Talk Soup's former host has a burgeoning movie career. In his latest film, As Good As It Gets, Greg Kinnear plays it gay - and learns a lesson or two about homophobia.

The year was 1991, and talk shows were on the rise. There was Geraldo, The Oprah Winfrey Show The Ricki Lake Show, Donahue, The Maury Povich Show, The Jerry Springer Show The Sally Jessy Raphael Show, and Jenny Jones. How to keep up?

Greg Kinnear gave us the answer. As host of E! Entertainment Television's Talk Soup, Kinnear delivered, five nights a week , a wacky roundup of the day's talk-show goings-on. An off-the-cuff wit combined with those movie-star looks made him an instant hit among TV viewers.

Not to mention network executives. In 1994, Kinnear left Talk Soup to replace departing host Bob Costas on NBC's late-night talk show Later. During that stint Kinnear's star kept rising. Although in Hollywood-studio terms he was still an unknown, Kinnear was offered one of the year's most sought-after film roles, as the dreamboat playboy in Sydney Pollack's 1995 remake of Sabrina.

The film was a critical failure, but the camera loved Kinnear. Since Sabrina he's starred in Dear God, A Smile Like Yours, and the upcoming romantic comedy As Good As It Gets. Director James L. Brooks (of Terms of Endearment and Broadcast News fame), it focuses on two offbeat characters played by Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt. Kinnear plays an openly gay artist whose own change of circumstances bring the two misguided lovers together.

With the film set to open on Christmas Day, Kinnear sat down with The Advocate to discuss his first gay screen role. Despite longtime speculation on the part of his gay fans, off-screen Kinnear is definitely straight, and he's engaged to his longtime girl friend. But Kinnear, 34, was forthcoming on many subjects, including gay stereotypes, homophobia, and his large gay following.

At the film's outset Jack Nicholson's character, Melvin, is terribly hateful. He's racist, he's sexist, he's homophobic. How do you think audiences will respond to that?

I've been to several screenings, and you can almost hear the brief half a millisecond where people are inhaling and all the oxygen goes out of the theater. Melvin goes to these horrible, horrible places. And you learn very quickly that you have no control over what he's going to do or say in these situations.

As the film's primary gay character, you am the target of Melvin's homophobia. He calls you a "pansy" and a "fag." He refers to your black friends as "fudge packers." What was it like to absorb that type of abuse?

It was horrible. I mean really horrible. I can only imagine what it's like to be the victim of a gay bashing and I'm not even talking about violence. To have somebody screaming at you, to have that kind of raw hatred directed so intimately and so personally at you-it's totally disarming.

How did that on-screen hatred affect you off-screen?

Well, you carry that around with you. I'd he over at the craft services table getting myself a bagel, and after having somebody screaming at me and making those sorts of attacks on me, it takes a while to shake it off.

How did you shake it off?

The one thing I had going for me was the fact that Jack is genuinely a friendly and gentle guy. So when we'd stop filming, that tension or whatever it was-that sort of boiling point that he would create when the cameras were rolling-would quickly dissipate. But it still would affect me. It really would. It was definitely jarring.

When I first heard that you were involved with this project, it didn't surprise me. In fact, it seemed like a pretty appropriate casting choice. I always thought you were gay-friendly simply from the way you handled gay subject matter on Talk Soup. But I never thought you were gay. From what I understand, there was a great deal of Internet speculation about your sexuality during the time you hosted Talk Soup. Why do you think that is?

It seems to happen to a lot of people who are in this line of work. And for whatever reason it seems to be a pretty common occurrence. I guess that's part of the game. I never stop to look back or think that much about it.

It's interesting that you took this role before the success of either My Best Fiend's Wedding or In & Out. I understand the allure of working with Nicholson and Brooks, but weren't you at all apprehensive about taking on a gay role?

I suppose it would be easy to look at that and think it caused a lot of thinking and introspection on my part when I first heard about it or was even approached about it, but I really didn't. I mean, this truly was one of the best scripts I had ever read-and still have ever read. This character, Simon Nye, was just extraordinary. He had decency and humanity. He was complex. He bad all the layers and contradictions that you look for in a character-straight, gay, whatever. So for me, it was, "Wow, how often do you read something like this? In terms of playing a gay character, I really didn't give it that much consideration, not nearly as much as I did to the fact that this was an extraordinary part.

Did anyone advise you against taking the role?

No. Not one person suggested that to me. And I was listening for it too. From friends of mine to the people who represent me to just any of the folks I talk to about my career.

Did that surprise you?

