Chris Meloni: The Seducer of Oz OUT, June 2000
	Ever since he worked at a gay gym as a young actor, 39-year-old Chris Meloni has had an electric appeal to queer men. But when Chris Keller, his equal-opportunity seducer on the TV prison drama OZ, began an affair with another man two seasons ago, Meloni's Q factor skyrocketed. While preparing a new season of OZ episodes, which start airing next month on HBO, the actor took the time to talk about his gay fans and gay friends-and how they've contributed to his roasting-hot career. The cafeteria is a sea of muscles and tattoos. At one table sits a group of chiseled African-American wearing Muslim prayer caps. Nearby, but not too close, a skinny Puerto Rican sissyboy hovers around the Italian bodybuilders, sneered at by a group of beefy guys with shaved heads and goatees. A stud in a denim shirt with the designer logo "98C931" above the chest pocket has a Tom of Finland tat on his left arm and a winged phallus inked on the right. And judging by his profile, the young man in the '60's-print head scarf across the room is a real head turner, but as he swivels in his chair he reveals another side of himself: "I'm a drag queen gone bad," he says, pointing to the synthetic battery acid burns on his pretty face. Friends of Dorothy, you're not in Kansas anymore." Welcome to OZ, the high-security prison of HBO's other crime and punishment drama. Three years ago, before the world started singing the praises of The Sopranos, the brutal, multiracial soap opera set inside the fictional Oswald State Penitentiary was quietly pushing the envelope with graphic violence, sewer-level language, and full-frontal male nudity. According to the show's creator, Homicide and St. Elsewhere veteran Tom Fontana, Oz, which begins a new season of eight episodes next month, is a metaphor for all of life's struggles. "There's a wide diversity in our audience-it's gay, it's black, it's middle-aged, middle-class couples. I don't write for any group specifically. I like to think that I write Muslims as accurately as gay characters," says Fontana, who has cast rappers like Naughty By Nature's Treach, as well as drag icon Charles Busch as the homicidal Nat Ginsburg. "But maybe, he adds with a chuckle, "the diversity in the audience comes from all those dicks swinging in the wind." While the nudity is groundbreaking, and the treatment of homosexuals is decidedly, sometimes harshly, non-PC (as it is of other groups represented in the program), it's the emotional terrain that ultimately distinguishes Oz for its gay audience. "It's a show about survival, how men shut down their ability to love and to feel," Fontana observes. The action revolves around the inmates of an experimental unit called Emerald City, where members of the Aryan Army and Muslim Nation face off, where mafiosi and cholos form unlikely alliances, where a man is just as likely to give his rapist an unasked-for circumcision as he is to fall in love with his cellmate who breaks his arms and legs. And it is in this hateful place that one of these most intense and addictive homoerotic love-hate romances ever televised-complete with French kisses-has bloomed between a meek, married lawyer named Tobias Beecher and a conniving, murderous thief named Chris Keller. For Christopher Meloni, the never-so-much-as-kissed-a-man-before heterosexual actor who brings an arsenal of sexual charm and physical menace to the role of Keller, the motivation is pure and simple: "He uses his penis as a weapon. Female, male, it's relevant. It's just a way of getting what he wants." Though Oz creator Fontana, Meloni, and his costar Lee Tergesen, who plays Beecher, agree that the plotline is more about the need in a harsh environment for love than about the characters being a gay couple, there are myriad queer chat rooms on the Internet devoted to the actors and their palpable onscreen chemistry. Amidst these fantasies, it is a measure of the man that Meloni has officially sanctioned as well as posted on www.christophermeloni.com, the Webster created by Brian Rodgers, a 55-year-old, gay accountant in Hamilton, Ontario. In addition to his machinations on Oz, the site follows Meloni's other television alter ego, the conflicted family man and sex-crimes detective Elliot Stabler on the Law & Order offshoot Special Victims' Unit. It also discusses the actor's film appearances, which have ranged from bits in Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys and the Wachowski Brothers' Bound to Julia Roberts' jilted fiancé in last summer's comedy Runaway Bride. According to webmaster Rodgers, Meloni has also phoned to thank him personally. "I'm not sure how many actors as busy as he is would take the time to call or answer the many questions asked by people who visit the site. That confirmed my gut feeling about him-that he's a nice, down-to-earth guy. There can be a perception that because Chris has a fairly large gay fan base; we're there because he has no qualms about appearing nude. I, or any other fan (male or female), will tell you that we admire what we see. However, most of us appreciate his acting far more." Meloni, who admits," I'm a nudist at heart," has achieved a kind of Zen modesty about his appeal. "When I speak to Brian," he says with a softly