"Greek" Star Paul James Looking Forward to "French" Kissing

Last summer we chatted up twenty-one-old actor Paul James on "Greek", the new ABC Family comedy on college life and the fraternity and sorority system. Jams plays "Calvin", the only recurring black male character on the series, and, is the fraternity's resident wealthy "legacy" and a jock. His character is also gay and introducing a trendy homo aesthetic to the series. This week's episode "had more gay jokes than I could keep track of," notes our blogging buddy Shana Naomi Krochmal at Out.com's Popnography. "Including a nice shout-out to Anderson Cooper, a serious discussion about the appeal of Tim McGraw's irresistible package, and the first truly hilarious treatment I've seen of the nightmare that is so-called "conversion therapy."

There is more Paul James over at Out.com, where Shana asks the actor about his new on-screen boyfriend, "Veronica Mars" and "Ugly Betty" alum Max Greenfield, whom he describes as a personal friend for the past three years. Paul also follows up on a promise about some mouth-to-mouth action.

You didn't get any kisses last season.
No, we didn't have any! I hear that they're going to work up to it. It's funny -- the guy from As the World Turns, Jake Silbermann, is a friend of mine too. I went to college with him. I know they're getting a lot of flak for [the gay characters not kissing]. It's definitely a different situation over here. It's not a network thing, and it's not a creator thing. Sean is just making sure that it's not this event, like a marketing campaign, like, "First gay kiss!" That's cheap. He wants it to be something that happens naturally for the character.

When Max was getting cast, did you talk with him about it?
I didn't know he was getting cast until he showed up at the table read. I was like, "Max, what are you doing here?" And he said, "I'm playing your boyfriend!"

Are you close? Are you going to be cool if you end up making out?
Oh, yeah, yeah. I hope he has the proper mouth etiquette and I'll do the same. He's easy to work with.

Last year, the actor said he would have "no problems" kissing another man on screen. "A lot of times, the well-written roles for black actors are gay roles. They have some depth, something beyond I'm a thug on the street. I have no qualms about it at all as long as the material is good which it is ... "It's real important to me [to] show little kids who are gay that you don't have to be afraid of who you are. You can be happy.".

Don't you love this guy?

Exclusive: Greek's Family Values [Popnography]
Greek's Family Values [Out.com]

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Comments

[Shabaka]

OMG, so down to earth! Never saw the show and now I have a good reason to !Love him!

[Taylor Siluwe]

Yes, yes, YESSSSS!! I love him. I wanna have his baby! lol