Putting the g in Entourage: HBO hetero boys club comedy Entourage gets a gay infusion as Rex Lee takes on a bigger role in the third season of the hit series.

"I'm not trying to play stereotypically gay," observes Rex Lee, the gay Asian-American actor playing Lloyd, the gay Asian-American agent's assistant in HBO's Entourage. "But they clearly like my brand of gay." After knocking around doing guest spots and commercials, Lee landed Entourage, putting a gay Asian face into the show's decidedly heterosexual mix of young Hollywood types trying to make their mark in the Business. "When I was first auditioning I thought, Is this going to work? I'd seen the show, and I knew there was a lot of straight male energy going on, and I didn't know if the gay male energy was going to mesh at all."

The energies have meshed so well that Lee's character, the assistant to Jeremy Piven's toxic 10-percenter Ari Gold, has been made a series regular for the upcoming third season of the show. Lee sees this as a positive step for a character, whose sexuality and ethnicity are virtually nonissues in the story line. "[Lloyd is] a gay guy, and he fits into the world of the show. Being gay is not an impediment to this guy and his forward progress in this world that he wants to be in."

Lee first dipped his toe in the arts as a classical pianist, studying at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio. But halfway through a music program, he realized life as a musician wasn't for him. He quit and searched for something else. "I floundered around for awhile. I knew I was born to express myself creatively, and that's very nebulous. At the time I was like, What the hell does that mean?"

What it meant was becoming an actor. After earning a BA in drama from Oberlin and moving to Los Angeles, Lee's first years fell firmly into "struggling actor" territory. He recalls, "There were probably years when I didn't deserve to call myself an actor. I'd joke with my friends, 'If I haven't made it by the time I'm 80, then I'll quit.' Because I'm an Asian guy. When I get older, they have all those sage, wise old Asian roles. I have to give myself a chance at those."

Lee made the decision early on to be an out actor, although some would say the decision had been made for him. "I can't deny the fact that there have been many people in my life that have said, 'Don't ever bother trying to be in the closet. You're not going to be able to pass, so don't bother trying,'" he laughs.

Overall, Lee--who's currently "single and on the market"--is cautiously hopeful for both gay and Asian characters on television. "I think it's always getting better, which is a good thing. It's slow going. It's difficult to make changes happen, but they are happening. And if I contribute to that, that's great. I love that."

Abley is currently directing his feature script, Socket, in Los Angeles.