Tony and Emmy winner Nathan Lane is best known for The Producers, The Lion King and The Birdcage, but there were also roles he did not get — and for the wrong reasons.
Asked in a recent interview with Vanity Fair if homophobia limited his opportunities, Lane equivocated a bit and then offered one specific example.
“I don’t know what goes on behind closed doors, but I can’t help but think that it played a part. I was told it did impact a movie that I didn’t really care about: Space Jam. I was up for the part that the guy from Seinfeld wound up playing.”
That guy from Seinfeld was Wayne Knight, who ended up playing Michael Jordan’s assistant in the Warner Bros. film.
“I was up for that part,” recalled Lane. “Apparently the director [Joe Pytka] saw me hosting the Tony Awards and thought that suggested I was too gay to play the part. So thank God, I didn’t have to do Space Jam. [Laughs] But I don’t know. I’ll never know what people say. Homophobia is alive and well still.”
That same year, Lane had his big-screen breakthrough opposite Robin Williams.
“Then The Birdcage came along. I thought perhaps because of the success of that, it’d lead to other films, but then it didn’t. It really didn’t. I said to my agent, ‘I thought more would happen after The Birdcage.’ He said, ‘Maybe if you weren’t so open about your lifestyle, it would have.’ “
Lane said he soon left that agent.
“Mike Nichols sent me to CAA,” he said. “But no, there weren’t a lot of opportunities.”