You know what? It's 1997, and across the board every great actor whom I love, admire, and respect, from Al Pacino to William Hurt to Tom Hanks, has played a gay character. Playing Simon really didn't feel like a groundbreaking tour de force to me. I'm not leading the entire movie industry into some uncharted waters here. I mean, in this day and age, it's almost like, "What? He's playing a white heterosexual? Man, that guy's crazy. [Laughs] Man, I've heard of risk before, but this is unbelievable."

Were your parents concerned about your taking this role?

They had read the script as well, and both of them thought it was effective material. That was the only conversation we had about it until I called them up and said, "Meet Simon Nye." They were ecstatic.

Your father was a member of the State Department. I know that you've lived in places such as Lebanon and Greece, depending on his assignments. Was it a pretty conservative atmosphere growing up?

Totally, totally. You know, a lot of Brooks Brothers clothes happening at our house. But I was lucky. There's a great line in the film Parenthood. Mary Steenburgen says something like, "By the time the third or fourth kid comes along, you just let 'em juggle knives." And t was the third kid, so by the time I was in high school, there was a pretty loose atmosphere around our house.

I also understand that one of your brothers works at the Billy Graham Training Center in North Carolina. Did he have a negative response to your taking this role?

No, he was quite pleased for me. I think he's just stunned that I'm actually making a living at this point.

The original press material for the film described Simon as a 'flamboyant" artist. But in the final cut of the movie, you don't play him that way. How did this character change during the course of the filming? Was there a time when you went kind of over the top and were told to pull it back?

When we started shooting, never once was flamboyance suggested. It just didn't exist. Had Jim wanted to, you know, push that a little bit more, listen, I'm a hired guy-I certainly would have gone with whatever direction he wanted to go. But early on in the process, we established the tone of Simon Nye. There weren't a lot of times where we're thinking, Wow, let's just go crazy over here in this part of it. There was a tone that came together early on that seemed to work for both of us. I didn't want to push it so far in one direction to detract from the overall film. I mean, if the character starts getting too Birdcage-ish, it was really going to start to detract from a very sensitive story. And more important than any of the characters was the story, ultimately.

Did you base the character on anyone you know?

Not really. I've been In Los Angeles for ten years. I have friends who are gay. I've worked with people who are gay. But, again, to use The Birdcage analogy, I knew that I didn't want it to become a caricature of itself. Simply because I had nothing to draw on there. None of my friends who are gay and none of the people I've worked with who are gay are really flamboyant. I had no experience to draw on in that area. So that was never going to be a possibility for me.

From what I understand, during your first week on Later you appeared in drag as Gretchen Kinnear.

Wow, you've got some late-night habits, pal.

Did you apply anything you learned as Gretchen to the role of Simon?

Well, wearing the high heels was a little more painful than I thought it was going to be, but other than that...

There is a scene early on in the film in which you're arguing with Melvin. At one point you turn away from him and fling your head around. Do you consider that Simon's most flamboyant gesture?

Well, you know, Jim gave me the little flinging-of-the-head idea, which was fun. I mean, there were a couple of places where I feel like we had a little more fun with the character. Jim was always throwing in ideas like that.

Did other gay people on the set give you any pointers?

Listen, anybody on the set who had an idea, we'd gravitate toward it.

It's unfortunate that Simon doesn't have the opportunity to engage in a romantic relationship with anyone.

There was a story line cut out between Simon and the character played by Skeet Ulrich-a hustler. In the original script there was a little flirty thing happening. The fact of the matter is, there was a whole secondary plot about a percolating love story between the two of us. It takes place in my apartment, and we're talking about life. The flirting is all done through words but done very, very effectively. But much of that story line was lost just because the original cut of the movie was consider-ably longer than it is now. That was a part of the movie that I had to go through a bit of a mourning process on.

What if James Brooks had kept that story line in and expanded it to include some sort of sexual tension between you two? Would that make you uncomfortable? Would that be something where you'd stop for a moment?

I'd stop for a moment. But I'd stop not necessarily because of the homosexual element of it. I'd probably stop for a moment with regard to a similar heterosexual scene. I would think about that as well. It just depends on the context. Everything depends on appropriateness and whether it's gratuitous or necessary to advance the story. It's hard for me to answer specifically how I'd deal with a scene when I don't really know its specifics.

Now that you have some distance from the film and some perspective on it, did the filming of this project change any views you might have on what it's like to be gay and what homophobia is, exactly?

Well, I consider myself a pretty nice guy, and I try and be decent to everybody, but, boy, it certainly was a reminder for me of how any minority-in this case it was gay people-that is subject to those sort of day-to-day persecutions is always fighting an uphill battle.

I'd probably have a much better wardrobe.