OLJ: You just made your first trip to Hollywood?
DR: People seem to have a very bizarre perception of me — that I’m a Hollywood actor. I don’t think of myself that way. And when I was out there and telling people it was pretty much my first trip, jaws just hit the floor. They were looking at me like I had two heads.
OLJ: So I wanted to clear up a couple of rumors, if we may. You are not actually Harry Potter, right?
DR: No, not really.
OLJ: And I’m not the transsexual incarnation of Narcissa Malfoy, right?
DR: [Laughs] No, you are not. I can confirm that neither of those things are true.
OLJ: [Laughs] OK, OK. Good. It’s funny because with that little tabloid thing that happened a year ago with us, I actually got all these strange e-mails to my website asking “What is Harry Potter like?” And I just thought, I have no idea, actually.
DR: It’s strange. I think it’s a mixture of people who actually do, in some way, think I am Harry Potter and a number of people who can’t be bothered to know my name, which is fair enough. I mean, when you’ve been so identified with one character for so long, it’s natural that it should almost become an alias. But I’ve been encouraged lately to find that people are using my real name more often.
OLJ: What was your involvement with the Trevor Project? How did that come about?
DR: My family and I have always thought it was best to focus our efforts rather than kind of spreading ourselves too thin across a lot of different organizations — just really picking things that you care about and really, really believe in, and Trevor absolutely was one of them. And when I got to have a tour of the New York call center, my admiration for the projects, but also for the place and the people, tripled. The systems they have in place, the actual way the call center works on a practical level, is so brilliant and efficient. It’s something I’m very, very proud to be able to be involved with.
OLJ: Do you think there’s a stigma with men who date transgender women, or is it just kept in the dark?
DR: To a certain extent, there would be a stigma — it depends on which person you’re talking to. But I certainly think in this day and age it would be less of an issue. I was on the [Harry Potter] film set when all that tabloid stuff happened with us hanging out last year and none of my friends gave me shit about it. Nobody took the piss. And the film set encompasses groups from every area of society, and I have to say it’s a pretty good cross-section. There was certainly no stigma.
