the right thing, and I think he’s afraid to take some chances that I would take. But I think we’re both impulsive and we’re both overeducated.

BOYKIN: Overeducated?

SPEARMAN: I was brought up in a family that put a huge amount of emphasis on education and degrees. I’m the third generation of my family to go to college. In fact, my grandparents met in college. And we were always told that we had to be smarter and faster and better and learn more and do more than our white counterparts.

The world that I was born and raised in doesn’t exist anymore, the height of the civil rights movement. I don’t think the concept of striving has gone out of black culture, but I do realize that what I was told to strive for is different than what you see in mainstream black culture now.

BOYKIN: What’s different?

SPEARMAN: I was born in 1962 and my parents were born in the 20s. And back then you had to work twice as hard to prove that you were equal and that you had the right to live in whatever neighborhood you chose and to raise your family in safety without having to worry about whether you were going to be lynched or not…

And there’s a huge amount [of difference] based on work ethic...All my cousins and I were told that we had to work hard. We had to cover every base. And now mainstream black culture is what you see in music videos and sports magazines. And I think kids are taught [differently]…Everybody sees kids with diamonds and Bentleys and chinchilla coats, but they don’t really see the work it takes to get all that.

BOYKIN: You think that way because of your background?

SPEARMAN: I went to a predominantly white university. I went to Indiana University and I got sat down and I was told that you might be the first and only black person for any white person to meet….Hattie McDaniel said in her Oscar speech in 1938 about being a credit to her race and we were kind of given that speech. It is our responsibility. It’s the same way I feel about being an actor…

When I decided I wanted to be an actor and I made that known to people, they said okay, this is what it’s going to take…My training was like the old studio system training, where you had to dance, to sing, you had to learn to stage combat, makeup, you had to read the newspaper everyday, understand history, speak at least one other language, and read pretty much every play starting with the Greek, and work, and work, and work, and work…So when you hear people move to LA, and people say to me 'I think I’m going to try acting,' to me it’s like saying, 'I think I’m going to try brain surgery'…You don’t pop out of the womb as Anthony Hopkins.

BOYKIN: So you think young actors are encouraged to take shortcuts today?

SPEARMAN: I think it’s the whole world. Look at people in their 20s and younger and look at the prevalence of cell phones, and not just cell phones but devices...Keith, how old are you?

BOYKIN: I'm 41.

SPEARMAN: Okay, you and I were born in the Atomic age, the push button age. The future was "The Jetsons"…My great grandparents were sharecroppers, which meant they had to raise the food and the crops and wait 9 months and shit like that…but you and I were raised in the age of frozen and fast food...I had both. My dad was born in a cabin on the plantation where my family had been slaves..

Tupelo, Mississippi. Same place as Elvis. But he wanted for his family…every luxury and convenience…to get away from all that. So we had four TVs and….the future was promised to us with less work and more convenience….tv is faster…commercials used to be 2 minutes long when you and I were kids…and now they're 30 seconds, some of them are 20 seconds.

BOYKIN: So what does that say about us?

SPEARMAN: I can’t stop the world. I’m not a Luddite either. But I understand how you can look back and ask, Are people living quality lives? We work 600 hours more a year than our parents did.

BOYKIN: Really? How do you know that?

SPEARMAN:There was a study done in the New York Times a couple of days ago.

BOYKIN: Oh my God, you were trained the old way if you're reading studies in the Times.

SPEARMAN: We work 24/7 dude. Remember there was a time in the world when only doctors had pagers…When I left my job at ABC, my happiest day was giving my Blackberry back… [Now] I do yoga. I meditate a couple times a day….In the morning and at night before I go to bed….

BOYKIN: What made you become an actor?

SPEARMAN: I was 7 when I decided that I wanted to act. I always wanted to do that and when I got to high school I got serious about it...You’ve heard applause. The first time I heard people applaud for something I was in…I knew there was no going back because that was the sound of love to me and I thought, 'Oh I gotta have more of that.'

BOYKIN: By the way, what did you do at ABC?

SPEARMAN: I was Creative Director for ABC daytime, and before that I was a writer producer and director in the promotions department. I did that for 20 years at different networks and different cities. That was my table waiting job.

BOYKIN: And how was that experience?

SPEARMAN: Awesome. I learned a lot about being an actor by not being an actor…And I learned what it takes to produce a project and I know how my job fits in with everybody else’s job.

BOYKIN: So what do you think about the new season of Noah's Arc?

SPEARMAN: I think it was so different from the last season. We had different directors and different writers this year, and I think it expanded every character's personal universe a lot. Last year it was more group participation in everything and this year it was a lot more individual.

BOYKIN: What about the growth of your character?

SPEARMAN: I think the more you do as an actor the more you grow. The great thing…you constantly grow….When you do a television series every time you show up on the set it’s a new challenge and a new opportunity..

BOYKIN: I want to ask you a question about sexual orientation. I know there's been a bit of controversy about the sexual orientation of the actors on the show. I've interviewed all the principal actors on the show, and you're the only one who has openly identified his sexual orientation. Do you think the actors should disclose that?

SPEARMAN: Why should we?

BOYKIN: Do you think it matters?

