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<\/a>\n<\/p>\nIf New York was the fifth rich white lady<\/a> on Sex and the City<\/em>, Elijah is the fifth girl<\/a> on Girls<\/em>. Introduced in the show\u2019s first season as Hannah\u2019s college ex who had only recently come out as gay<\/a>, the character, played by Tony nominee Andrew Rannells, quickly became a fixture. In a show that has been characterized by its \u201cunlikeable\u201d characters, Rannells has played Elijah as a viper-tongued, unflinchingly bitchy gay<\/a> guy<\/a> whose self-involvement has been rivaled only by Allison Williams\u2019s Marnie\u2014who he fully slapped in one episode! And yet, Elijah never came off as a one dimensional caricature; he was less a stereotype than a very specific type of gay<\/a> guy<\/a> that you might actually meet at a gay<\/a> bar and, unlike the mopey homos on Looking<\/em>, actually want to hang out with.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n The most recent episode of Girls<\/em>\u2019 sixth and final season devoted more time to Elijah than ever before, following the seemingly feckless man<\/a>-child from his day job at Henri Bendel to an audition for a musical adaptation of White Men Can\u2019t Jump<\/em> opening on Broadway. It\u2019s an episode that propels the character into whatever comes next for him once the final credits roll on Girls<\/em>. On the Monday after \u201cBonce\u201d premiered on HBO, Rannells called Queerty to discuss his character\u2019s moment in the spotlight, what kind of gay<\/a> uncle he would be, and why Elijah can\u2019t have a spin-off.\n<\/p>\n So by 10:30 last night, there were already like two<\/a> posts<\/a> about you and your character on Vulture. Did you expect the episode to create such a stir?<\/strong> When you are filming, how much of a sense do you get of what the episode is going to ultimately be like?<\/strong> In a way this episode felt similar to \u201cPanic in Central Park\u201d the Season 5 episode that focused solely on Marnie. Was this kind of Elijah\u2019s swan song?<\/strong> What did this episode mean for the character?<\/strong> He definitely had a very strong reaction to hearing that Hannah is pregnant. What kind of gay<\/a> uncle do you think he\u2019d ultimately be?<\/strong> Like you said, he\u2019s finally getting his shit together at the ripe old age of 28. What was life as an actor like for you when you were 28? <\/strong> Corey Stoll\u2019s character Dill<\/a> showed up again, and he mentions that he thinks he\u2019s broken because his father abandoned him to followed the Maharishi or whatever. Why do you think Elijah is broken?<\/strong> When we first meet him in Season 1, he\u2019s just coming out, which honestly always felt like kind of a false note for this guy<\/a>. Did you and Lena or Jenni Konner ever discuss why he stayed closeted for so long? <\/strong> I think gay<\/a> guys<\/a> have a very complicated relationship with representations of themselves in media. Do you have a sense of how other gay<\/a> guys<\/a> have responded to Elijah?<\/strong> People tend to conflate some of the female<\/a> characters on the show with the actresses playing them, particularly Lena Dunham. Have you experienced anything similar playing Elijah?<\/strong> This is the first character that you\u2019ve really lived with for a number of years. <\/strong> So, what\u2019s it like leaving him behind after playing him for six seasons?<\/strong> More than one person has suggested Elijah should get his own spin-off. Would you be up for it?<\/strong> \nwww.queerty.com\/andrew-rannells-elijahs-game-changing-episode-girls-20170327?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+queerty2+%28Queerty%29<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Andrew Rannells on Elijah\u2019s game-changing episode of \u2018Girls\u2019 If New York was the fifth rich white lady<\/a> on Sex and the City, Elijah is the fifth girl<\/a> on Girls. Introduced in the show\u2019s first season as Hannah\u2019s college ex who had only recently come out as gay<\/a>, the character, played by Tony nominee Andrew Rannells, … Continue reading Andrew Rannells on Elijah\u2019s game-changing episode of \u2018Girls\u2019<\/span>
\nIt\u2019s very nice that it did. No, I didn\u2019t. I didn\u2019t expect it, but I\u2019m happy that people enjoyed it. I have to say, when we filmed it over the summer\u2014it\u2019s always sort of hard to tell what reactions are gonna be, because I think we filmed that episode in late July, like the first part of August. So, so much time has passed that it\u2019s not like I forgot about it, but all of a sudden seeing it, it\u2019s like, Oh, god! People are actually going to watch that!<\/em> You sort of forget.\n<\/p>\n
