One for the boys: as The L Word's resident straight-arrow hunk, Eric Mabius will win gay hearts everywhere.

Cover Story

Eric Mabius must have thought he was getting seriously Punk'd. When he arrived on the Vancouver, Canada, set of The L Word, he knew that his job was to replace Party of Five actor Scott Bairstow, who was forced to leave the show in May after being charged with second-degree child rape. (In December, Bairstow entered a guilty plea to a reduced charge of felony assault committed with the intent of molestation; at press time he was awaiting sentencing.) What Mabius didn't know was that the other members of the cast were already on episode 5 and that he'd spend nearly two months playing catch-up.

"I was running around like a lunatic," recalls the star of such films as Welcome to the Dollhouse, Cruel Intentions, Resident Evil, and the upcoming Resident Evil: Apocalypse. "Some weeks I was doing three different episodes with three different directors and having to completely jump around chronologically. It's the, closest I've ever come to completely losing it."

Mabius is breathing easier these days, for not only did he survive the ordeal, he shone. As Tim Haspel, a hunky swim coach at the University of California, Los Angeles, who discovers that his writer girlfriend (Mia Kirshner) is having a lesbian affair with the gorgeous coffeehouse matron (Karina Lombard), Mabius breaks your heart. And like the rest of the cast, he looks great doing it. "Eric's a wonderful actor, and he really enriches the show so much," gushes series creator Ilene Chaiken. "Plus I just like having him around. Even as a gay girl, I like it."

The feeling is mutual. "Everyone felt for me because I was the only guy, but I thought it was heaven," says Mabius, whose girlfriend is a high school classmate he was reunited with two years ago. "I mean, I went to Sarah Lawrence, and I chose that college for a reason: It has three times as many women as men. Women are much more interesting and fun to be around than men."

Speaking of men, Mabius is fine with the notion that he's going to be the primary eye candy for gay male viewers. Just don't expect to see him pumping up at your neighborhood gym. "I don't really work out," admits the former junior national luge team member. "I run in the mountains because I live there, but I hate gyms."

"There has been nothing close to this show before," he says when asked what he hopes audiences get from The L Word. "I think it's going to strike a chord with every kind of person, straight, gay, female, or male." Yes, even his straight brothers. "Even if guys tune in to watch tits and ass, they're going to end up with a lot of touching, realistic scenes," he promises. "People identify with real emotion."

--Dennis Hensley

Halley says, chortling. "What about the one where there's me and three other girls at a beach house, and one of them says, "This [yogurt] is like a weekend-with-no-boys good," and we all laugh? I mean, what straight woman would be excited about a weekend with no boys?"

Halley's offscreen lesbian tendencies kicked in right around the same time as her thespian ones, when she left Nebraska at 17 to study acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City. "Soon to follow was my whole evolution," she explains. "I had fantastic boyfriends in high school whom I loved very much, but I started tapping into my true sexuality in my later years in high school--basically failing in love with my best friend--but I wasn't sure what it all meant." Harley eventually graduated from the academy, but by then she'd already hooked up with fellow acting student Heather Grody to form the alternative band the Murmurs. Her music career took precedence as the pair recorded and performed together for the next 12 years.

Hailey was open about her sexuality from the get-go. "I feel like being out of the closet has done nothing but reward me in my life," she maintains, adding that she never felt pressure from the music industry to be anything other than who she was. "I feel like if you're comfortable with it yourself, then the way you're perceived in the world is very open." Though the Murmurs recently decided to break up, the musician-actress claims it's all good. "We're still best friends," stresses Hailey, who has been dabbling in songwriting during her downtime from The L Word, "but we felt like it was time to let ourselves grow in our own directions musically."

Halley is less comfortable discussing the breakup of her nearly five-year romantic relationship with singer k.d. lang. "It's a very private matter for me," she says when asked if the pair are still friendly. "I learned a tremendous amount from that relationship, and I'm very sentimental about it and look back on it with beautiful memories."

Was it ever difficult for Hailey to be involved with a sex symbol, to be Jennifer Aniston to the lesbian Brad Pitt?

"That's funny, the lesbian Brad Pitt," she says with a laugh, "but no, I never felt threatened. We were very close and connected, and I suppose that aspect of it didn't really affect the two of us. A relationship with any two people comes down to trust and security, and if you have that, nothing else really matters."

Though lang and Halley broke ground by being one of the first gay couples to be covered in the mainstream media, Halley shrugs off the idea that that visibility took guts on her part. "All of a sudden being hurled into being with a celebrity was very weird and hard to get used to," allows Harley, who is currently involved with a woman who works in the fashion business, "but as far as being out publicly, it felt the same as my everyday life."

So did she learn anything about fame from her years with lang? "Not really," she says thoughtfully, "because k.d.'s a very down-to-earth person and didn't really live her life by the book of fame. Our lifestyle really was about being at home and being with our dog. I'm very private, so [the attention] is nothing I sought, but I was very proud of k.d. and all her accomplishments, and I never felt squashed by her fame in any way."

It's good that Halley is cool with the idea of fame, as she may soon be getting a big dose of her own. "I want everyone in the world to watch it," she says when asked what her hopes are for The L Word. "But at the same time, I'm scared of what comes along with all that. It's got to be a life-changer." She realizes it may also be a life-changer for those who tune in: "I love the thought of someone in Nebraska or wherever watching and realizing that they're not that different from anyone else," says Halley. "I wanted the weight on my shoulders to represent the gay community. I'd be kicking myself right now if I wasn't apart of this."

Hensley is the author of Screening Party (Alyson Publications).