“It was clearly, for Blaine, an experiment, which I think is a cool thing to address,” Darren told hosts Billy Bush and Kit Hoover. “More often than not, it’s like the straight guy or the straight person thinking out of the box, but the other side of that is just sort of… conflict.”
The 24-year-old actor/musician talked about originally auditioning for the role of Finn (landed by Cory Monteith) and says his formerly crazy coiffed hairdo may be partly to blame for his not getting cast.
“For the longest time I would come in [to auditions] with my big, sort of hobbit hair and my guitar and sing like Motown and Disney songs… basically just being a goofball,” Darren recalled.
Darren trimmed his hair when he returned to audition for the role of “preppy” private-schooler Blaine and performed his own take on Britney Spears’ Baby One More Time.
“For [the role of Blaine] role it was very clean-cut, preppy… so I did the Dead Poets [Society]’ hair,” Darren said, referencing the 1989 Robin Williams drama. “I actually sang a Rodgers and Hart tune, which is very sort of classical musical theater, then I did a version of… Britney.”
Though Darren plays an openly gay high school student on Glee, in is straight in real life.
“I’ve been pretty overt about the fact that I am straight,” Darren said. “I think it’s an important thing to be explicit about — not for my own sexuality, but just as a general statement that I am comfortable with my sexuality and very comfortable with the fact that I’m playing a strong gay character.”
“It’s been a blessing because it’s something I’m very proud of,” he added. “It’s a wonderful show, great character and it’s been something that’s been very organic and it’s attached to a social-political package that I happen to be very invested in as well.”