commanding growl, "he gets a little nervous, which I've found a kind of charming. This is all new territory. I've always been an anonymous actor doing my job and just trying to make it. I just thought I should dive in there and try to establish rapport. For the most part, it's a goof. I mean, they asked me how I eat my Oreos" -the answer, by the way is whole- "and once we get to the dessert tray. It's pretty much open season on any question you want to ask. But then some guy will come on the site and say, ‘You've helped my self-image as a gay man,' and I realize there is some value to whatever I had done. Because even in my own life, I have witnessed no shortage of low self-esteem." Meloni takes his connection to the gay community seriously; along with Oz costar Tergesen and his Special Victims Unit leading lady, Mariska Hargitay, he recently presented a GLAAD award at a ceremony in New York. "Lee and I made out on stage," he recalls. "The script called for it, and I do what I'm told. I kind of thought we brought the house down. Hopefully not too far down." Lee Tergesen is feeling a bit queer. But then, he's been through a lot. In the first season of Oz, he became the prison bitch for a white supremacist who branded his ass with a swastika, then dressed him in drag and made him sing "I Got It Bad (And That Ain't Good)." In the second season, he fell in love with Chris Meloni's ultrabutch character, Keller, who proceed to stomp on his heart by breaking his arms and legs. In the third season, Keller tried to make amends to little avail. Now, halfway through the shooting of the fourth season, he finds himself at the show's massive indoor studio in New York's Chelsea district, kissing a shirtless Keller. So, I pull up a chair at one of the tables in the set's common room and ask him what Chris Meloni's chest tastes like. Like the most wonderful chocolate," he says, camping it up. "It didn't really have a taste, to be honest with you. It was pretty early in the day." Besides the fact that "there were definitely Altoids on hand, you know, you don't wanna make a bad first impression," Tergesen had no trouble making out with Meloni. "I mean, I couldn't say that I've never kissed a man before." He says. "It's not the kind of thing that makes me freak out at all. I think what was a little tough at first was the fact that you know it's going to be filmed. You know? There will be evidence. But I mean, come one, look at the man, he's attractive. Chris is built like a brick shithouse, for God's sake." The shithouse swaggers up to our table. (Are those two softballs in his back pockets, or am I just happy to see him?) He and Tergesen are great friends. Meloni insists. ""Behind every great man is a man," Tergesen replies. "I said one time in an interview, ‘Love hurts,' and it was pertaining to breaking Beecher's legs," says Meloni. "And you know, it was funny at the time, but there's also truth in it. High tension leads to high passion. You have the best sex after you've just had a fight. I think our characters have two people trying to learn to survive and trying to understand this animal that's been created between them. An animal that neither one of them has really ever known: trust, loving." Those feelings helped Meloni over the hump when it came time to lock lips with his costar. "There was some trepidation at first," he says. "I mean, guys have stubble and stuff, and after I was five I didn't even want to hold hands with my father or kiss him on the cheek. But finally, it was like, fuck it, let's do it. I was supposed to be drunk in the scene, so I was juggling a lot of emotions. And the second time I had to kiss him-and this was also a valuable learning thing for me-it was tender moment, a kiss of love. This has to mean something. I've only ever had that feeling with the softness of a woman's lips behind it, and her was a guy who Love as an actor and as a friend, but now it was taking it even a notch higher: I love you enough to kiss you, to want you sexually. And I'm telling you we were so nervous we got it in one take. We were afraid of it. We just allowed that atmosphere to permeate the scene. Tough work, but someone's gotta do it. Now, Tergesen has the last word: "I think people really relate to our relationship. I think gay men like the fact that two men were being intimate and there wasn't any sort of discussion of it. And also think it's sexy." One day Chris Meloni would like to have a room completely in rugs. For now, he has killims and Persians and Turkish tent bands on the walls and floor of his downtown Manhattan loft. He also has a Chinese wedding arch and a statue of the Hindu elephant god, Ganesh. "I love symbols of spiritualism," says Meloni, a yoga dabbler who wears a medal of St. Dismas (patron saint of the incarcerated) and has a cubist-primitive crucified Christ inked on his left shoulder. Meloni's wife, Sherman Williams, a film production designer, breezes in with a packet of bills from LA. They were married five years ago. Not only was she the right woman, says Meloni, it was the right time. "Before, my career came first," Meloni says. "There were few search-and-destroy missions, but mostly I just couldn't expend the time and energy going out hounddogging." The couple owns a parcel of