The cad comes out

Just on the merits alone, it makes sense that Neil Patrick Harris snagged a supporting actor Emmy nomination for “How I Met Your Mother.” The CBS comedy has earned plenty of critical praise, if less than fabulous ratings, and as Barney, the dapper, sardonic ladies’ man with the memorable catchphrases (“Suit up!) and the extensive porn collection, Harris has thrived in the type of juicy, scene-stealing role he never thought he’d get.

“The romantic cad is always a fun foil to the sympathetic lead,” Harris said last week. “I think it’s hilarious I was cast as that guy. I’ve always been cast as the average, Middle American nice guy.”

Yet it’s possible, just possible, that Emmy voters were looking to send a larger message than simply patting Harris on the back for a job well done. His is the latest career swept up in a larger cultural debate about actors’ roles and their personal lives and the willingness of the public to distinguish between the two.

The Emmy nod comes following an awkward year in which Harris, the onetime child actor who became famous playing the title role in “Doogie Howser, M.D.,” reluctantly came out as gay after websites questioned his sexuality; for the first time, his personal life became tabloid fodder. (It seems to be the year for this kind of thing -- “Grey’s Anatomy’s” T.R. Knight also scored his first Emmy nod, as supporting actor in a drama series, after coming out. In Knight’s case, the decision to go public came after costar Isaiah Washington reportedly tagged him with a gay slur.)

In November, after the Internet rumors surfaced, Harris’ PR rep at the time said the actor was “not of that persuasion.” The next day, though, Harris issued a statement to People magazine, saying he was “quite proud to say that I am a very content gay man living my life to the fullest and feel most fortunate to be working with wonderful people in the business I love.”

Wow. The actor who plays Barney, TV’s irrepressibly heterosexual playboy, is gay!

Guess what -- no one cares. Or at least Emmy voters don’t.

Harris, in real life, is a mild-mannered guy with a sense of amused detachment from things and a winningly relaxed, self-effacing nature -- not the typical off-screen description of a TV actor.

Although he’s not thrilled that his mug might one day appear on a timeline of Milestones in Gay History, he doesn’t seem stressed out talking about the issue, either. He says he has known he is gay since he was 15 or 16. His status as a teen celebrity made for some early disorientation: “Sometimes, I didn’t really date much because I wasn’t able to go to bars and clubs,” he said.

But he credits a stint on the Broadway musical “Rent” for opening his eyes about how to interpret his sexuality. “That’s a show all about celebrating life, living in the moment, appreciating diversity on every level,” Harris told me last week, shortly before shooting a scene for “Mother’s” Season 3 opener on the 20th Century Fox lot in Century City.

Since the kerfuffle over his outing, he’s turned down many interview requests; the studio that makes “Mother” pushed hard to make this one happen, largely in hopes of wooing Emmy voters who will be making their final decisions this month.

But Harris isn’t moaning about his fate, opting instead for a philosophical view.

“I figured playing Barney, my personal life would become an inevitable newsworthy discussion,” Harris, 34, said.

“I just didn’t know what circumstances would make that public,” he went on. “And thankfully, it wasn’t scandal, which would have been the worst. I’m not very scandalous. It sort of happened in a way that allowed me to make a statement, and squelch rumors, that was a pro-active affirmation, without it becoming a big, giant deal.”

It was, though, a fairly big deal, at least within Hollywood, which once kept actors’ secrets locked forever in studio vaults but in recent years has played a vanguard role in the shifting politics of gay awareness and acceptance. For example, on Thursday -- just a couple of days after the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation released its score card assessing TV network portrayals of gays and lesbians -- Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and the other Democratic presidential candidates attracted media by the busloads for a Hollywood forum co-sponsored by MTV’s Logo cable channel, where the candidates did their utmost to woo gay voters (although given the front-runners’ dogged view of civil unions as a fair substitute for same-sex marriage, many in attendance probably left with a sinking feeling).

But for the people who make entertainment, the question is whether, a decade after Ellen DeGeneres’ coming-out landed her on the cover of Time (“Yep, I’m Gay,” read the headline), Americans of all stripes can all agree it’s OK to be gay and play straight. Has the country finally moved past the point where an actor’s sexual orientation still matters? Or is the fact that Washington could mouth an old insult toward gays and then, after getting bounced by ABC, still get rehired by another studio (for NBC’s “Bionic Woman”) discouraging proof of how far we haven’t come?

The subtext of Harris’ Emmy nomination seems to be an effort to reassure gay actors: Relax. You can come out and still play straight guys. Even playboys, cads and heels. Just like straight guys can play gay cowboys. (As Harris marveled, “Now gay parts in big movies are only played by straight actors. They don’t really cast gay actors in gay parts!”)

Michael Jensen, an editor and columnist for the site After Elton.com, which examines the roles of gays in entertainment, takes Harris’ Emmy nod as an affirmation that, at least when it comes to entertainers, society has moved beyond its “Is he or isn’t he?” hang-up. Or mostly, anyway; with the exception of British star Rupert Everett, not many actors up for leading-man parts are rushing to step out.

“This puts us one step away from that hurdle,” Jensen said. “Playing a cad on a sitcom is one step away from playing the lead on a romantic comedy.”

Carter Bays, executive producer of “Mother,” theorized that Harris has done much to “dispel that myth” that the audience won’t accept gays playing straight parts. Although, he added, Barney’s over-the-top personality may make the actor’s personal life less relevant: “We always wrote that character almost as a parody of a single heterosexual guy.” (Interestingly, the pilot script described Barney as an overweight John Belushi type, which is another reason the lean and fastidious Harris thought he’d never get the job.)

The closet is filled with terrified actors, of course, and Harris said he understands that the fear of losing work resonates in the industry. But he insisted that, in his case, the long reluctance to come out had less to do with fear than principle.

“I’m still a firm believer that the less Middle America knows about the day-to-day life of an actor, the more you can believe the actor in the role,” he said.

And that’s how Harris wants to be known: as a working actor. Not as the Guy Who Made Headlines by Turning Out to Be Gay.

“I have a great personal life that’s a small, close-knit group of friends,” he said, “and we drink wine and cook meals and watch reality TV on TiVo. It’s kind of dull.”

As for the onscreen life, his faith abides that that will take care of itself, Emmy or no. “If you’re talented in this business,” he said, “you’ll keep working.”

The Channel Island column runs every Monday in Calendar. Contact Scott Collins at scott.collins@latimes.com