Mambo love: Luke Kirby plays a heartbroken Italian in the charming romantic comedy Mambo Italiano.

Actors find little pleasure in being upstaged. So pity Luke Kirby, star of Mambo Italiano, who found himself overshadowed by another performer--or rather, another performer's nipples.

"Yeah, I know. What a fucker, right?" Kirby scoffs with mock indignation, referring to his strapping costar, Peter Miller. "He played football, you know. Those boys in the locker room--who knows what goes on."

A sort of My Big Fat Gay Canadian-Italian Wedding, set in Montreal's Little Italy, Mambo stars Kirby as Angelo, a young closeted gay man Finally moving out of the home of his immigrant parents (Paul Sorvino and Ginette Reno). He runs into a childhood crush, Nino (Miller), now a cop, and the two men move in together and commence a steamy relationship--until their old-fashioned relatives find out. Faster than you can say "Mamma mia," Nino dives back into the closet, while Angelo takes an out-and-proud stand, risking the loss of his domineering yet loving family.

Already a hit in its native Canada (earning nearly $3 million since June), Mambo Italiano is based on a successful play by Steve Galluccio, who co-wrote the screenplay with director Emile Gaudreault. Kirby was unaware of the play when he was brought to the producers' attention in 2002. At the time he was in Toronto shooting a role opposite Sarah Polley in the upcoming Luck. And as his luck would have it, Kirby almost didn't get the part, thanks to his immersion in a character he refers to as a "forlorn gambling addict."

"Emile and Steve talked to [Mambo's] casting director and said, 'Luke's really good and funny and charming, but he's really, really, really ugly,'" Kirby recalls. "'Maybe he let himself go, but he's fat and unappealing.' Then they sent me over to Montreal, and it all worked out. I did a few sit-ups."

Ontario native Kirby has played a few hotties, although they generally wind up in bad shape. His head was crushed by killer Michael Myers in Halloween: Resurrection, while in Lea Pool's Lost and Delirious his character made out with a lesbian and consequently got stabbed in the leg by her jealous girlfriend. "He was originally supposed to get his dick cut off," Kirby informs with a grin. "I was disappointed!"

Kirby has also played gay before, in a New York production of Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida (as what Kirby calls the Bard's "only really officially gay character," Achilles's male valet) and in Judith Thompson's Habitat. Although neither gay nor Italian in real life (he's Newfoundland Irish), Kirby could relate to Angelo's experiences with homophobia. His days as a theater-loving school kid netted many "fag" insults from peers. And like his character in Mambo, Kirby has fostered a strong, loving bond with a male friend--"It's a deep love; it's beyond a crush"--since infanthood.

"It's a pretty shitty little crisis Angelo's got going on," Kirby proffers. "To have the wonder of hooking up with your best friend from childhood and being dropped by him like that. So for me, the difficulty was making sure we were doing comedy yet feeling like everyone [working on the film] was respecting my pain! How can you make such light of my torment, you bastards?"

At least costar Miller--he of the upstaging chest--offered Kirby some understanding, kindness, and bonding off-camera. "He was delightful. He'd be like, 'Let's hit the showers after work,'" Kirby recalls with a laugh. "The whole football routine."

Ferber has also written for Entertainment Weekly, Time Out New York and the upcoming Cargo.