Gale Harold: My fans are everything

For Gale Harold fans, the October 14, 2008 motorcycle crash that landed him in ICU was doubly devastating. Not only had the man they'd come to love on "Queer As Folk" suffered a potentially life threatening injury, but it also meant he would be MIA from their lives for a while.

Tonight, a "100 percent recovered" Gale returns to television with his first recurring role since his accident on "Hellcats." He plays Julian, Marti's socially conscious law professor -- but unlike everyone else at LancerUniversity, Julian doesn't see her specialness from the jump. In fact, he doesn't even think she belongs there. Maybe it's all the flannels and belly shirts. Just a guess.

PopWrap: How did you come to join "Hellcats?"
Gale Harold: It was pretty straight forward. I saw the script, read it and thought the dialogue was great. Plus, my character gets involved with some pretty difficult socially relevant work. So I auditioned and voila.

PW: What can you tell us about your character, Julian Parish?
Gale: He’s Marti's pre-law professor. I haven't really gotten the full backstory on him yet, but my version of it is that he’s an idealistic, and therefore somewhat impoverished, lawyer who believes in social justice. Specifically the three-strikes law.

PW: Does he instantly take a liking to Marti?
Gale: He actually serves as a counterpoint to Marti because he doesn’t really take her seriously. He can’t imagine that a cheerleader would have the time, the will or the interest to do what it takes to become a lawyer, so he tries to weed those people out early so not one seat is wasted. He loves the legal profession, but he knows that it can be a time waster if the students aren’t serious.

PW: Is he a scary guy?
Gale: That’s kind of the challenge – my nature is to sometimes come across a bit crass, kind of cold, so it’s trying to balance that and all of that verbose legalese so it makes sense to the audience .. and the other actors.

PW: Are you good with lots of jargon filled monologues?
Gale: I’m trying. I’m working on it. For me, the interesting thing has been trying to move quickly but naturally with complicated ideas when there’s several of them. You’re moving from point to point to point. I think we've all been in the position when you’re up against the teacher who goes so fast you’re scrambling just to keep up. But you can’t, in my opinion, do that dramatically on television. Finding the balance has been fascinating for me as an actor.

PW: Would you have made a good lawyer?
Gale: I was a good student, but I've watched trial footage and I don’t think my acting skills would get me there. I think that’s kind of a myth, or an odd way of looking at it, that lawyers are good actors. I think good lawyers are straight-forward machine-like communicators. But I would have loved to have the opportunity.

PW: Well it's just nice to see you back in front of a camera after your accident -- how are you feeling now?
Gale: Yeah, 100 percent recovered. I’m good, I’m back.

PW: I would imagine you felt the love from your fans in a way like never before during the healing process.
Gale: It’s funny because during the recovery process I was very, very reclusive. That’s how my recovery was laid out for me. I wasn’t aware of anything until later – but yes, people were amazing. I also think that was kind of the larger wake up call in surviving this type of accident – people who say they like what you’re doing really mean it, it’s not like they’re trying to get inside your head. They just like what you’re doing and it’s very kind. I’m trying to figure out how to engage in a more direct way because your audience is everything if you’re an actor. I might be hitting the airwaves soon – I’ve got some tricks up my sleeve.