Rex Meets
Wes Interview With Boy Meets Boy Winner Wes
Culwell by Rex
Wockner
(San Diego, California) I sat down with
Boy Meets Boy winner Wes Culwell this week to get the inside scoop on Bravo's
fascinating yet controversial reality series.
The controversial twist, of
course, was that seven of the 15 guys from which lead player James was trying to
choose a boyfriend were secretly straight but pretending to be gay. James
outsmarted the producers in the end, and chose Wes.
Rex: One day,
Wes, you're an ordinary San Diego homosexual working at the LGBT Center. You
probably went for drinks at Flicks or Numbers or maybe Pecs, like the rest of
us. And then you're chosen to be on this show. At some point, a few months ago,
you're off to Palm Springs for 10 days to film this thing. You come back home.
You went back to your job. You couldn't tell anybody anything. Then the show
starts airing. Then, as you already knew, you win the thing. And now you're kind
of like a celebrity. How weird is it?
Wes: It's very strange.
I've been an actor since I was two years old, so I'm used to talking to people.
But now it's, "I know you." ... They've seen you laugh, they've seen you cry,
they've seen you have a crush on somebody. It's a really bizarre thing because
they really get to know you.
Rex: Is it a different experience
walking through WeHo and Hillcrest already?
Wes: Absolutely. Being
in my early 20s, you get used to the cruising situation, always looking up and
down, but now they have a reason to come up and say hello. So, it's a different
thing. I love that people actually watched the show. And I guess the way I was
portrayed, and who I am, makes them comfortable enough to come up and talk to
me. That's great. But it's very different now walking through West Hollywood,
through Chelsea in New York, walking through Hillcrest here in San Diego.
Especially Hillcrest because it's where I'm from. My friends are like, "Oh, my
God!" -- then half of the people I don't know.
Rex: Is it weird or
are you enjoying it?
Wes: Both. I wouldn't have done it if I
didn't expect some of this. But it's much larger than I ever thought it would
be. But I knew it's reality TV and knew you're putting yourself out there to let
people get to know who you are. So, it's weird but it's
great.
Rex: You'll have to stay out of the bushes at Black's Beach
from now on.
Wes: I don't know what you're talking about! What's
Black's Beach?!
Rex: How did you get chosen to be on the
show?
Wes: I was at Flicks [a San Diego gay bar]. I was doing
outreach for the LGBT Center. I was approached by ... one of the casting
directors and he told me the premise, and the minute I heard "reality TV" -- uh,
no. I mean, I loved my job, I was doing some really good non-profit work, so I
wasn't really interested in going that path. I saw him again later that
night.
I was, like, "Thanks, anyway." The next night I went out
again ... and saw him at Bourbon Street. He was: "C'mon, just come and talk to
us. Let us tell you what it's about." So, after two-and-a-half days of seeing
him everywhere in San Diego, I decided to go in there. [In the end], I thought
... the fact that they're doing a gay Bachelor and it's going to be on a
national network, that, to me, was the big selling point.
I
thought, no matter what happens, if I can go on and show myself as a strong gay
man who's not afraid of my sexuality and doesn't fall into any major stereotype,
that's great. That was my main objective. And what a plus if you find someone
you really connect with.
Rex: Was your gaydar broken like James',
or did you have suspicions that some of the guys were
straight?
Wes: It's funny. Coming from the LGBT non-profit sector,
you see every single type of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender -- you see the
spectrum. But there were many moments during the show when I was like,
"What?"
One of the guys, he's a DJ and his DJ name is DJ Positive. When
he told me that, I'm like: "DJ Positive? Do you realize the connotations?" ...
He was, "What do you mean?" No idea. Another guy, Paul, lives here in San Diego.
I saw him come on the first day and he's wearing this huge baggy T-shirt and
these huge, oversized shorts and I'm like, "You don't have to be a fashion guru
to be a gay man, but did you even go shopping for national
TV?"
Little things like that.
Dan came out of the bathroom
one day and he's all dressed up and he has puka-shell necklaces on, and he said,
"What do you think?" And I said: "Puka-shell necklaces? Dan, what kind of gay
man are you?" And I watched his face just drop.
Now it makes sense!
Now it makes sense! So there were little things all along the way. People's
coming out stories, they seemed sometimes a little contrived. ... But what I
found so interesting is that the friends that I really bonded with, that we were
tight right away, were with the gay men. I don't know if that was because gay
men do have the special bond, that kind of like sixth sense. Or was I picking up
some of the deception, that I wasn't trusting some of the guys. ... Definitely
the deep bonds were with the gay men.
