Nathan Lane said in an interview with Vanity Fair that he lost out on a role in 1996’s “Space Jam” and was told it was because he was just “too gay.” While Lane said he never knows “what goes on behind closed doors,” he “can’t help but think” that homophobia “played a part” in shaping the roles he could or couldn’t do. He cited “Space Jam” as an example.
“I was told [being gay did] impact a movie that I didn’t really care about: ‘Space Jam.’ I was up for the part that the guy from Seinfeld wound up playing,” Lane said of being up for the role of Michael Jordan’s publicist and assistant Stan, ultimately played by Wayne Knight in the movie. “I was up for that part. Apparently the director saw me hosting the Tony Awards and thought that suggested I was too gay to play the part. So thank God, I didn’t have to do ‘Space Jam.’”
“But I don’t know. I’ll never know what people say,” Lane added. “Homophobia is alive and well still. Before I die, it would be lovely to get to play a juicy, serious supporting role in some film. That’s why I’m very grateful to Ryan Murphy. He let me play Dominic Dunne and F. Lee Bailey. I mean, things are great. I don’t want it to seem like I don’t have a really terrific, enviable career.”
Lane thought his profile in Hollywood would be raised significantly after the success off 1996’s “The Birdcage,” directed by Mike Nichols and co-starring Rob Williams. The comedy was a box office hit with $185 million worldwide.
“I thought perhaps because of the success of that, it’d lead to other films, but then it didn’t,” Lane said. “It really didn’t. I said to my agent, ‘I thought more would happen after “The Birdcage.”‘ He said, ‘Maybe if you weren’t so open about your lifestyle, it would have.’ And was an old queen telling me this. So I left him. Mike Nichols sent me to CAA. But no, there weren’t a lot of opportunities.”
Lane revealed on “Sunday Today” in 2023 that Williams protected him from coming out as gay against his will on national television during their press tour for “The Birdcage.” The two star in the film as a gay couple trying to marry off their son to a conservative couple’s daughter. Lane was nervous about doing an interview on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” as “The Birdcage” was one of his first major film roles, and he did not want to come out publicly as gay at the time.
“I was not prepared at all for that,” Lane said about openly discussing his sexuality at the time. “And I certainly wasn’t ready to go from table-to-table and tell them all I was gay. I just wanted to talk about finally [getting] a big part in a movie, and I didn’t want to make it about my sexuality… I don’t think Oprah was trying to out me, but I said to Robin beforehand, ‘I’m not prepared. I’m so scared of going out there and talking to Oprah. I’m not prepared to discuss that I’m gay on national television. I’m not ready.’ He said, ‘Oh, it’s alright, don’t worry about — we don’t have to talk about it. We won’t talk about it.’”
Winfrey did end up asking questions that left the door open for Lane to come out. “She was like, ‘How come you’re so good at that girlie stuff? Are you worried about being typecast?’” the actor remembered. Then Williams “sort of swoops in and diverts Oprah, goes off on a tangent and protects me because he was a saint.” Lane called Williams a “beautiful, sensitive soul.”