land in Los Feliz, where they keep a vintage Airstream trailer. "It's from the last year they made them with wood interiors, " Chris says, licking the air with his tongue. We head out for coffee in his "trusty" Doc Martens, workpants, $3 Salvation Army shirt, a down vest someone left in his apartment, round eyeglasses, and a batik skullcap from Turkey, he looks more like an NYU grad student than a movie star. At his local beanery, Meloni has his usual: four shots of expresso with two sugars. He downs them quickly and tells me about his life. "Christopher Meloni was born April 2, 1961 (a birthday he shares with Casanova, Marvin Gaye, Dana Carvey, and Dragnet's Jack Webb) in Washington DC. The third child of a second-generation Italian endocrinologist and a homemaker of French lineage, Chris was the baby; his sister was six years older; his brother, four. 'They used to call me The Mistake,' Meloni laughs. 'But I ignored it.' He was a garrulous boy who wanted to join the circus; his favorite childhood story was the saga of railroad man John Henry, who picked and hammered his way through a mountain, beating a new-fangled steam engine, then laid down his hammer and died. It taught him about faith and commitment: " You don't see too many examples of that in life - they're mythical." The first movie Meloni saw was either Dr. No or The Blue Max. Either way, he mostly remembers that Ursula Andress was in it. "I had a screaming woody for her," he recalls, a sly grin crossing his face. In school Meloni excelled more at sports than academics. He was the first quarterback to lead his team to an undefeated season in 25 years, but he wasn't an all-American droid. At 15, he lost his virginity, found AC/DC, and had a girl pierce his ear with a needle (hold the ice), though his dad ripped the post out. And at 18, as a sort of graduation present to himself, he referenced Steve McQueen in Papillon by getting a tattoo of a butterfly on his pelvis." After graduation, Meloni enrolled at the University of Colorado. "The week I got accepted, there was an article about the school in Time,'" he recalls. "It said ‘Boulder, where the hip come to trip.' I decided to take a Ph.D. in motorcycle riding and growing my hair long." But after his first year, he took a theater class and was pulled aside one day by the teacher, who told him he was good enough to pursue an acting career. "But," Meloni recalls, "I knew I couldn't declare a drama major and come home with a B in makeup and an A in 17th-century costume design, then ask my father to pay my tuition.'" So, filled with optimism and naiveté, he went west, arriving in an agent's office with long hair, a beard, and squashed bugs all over his leather jacket from the ride. Without so much as a headshot or resume – "I didn't even know what that was," - Meloni wasn't anyone's idea of an actor. After a month, including one night sleeping in LA's down-low MacArthur Park, Meloni headed north to San Francisco, where he proceeded to "get fucked up for two weeks straight. " He drove back across the country to his parent's home in DC where his father simply asked him 'Was it worth it?' Though he couldn't quite explain it, Chris knew somehow that it was. Nevertheless he returned to Boulder, got a BA in history, and wound up at 23, living with his folks. Finding this more than a tad depressing, Meloni called a high school friend one day and followed him to New York, where they studied at the Neighborhood Playhouse. To support himself, he took the usual jobs available to a strapping six-footer. ''I was a bouncer, a bartender at Studio 54 in its third reincarnation, which was like being a rat on a sinking ship, and I worked at the Body Center, a gay gym." It wasn't Meloni's first brush with homosexuals. When he was at Camp Whitehall, the summer between eight and ninth grade, Meloni knew this "very effeminate kid. I liked him, thought he was a kick. And his older brother was a counselor and I remember him saying, ‘Steven's problem is he needs a father figure around so he'd act like a man, because I guess their dad had died or whatever. And even at that young age, I remember thinking, no, that's not right." In college, Meloni had a gay pursuer. "It was the first time a guy had ever said "you've got a great body' to me," he says grinning. "The next thing you know, he's asking me if I like gladiator movies." Around that time, Meloni, who'd gotten a little weary of the alpha-male competitions in the local bars, frequented a bisexual club, where he bumped into his admirer one night. "He followed me out to the parking lot, and I had to talk him down. He thought that maybe I was playing hard to get, ‘cause here I was in the bisexual bar, so I said I go where I want to go, but I don't go there. So let's be friends." Fast-forward to that gym in New York City: "It really turned out to be a wonderful education to see the cast of characters within this small tribe," Meloni says. "From the flouncy, bouncy guys who were just going to parade their sexuality, to the kid from Kansas who always had this troubling feeling emanating from him, and one day we were just talking and I looked down and I see these jagged scars on his wrists, and it broke my heart. It was good to understand and also realize my inherent homophobia