Male Comedian (LV12)
This comics big break came in 1999 when he auditioned to replace the much beloved John Henson as the host of E’s “Talk Soup,” which poked fun at clips and guests that appeared on talk shows. He was popular with the show’s devoted audience, and offered a slightly more manic take on the events than his predecessors, which had also included Greg Kinnear. However, he left the show after a year to focus on his acting career. His first post-“Soup” gig was the broad comedy “Dude, Where’s My Car?” (2000), in which he played the leader of a cult of space-obsessed misfits.
That same year, he landed his most dramatic role to date in “Queer As Folk,” the American version of the popular and controversial BBC drama about the lives and loves of several gay men. Over the course of the show’s four seasons on Showtime, his character, Michael Novotny, achieved fame through his own comic book and happiness with a longtime partner, with whom he adopted a son, but struggled with his best friend Brian’s accusations of selling out to the heterosexual lifestyle. The show, which was among the most popular of Showtime’s original series, earned this comic some of his best reviews.
