When was the moment you wanted to become an actor? Who were early inspirations growing up?
Buck Andrews: In a way,
Special is my coming out party as an actor. Iâve been writing for a while, and then I started acting in my own sketches and hosted a live show with one of my best friends in college. But I never thought that acting was something Iâd fully be doing. My main inspirations growing up were theatrical pop stars like Lady Gaga dressing up as Jo Calderone at the VMAs or Björk at the Royal Opera House. And then later in life, Lisa Kudrow. Ryan and the writerâs room showed me [Kudrowâs HBO comedy series]
It was heartwarming â and very medical. It felt like we were on the set of
The Good Doctor; Iâd have people putting swabs up my nose all day and everyone was hidden behind a face shield. But PPE aside, I would do it all again in a heartbeat. The directors Craig [Johnson] and Anna [Dokoza] made me feel so comfortable on set and Punam [Patel], Ryan, Max [Jenkins] and the rest of the cast made it so â dare I say, special!
Tell me about Henry and the impact he has on Ryan.
I think of Henry as a liberating gateway drug for Ryan. Heâs Ryanâs pill in accessible Ibiza. He introduces him to other disabled people and shows Ryan that thereâs a world of possibilities.
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Lady Gaga performs onstage during the MTV Europe Music Awards 2011 live show at at the Odyssey Arena on Nov. 6, 2011 in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
You could count on one hand and probably still have some fingers left over the number of pop albums this century that have been as widely and wildly anticipated as Lady Gaga s second full-length album
Born This Way.
Released worldwide 10 years ago this weekend, the album followed two years of Gaga racking up massive hit singles ( Just Dance, Poker Face, Bad Romance ), with accompanying larger-than-life music videos and headline-grabbing live performances that helped cement her as music s biggest new star.
Justin de Villeneuve/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
In showbiz, personality goes a long way.
Personalities go even further. Artists throughout history have used alter egos as a means of stepping outside of themselves and communicating ideas they otherwise cannot. It can be cathartic and creatively liberating and it’s a great marketing gimmick. Below, we celebrate 11 performers who’ve given us strange alter egos.
1. Garth Brooks // Chris Gaines
Capitol
In the 1990s, nobody sold more records than Garth Brooks. So it was a little surprising when, in 1999, the country mega-star ditched the hat, grew a soul patch, and reinvented himself as fictional Australian rocker Chris Gaines. Brooks was developing a movie about Gaines called