SVU’s B.D. Wong gets personal
While actor/singer/author/Tony winner B.D. Wong has never been one to shy away from being out and proud, George Huang, the Law & Order: SVU character he has played since 2001, has never been revealed as gay... until tonight’s episode entitled "Hardwired."
In true SVU fashion, the regular characters’ personal lives are rarely front and center and Huang’s sexuality only comes up in the course of a case involving a pedophile.
To get Wong’s reaction to this development with his character as well as how the producers approached it, Edge’s Jim Halterman swapped emails with the busy Wong and also chatted on the phone with SVU Executive Producer Neal Baer.
Decision to come out
EDGE: B.D., how was it decided that Huang would come out of the closet now on the show?
B.D. Wong: I do not want to minimize at all the importance of people, real or fictional, ’coming out,’ but I do wish to clarify here. Tonight on the show, Dr. George Huang makes a statement that he is gay to his colleagues in order to make a point about an element in the case. He is not really ’coming out,’ it is not a real revelation to the other characters, but it is information revealed to the audience heretofore unrevealed.
EDGE: Is this something you’ve been pushing for before this season?
BDW: No, I haven’t been pushing him to come out at all, but perhaps this is because we know very little about him in general.
EDGE: Having not seen the episode, how do the other characters on the show react to the news?
BDW: The other characters barely react at all, the way all Americans should when they find out a friend, loved one or colleague is gay. As far as our casual or family relationships go, that information really shouldn’t be that earth shattering, unless of course there have been great lengths to hide it, I believe.
EDGE: As an actor, have you always played Huang as gay even though that wasn’t revealed?
BDW: I have, frankly, always assumed he was heterosexual, because references have been made to ’dating girls’ and he has never gone on record in the midst of other gay cases or discussions.
EDGE: Viewers usually only get snippets of the personal life of the regulars. Will we get to see more of Huang’s personal life?
BDW: I don’t have as much input into the direction the character goes as one might think; I don’t know!
EDGE: Sounds like you are juggling a lot of projects. What else are you working on besides SVU??
BDW: As always, [I’m] in development on several theatre projects and I enjoy a career as a speaker, visiting colleges and universities and speaking at conferences and corporations on racial identity, coming out, and the parallels I see between them.
EDGE: Returning to Broadway anytime soon? She misses you! 
BDW: YES. xoxoxo
