"It comes back to the notion of living out of the closet," Paige explains. "One of the grips carne up to me one day and said, 'Before I started to work on the show, I was completely homophobic. But seeing this every day and getting to know you as a person has changed that.. I was completely wrong.' And what the fuck else do you need'? That's what I'm after. That's what I'm about. That's what's important to me."

Back at Paige’s apartment after the lunch on Church Street, the phone rings several times during the course of the afternoon, and at least twice it's Paige's friend and costar Scott Lowell, who plays Ted, Emmett's emotionally repressed sidekick. The two actors have formed a close friendship over the past nine months, Paige has nothing but praise for Lowell, and Lowell characterizes Paige as "wonderful to work with" and "very giving, very alive." He proposes that Ted and Emmett are unofficially "the new Odd Couple," referring to the fact that the two represent opposite yet inseparable ends of the gay spectrum. Behind the scenes, Lowell says, the actors have more similarities than differences.

"You need to remember that our off screen personalities are quite different from our on-screen ones," Lowell cautions.  Peter is not as flamboyant as Emmett, nor am I as conservative as Ted is. We do share a similar sensibility. Peter has been great for me in terms of calling me on my shit, and vice versa. We're both really good at listening.  Early on, those talks were dealing with the show and our roles, and then we became better friends, and that led into our personal lives. I don't know what I would have done up here without him."

Lowell is well aware of the career risks Paige has taken by playing it the way he has. Yet he insists, "I really don't worry about Peter Paige or Randy Harrison. They have the strength to prove themselves. The amount of bravery it takes in this day and age to be out in this business is unfortunate though."

"I've been a good boy my whole life." Paige says. "The main thing was always to be pleasant, to be kind, to make nice. To play by the rules. Well, one day that stopped serving me. It took me a long time to realize that I had my own rules