Nathan is gay

A Us magazine reporter once caught him off guard who did not shy away asking him if he was gay.

Lane tried his best to avoid talking about it, however, during his appearance in The Oprah Winfrey Show, the host hinted at the topic by saying, "Oh, you're so good at that girly stuff."

The actor said Robin Williams, his co-actor in the LGBT-themed movie, sensed her intentions and immediately diverted the conversation away, protecting him in the process.

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.”

Of course, Lane knew that playing a gay character in the film would make discussing his sexuality in real life “sort of unavoidable,” but he still wasn’t ready to do so.

“I don’t think Oprah was trying to out me, but I said to Robin beforehand, ‘I’m not prepared.

I went to CAA. That was a mistake.

“Everyone knew. “It was all so intimidating. It is slated to premiere April 26 on Showtime.

And in spring 2021, Lane will take on the iconic role of Willy Loman — opposite Laurie Metcalf’s Linda Loman — in a new Broadway production of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, produced by Scott Rudin. 

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For much more from Nathan Lane on the making of The Birdcage, tune in to the latest episode of It Happened in Hollywood.

“I was not prepared at all for that,” Lane said about openly discussing his sexuality at the time. “She was like, ‘How come you’re so good at that girlie stuff? I said to Mike, ‘As the only gay person in the scene, I feel a little uncomfortable saying this and I don’t know why the character would be using that term.'” 

“I felt lucky just to be invited to the party, so it was very hard for me to question him at all,” Lane says.

He was this shaved head, moustached old queen and he said, ‘Maybe if you weren’t so open about your sexuality you’d have more offers.’ So I left. ‘Where fun goes to die.'”

But don’t feel too badly for Lane, whose career is thriving both onstage and off, with a pair of dramatic roles. I’m not prepared to discuss that I’m gay on national television.

Lane and his husband, Elliott, dated each other for eighteen years before exchanging their vows. 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’m not ready,’” Lane said.

You do the math. I’m so scared of going out there and talking to Oprah. “I said, ‘Alexander the Great was a fag.’ … I couldn’t figure out why Mike and [screenwriter] Elaine [May] wouldn’t let go of this.

He mentioned that his colleagues and everyone associated with the New York theater scene knew of his sexual orientation prior to his public coming out.

“And I certainly wasn’t ready to go from table-to-table and tell them all I was gay. ‘Yeah, we already knew! I can barely deal with meeting Oprah, let alone telling her I’m gay.’

“She says to me something like, ‘Oh, you’re so good at that girly stuff.’ Or whatever it was.

“He did the classic, ‘Just do one for me.’ Of course, that’s what he used.”

After the film’s release — it became a box office hit, grossing $124 million domestically, or $202 million today — Lane was traumatized by a disturbing fan interaction: “I was sitting in a cab in traffic in Manhattan and there was a guy in a truck next to me.