Rex: This is all in
retrospect. Your suspicions never rose to a conscious level?
Wes:
Right. Not at all. During the show I thought: Wow, what a great casting job that
they can show this spectrum of gay men. ... I was thinking they did a great job
of finding 15 dynamic gay men.
Rex: What were your feelings about
the twist itself, once everything was on the table?
Wes: When I
found out about the twist, I was a little like, hmmm.
Rex: When
did you find out?
Wes: James whispered in my ear during the last
scene, "There's a twist." You don't see him do it [on the edited program].
During the hug. ... Then we walk off hand-in-hand ready to start our new
adventure and that's when they sat me down and said, "Here's the whole
story."
My first reaction was, "What was the point?" ... Then they
explained the premise of the show. [The] Evolution [company] is a totally gay
production staff. They wanted to bring Middle America into the show. ... They
wanted to show gay men interacting with straight men and vice versa. So, when I
first heard the twist, I was like, not so much.
But when the entire
show aired ... I think it did its purpose. I get e-mails from Middle America
saying, "My son just came out and he's 15 and, wow, you've given him a role
model." Queer As Folk is a great show but it's so oversexualized. And a lot of
times that's all Middle America sees of the gay community. Sexuality is
absolutely a part of our community, but there's the other side -- romance and
friendships that sometimes get brushed under the table because they're not quite
as sensational, not quite as good ratings.
Rex: How was the
editing?
Wes: What you didn't see of me was a lot of my campiness.
I was pretty campy. I had a great time. I was myself. One of the biggest things
they cut out that would have given away that I was a gay guy was at the
karaoke.
When I walked in and saw Coco Peru, I almost died. I love
Coco Peru. I walked in and my jaw just went clunk. I mean, I never get
starstruck, but it's Coco Peru! My jaw just dropped and I just went [he
screeches]. It was the gayest moment of my life. Of course, they had to cut that
out because straight men wouldn't know who Coco Peru was.
You also
didn't see all the chaos of James' and my last date. At the lookout point a
group of 13-year-old girls thought we were a boy band and they were pounding on
the window of the limousine wanting our autographs.
We're like: "We're in
a gay show. Get out of here." Then, the carriage ride around Palm Springs, we
got pulled over by the police. There's an open-container law and we were
drinking champagne. They were writing citations. We were like: "Producers!
Help!" The limousine crashed into the fountain in front of the leading man's
house -- broke the fountain, cracked the transmission. And we're like, "Is this
romantic or is it insane, I can't tell?" And then the fire [which you saw]. It
was one of those nights.
Rex: And what's up with you and James
these days?
Wes: People don't understand that when we left the set
[on May 18th], contractually, you cannot see each other, because it ruins the
end of the show. You can go out in groups, you can make phone calls and do
e-mails, but you can't spend one-on-one time together.
When you have a
high budget like with The Bachelor shows, they will actually rent suites in
hotels so you can have one-on-one dates, but it's Bravo, God love 'em, they
don't have the hugest budgets in the world.
They've done great with it,
but we didn't have the option. They were like, "Do what you gotta do, don't be
seen in public together." So it's been five months now and we have been keeping
in contact with phone calls three or four times a week, e-mails, going out in
groups, but, really, it's such a hard thing to try to keep up. You know, "I
don't really know you, enjoyed the show," but you can't be romantic. So now that
the show's over, we're picking up where we left off.
There's
potential there, definitely. Absolutely. But where you saw us walking off
hand-in-hand, that's where we're picking up now. The trip to New Zealand [that
we won] is in March.
Rex: What are you doing
now?
Wes: I move to L.A. on Monday. I start college tours in the
next couple of weeks ... talking about the social aspects of being gay and being
out on a national platform. It's called Rainbow College Tours.
I'm going
to be pursuing hosting opportunities. [I want to] use that 15 minutes [of fame]
to actually do some good, that's what I'm excited about. ... It's reality TV. It
is 15 minutes. I think if you're smart with it, you can transition
into different things. But, the level of celebrity does diminish.
We're a
week out of the show. But there's gonna be a peak and then it's gonna calm down,
which I think James and I both welcome. You know, it's fun, but you gotta figure
out, what can I do with these 15 minutes, how can I make the most out of it? You
gotta do something great with it, because you've been handed
it.