SPEARMAN: No. Because it’s a show. It’s a television show. We’re actors in a TV series. People come up to me all the time and call me Chance. I have to make sure that I introduce myself as my full name because they know Chance based on how many episodes of the show they’ve seen. They don’t know anything about Doug Spearman….Who cares whether I go to the grocery store or go to the movies with somebody or if I'm sleeping with a man or a woman?

BOYKIN: Well, people care because you're a celebrity and they care about celebrities, for better or worse.

SPEARMAN: Somebody asked me last night, 'Oh you’re a celebrity.' I don’t understand the word celebrity. What I do understand is an actor. How do you define celebrity?

BOYKIN: I think there are different levels. There are international celebrities, national celebrities, comunity celebrities...

SPEARMAN: I’m getting a dictionary.

BOYKIN: [Laughing] You're joking. I thought you said you weren't like your character.

SPEARMAN: [Doug begins thumbing through the dictionary.] No I said we’re both overeducated. I think there’s great power in words...[He stops and looks up the word "celebrity" in the dictionary, then finds it.]

'Celebrity, a famous person, renowned.'

Okay, then I am a celebrity. [Keith laughs.]

Some people come out here and they just want to be a celebrity. But if you haven’t done anything, what are you famous for? I mean I’m well known in a community of people because they watch my show. So I guess to them I’m famous. My godkids couldn’t give a crap. They just want to make sure that I show up for ice cream…

BOYKIN: They know about you?

SPEARMAN: They’re amazingly aware. When I was on the cover of The Advocate it was a big deal, and my family of choice throws this party every fourth of July, and my godsons came up to me with a wrapped present and they said open it…and the two of them and their mom had framed an issue of The Advocate and they wanted me to read them the cover...So I stood there at this barbecue reading them the cover of The Advocate and I thought , wow what a world that I can tell a 7-year-old and a 4-year-old and they’re happy for me and proud of me and that they’re in my life at all. And the 7-year-old has decided that he wanted to be an actor…And when I was in Vancouver, Alek [the 7-year-old] got an agent and he asked me to take him to the first audtions. Made me promise. .

BOYKIN: That brings me back to the question of your being openly gay as an actor on the show. You were on the cover of The Advocate, for God's sake.

SPEARMAN: Keith, I was an openly gay man before Noah’s Arc came along, and we met at Phill Wilson’s first retreat, if you remember….All you have to do is Google me and know that I’m gay.

Part of it goes back to how I was raised. If people are afraid that their careers are going to be hindered and hurt because of their sexuality that’s something that they’re going to have face, no matter what their job is. It could happen if you're not out at your firm or whatever company you work for. Our rights are not protected and people fear that. Hollywood has created an even bigger problem by spending so much time focusing on who's gay and who's not. But I was raised in a time and an atmosphere where you had to stand up and be who you were going to be…I was 6 when Martin Luther King was killed. I grew up in Washington during the civil rights movement….

My cousin Phyllis lived in the YWCA in Greenwich Village and I would spend the weekends with her sometimes and one weekend I remember waking up on a Sunday and we couldn’t get back to Brooklyn because there were police in the street and there was a riot going on, and I remember there were policeman and all these people who I thought were women at the time yelling, and it turns out I was standing in the street looking at the Stonewall Riots…

BOYKIN: Get the fuck out of here! You were at the Stonewall Riots. Oh my God, I can't believe it. That's very Forrest Gump of you. But anyway, go on with what you were saying.

SPEARMAN: The other point is, if you keep a secret and somebody finds out they can hurt you with it. And if you don’t have any secrets, nobody can punish you. That’s a weapon you take out of their hands. So if I’m openly gay, nobody can use that against me. You can’t out me.

BOYKIN: I know what you're saying and I agree, but I still don't understand something. I have to interview Patrik again and talk to him about it, but I think Patrik wants to maintain the mystery behind the characters so he doesn't want anybody to talk about it. After I accidentally outed Jensen as straight in my interview with him, he wrote a comment on the message board that he wanted everyone to know that he actually never said he was straight or gay. I can't fault him for that, but I don't get this whole thing. It seems odd to me to get upset at a question.

SPEARMAN: Maybe it’s not that you asked a question. Maybe it’s why does this question have to be asked. Couldn’t you deal with the person instead of their sexuality or their color…

BOYKIN: But I mean, it is a gay television series because it deals with gay characters.

SPEARMAN: Okay you don’t get it.

BOYKIN: Okay, moving right along. [I laugh.] Are you single?

SPEARMAN: I’m dating.

BOYKIN: And last but not least. I do a series on my web site called "My Favorite Things." Can you tell me five of your favorite things?

SPEARMAN: Okay.

1. Laughter.
2. Fried shrimp.
3. Shoe shopping.
4. Puerto Rico.
5. My bed. Where I’m at right now.

BOYKIN: Why the bed?

SPEARMAN: It’s big and it’s high and it’s soft. A perfect bed.

BOYKIN: And a perfect place to stop. Thank you very much Doug. It's been a great interview.

SPEARMAN: Thank you.

Noah's Arc Interview Series

• Interview with Jensen Atwood (Wade)
• Interview with Darryl Stephens (Noah)
• Interview with Christian Vincent (Ricky)
• Interview with Rodney Chester (Alex)

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