\nIt\u2019s tricky, because, you know, as an actor you only have control over so much, and then your performance gets put in the hands of the director and the editor. At this point, six seasons in, I feel like I have a pretty good sense of what things might look like based on our different directors. Last night\u2019s episode was directed by Richard Shepherd who\u2019s also one of our producers and I\u2019ve worked with him quite a bit on Girls<\/em>. So I felt like I sort of know Richard\u2019s style and I sort of know what he goes for. You can kind of get a sense, even while you\u2019re doing it, of what takes might be used. But last night was also sort of a departure\u2014my storyline anyway\u2014from what Girls<\/em> normally is, and there were a lot of moving parts to the episode. New characters, people we haven\u2019t seen before. Obviously musical elements and dance elements, things that we generally don\u2019t do on Girls<\/em>. So that was a little bit of a mystery. It was exciting to see it all come together.\n<\/p>\n
\nHe\u2019s still around for the rest of the season, but yes, this is definitely his big moment, and I was very grateful to Lena for sort of giving him this real estate in this final season. I\u2019ve always felt like I\u2019ve gotten to be a very developed character and not just a sidekick, but it\u2019s nice to be give a chance to do a few more tricks and have a little more screen time.\n<\/p>\n
\nI think particularly in this final season, with Elijah finding out about Hannah\u2019s pregnancy and having that be such a huge wake-up call<\/a> to basically get his shit together, I think he\u2019s in real denial about where he is in his life and his age and where he should be in the progression of his life. I think he had to very quickly figure out what he\u2019s going to do with himself. He can\u2019t just be kicking around working side jobs and day-drinking for the rest of his life. So this was a big wake-up call<\/a> for him. It was an important episode for him just to start to figure out what his goals are and what he actually wants to do with himself.\n<\/p>\n
\nI think he\u2019d eventually be a great gay<\/a> uncle. Maybe not so good with a baby.\n<\/p>\n
\nI was a little bit further along, but I think that was around the time that I really had to make a decision, if I was really gonna go all-in for this career. I had done one Broadway show. I had done Hairspray<\/em> for like a year and a half, which was a great experience, but it didn\u2019t quite move the needle as far as I thought it was going to professionally. I realized that I needed to get very serious and really devote myself to this career if I really wanted to make a go of it. So it was around that time that I applied myself in a much different way.\n<\/p>\n
\nI don\u2019t think he\u2019s broken. It\u2019s just that there are so many ways to get distracted in the city.\n<\/p>\n
\nNot really. The way I always thought of it was that he was out to everybody in his life except<\/em> Hannah. Which I guess isn\u2019t that rare in that kind of college relationship.\n<\/p>\n
\nI never really felt any pressure to represent gay<\/a> men<\/a> in this role. When I was in The New Normal<\/em>, that was a show about a gay<\/a> couple<\/a> in the surrogacy process. It was dealing with things that were very topical and it was Justin Bartha and I kind of as the focus, so I did feel a little more of that pressure on that show.\n<\/p>\n
\nWe\u2019re lucky that people don\u2019t tend to do that with the guys<\/a> on the show. People don\u2019t think that Alex [Karpovsky] is Ray. No one thinks that Ebon [Moss-Bachrach] is Desi.\n<\/p>\n
\nYeah, it is, and, you know, it\u2019s similar to what I did in theater, where I played characters for years. But you\u2019re playing the same moments every night. With TV, there are always different situations to explore how a character would react. How would Elijah interact with a stranger? What is Elijah like in an audition?\n<\/p>\n
\nI feel like I\u2019ve just kind of put him in a box on a shelf. There\u2019s always the chance to take him out again someday.\n<\/p>\n
\nI\u2019d certainly be up for it. I don\u2019t think HBO would be up for it.<\/p>\n<\/a>
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