Cheyenne Jackson...

...wants you to stop looking at him.


Okay, okay. Take a good long look. Drink it all in.


Happy 34th birthday to Broadway's yummiest. May Hollywood realize he needs to be in another movie or a movie musical immediately. What is taking so damn long?
*

Underappreciated: Tom Lenk

So another Halloween passed us by and I barely mentioned the greatest show ever (Buffy the Vampire Slayer). It's been off the air for five years but it's about the undead so I figure this justifies obsessing on it many years after its demise. After my third time chronologically through the series sometime in 2007, the Boyfriend demanded that I put the DVDs away for a good long while (even though he loves the show too). I'm a year sober now. Maybe in the spring he'll let me start from Season 1 Episode 1 again!?

Is this post filler? You'll be surprised to hear that it's not. I'm just rambling on my way to a new series recognizing underemployed/underappreciated actors in the hopes that some day some where some casting director will say 'that Nathaniel... he's so right!'. And here's where we begin.

I want to say congratulations to actor Tom Lenk who is now officially out of the closet. He's most well known if not famous for his recurring role as "Andrew" super-villain turned Scooby gang fringe-dweller on seasons 6 & 7 of Buffy. Joss Whedon was probably too much of a softie when it came to fan favorites on that departed show. He often let them take over and some overstayed their welcome (obviously Spike did --he was a great character but he made less and less narrative sense to keep around) and some would place Lenk's Andrew in that category, too. But when the show used Andrew sparingly to spike a scene with geeky amoral humor, Lenk always came through. So here's the very funny and talented Tom Lenk in two small doses, satirically embracing two icons of the gays, Britney with a great cabaret version of "Gimme More" and Madonna's "Hung Up".



Another reason to love Tom Lenk... he played "Tommy", a.k.a. 'Floyd's Boy' in the great Boogie Nights. See -- there he is!

These are the next stars. These are real people in the world.
-Floyd Gondoli, Boogie Nights (1997)

Anything connected to Boogie Nights is worth loving ...give or take f***in' idiot "Scotty" (Philip Seymour Hoffman)