from where I'd come from, which was conservative northern Virginia, borderline rebel yell, redneck, Molly Hatchet, Lynyrd Skynyrd territory." Unless you count his first job, as a Flemish-speaking runner in a commercial for a Belgian hamburger chain, it took Meloni a while to hit his stride as an actor. In his first big TV appearance, he played an assassin who wore a ski cap over his face; they added insult to injury by overdubbing his voice. Meloni went on to do sitcoms that critics loved and networks cancelled, TV movies and miniseries, and small, thuggish roles in films. A few years ago it all kicked in. Meloni appeared on Homicide, seduced Kim Delaney on NYPD Blue, starred as stand-up comedian in the Indie film The Souler Opposite (which is soon to be released on video), and landed Oz, the Special Victims Unit. "It's such a cliché," he laughs, "but I started getting the jobs when I didn't give a fuck anymore." A lunch date at some mozzarella store in Manhattan: On the wall, there's a photo of Meloni and the man who runs the place. But that doesn't cut any mustard. Although he proprietor greets Meloni warmly, like a true paesan, he still has to wait in line for his "sangwich." Wheeling his bicycle up to a nearby park, we sit on a beach. As he wolfs down prosciutto, arugula, and sundried tomatoes (hold the oil!) on focaccia, Chris asks, meat hanging from mouth, "Do you want a slab of this action?" No, but thanks for asking. So he gives me a Rollimilk (the Italian equivalent of a Devil Dog). We eat and watch the pre-Easter parade of New Yorkers going about their Saturday. A skinny woman in a girl's dress and Pippi Longstocking hose passes in front of us, giggling to herself. Meloni narrows his eyes with concern. "That's a lot of sadness and a lot of beauty wrapped up in one package," he says. A Chinese man walks by. "That's Dr. Woo," says Chris. "He plays chess in the park." An aspiring writer-director, Meloni has written a film about chess players and drug dealers that is set in this very park. He asks what my story angle is and has a suggestion: "Go Picasso on me here. Make this story interpretive. Give 'em something so they'll be like "Who the what?" Let's start with your head. Why does everybody write about your sizeable brow? Because my hair is receding? What are you usually complimented on? My ass or my eyes. My smile. Or my ass. What is your strangest possession? Suits. Cause I hate to dress up. What are two things you find appealing about men? They're good to talk with and that's about it. I don't have much use for guys. Two things about women? Their breasts and their strength. A strange place where you've made love? In a bathroom stall in a women's room in a nightclub. A special place on your body that feels unbelievably good when kissed or touched? That place right between your scrotum and your ass. An unfulfilled sexual fantasy? An orgy situation A fulfilled sexual fantasy? Two women. Create a newspaper headline you would like to read about yourself. 'Meloni wins Oscar and Lotto all in the same night.' If you were king or queen of your own country what laws would you enact? I would make sure the educational system was the best in the world. And I would have bacchanalias every night. One piece of wisdom you would pass on to your own son? Believe in God, find God, be happy, and work hard. That's four. Which two famous people would you choose as your parents? Joseph Campbell - as my mother (laughs>), No seriously, who would my mother be? Ivana Trump? Pro or con: what is your opinion of the right to have an abortion? It's an individual choice. Equal rights for gays? Completely pro. If you were in prison how would you spend your time? Reading every book ever written . One last question: What is going to be your next blockbuster movie? Oh, I don't know. I guess Hollywood lost my number. But I'm sure after this story they'll be calling." Back on the OZ set Meloni is talking about another magical place: Fire Island. "Oh my God. Last year was the first time I'd ever been. My wife and agent were already there. They said 'We'll meet you at the ferry dock.' I took the wrong boat and got off at Cherry Grove instead of the Pines. Someone said 'Take a water taxi.' So I wait. No water taxi. Fuck it, I'll take the beach. The boardwalk ends, and I'm trudging through the woods like Peter O'Toole in Lawrence of Arabia. My agent got the biggest kick out of me trolling through the Meat Rack with my suitcase. Meloni even went to tea. "I had my dance card punched," he says with a laugh. "People were very effusive. Of course, Lee Tergesen had been there a week before and all of the Pines was abuzz." Perhaps the gossipers were simply fans of the show who were wondering whether or not there was a fairy-tale happy ending for Oz in sight. Even halfway through shooting the new season Meloni doesn't really know what fate - or the twisted mind of Oz creator Tom Fontana- has in store for his character, Keller, and his love affair with Tergesen's Beecher. "Keller has a confession to make about his past life," is all Meloni will say. "And the relationship with Beecher continues to be rocky at best." In other words, lock yourself down. It's going to be a bumpy ride.
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