Jason Stuart
Jason Stuart
After years of steady work in film and television, and over 150 credits on his IMDB page, actor and comedian Jason Stuart has achieved a pinnacle of success many actors only dream of. “For the last few years, people have started to approach me and say, ‘You’re that guy,’” he explains with his characteristic gravelly laugh. Indeed, with guest-starring and supporting credits in everything from the Billy Bob Thornton starrer "Goliath" to Judd Apatow’s “Love” to “Sleepy Hollow” to “Tangerine” and “The Birth of a Nation,” Stuart has now established himself as one of those all-too-familiar faces who might just pop up anywhere, in any kind of role.
It’s just the latest remarkable but true chapter in the career of Stuart, a longtime veteran of stand-up comedy, born in the Bronx and raised in the Fairfax district of Los Angeles. A self-described insecure Jewish kid who turned to theatre and performing to mask his emerging sexual identity - he jokes about going to see Barbra Streisand in “Funny Girl” as a youth and falling in love with Omar Sharif. His talent and determination got him some early professional work in films like “Kindergarten Cop,” “Vegas Vacation,” and TV shows like “Murder, She Wrote” and “The Drew Carey Show.” But by the early-90s, frustrated by years of living in the closet, Stuart chose to come out publicly on an episode of Geraldo Rivera’s talk show focused on “Unconventional Comedians.”
That led to a wave of interest in Stuart as a “gay comedian,” giving his act new material and energy, and a purpose (his sexuality, as a Los Angeles Times article from 1995 states, is “a full-time job”). Today, Stuart marvels at how much has changed about the visibility of sexually diverse actors and celebrities, having experienced the transition from “closeted” to “gay” to “queer.” “That was such a negative word, ‘queer,’” he says. “It was a word ‘they’ would call you and it still takes some getting used to, but I can see how things are changing. And of course, I’m not just gay or queer, it’s just a part of who I am: I’m also a Jew, a man of a certain age, a lover, a friend and a son. But it’s always a part of who I am.”
After years of steady work in film and television, and over 150 credits on his IMDB page, actor and comedian Jason Stuart has achieved a pinnacle of success many actors only dream of. “For the last few years, people have started to approach me and say, ‘You’re that guy,’” he explains with his characteristic gravelly laugh. Indeed, with guest-starring and supporting credits in everything from the Billy Bob Thornton starrer "Goliath" to Judd Apatow’s “Love” to “Sleepy Hollow” to “Tangerine” and “The Birth of a Nation,” Stuart has now established himself as one of those all-too-familiar faces who might just pop up anywhere, in any kind of role.
It’s just the latest remarkable but true chapter in the career of Stuart, a longtime veteran of stand-up comedy, born in the Bronx and raised in the Fairfax district of Los Angeles. A self-described insecure Jewish kid who turned to theatre and performing to mask his emerging sexual identity - he jokes about going to see Barbra Streisand in “Funny Girl” as a youth and falling in love with Omar Sharif. His talent and determination got him some early professional work in films like “Kindergarten Cop,” “Vegas Vacation,” and TV shows like “Murder, She Wrote” and “The Drew Carey Show.” But by the early-90s, frustrated by years of living in the closet, Stuart chose to come out publicly on an episode of Geraldo Rivera’s talk show focused on “Unconventional Comedians.”
That led to a wave of interest in Stuart as a “gay comedian,” giving his act new material and energy, and a purpose (his sexuality, as a Los Angeles Times article from 1995 states, is “a full-time job”). Today, Stuart marvels at how much has changed about the visibility of sexually diverse actors and celebrities, having experienced the transition from “closeted” to “gay” to “queer.” “That was such a negative word, ‘queer,’” he says. “It was a word ‘they’ would call you and it still takes some getting used to, but I can see how things are changing. And of course, I’m not just gay or queer, it’s just a part of who I am: I’m also a Jew, a man of a certain age, a lover, a friend and a son. But it’s always a part of who I am.”