‘It’s a Sin’ Star Neil Patrick Harris Is Amazed by Younger Generation’s View on Sexuality

Neil Patrick Harris still has a big item on his bucket list that he’s “dying” to do — he wants to be in a superhero movie. “Big scale, CG elements, like a big, large movie,” the Tony and Emmy winner tells me on today’s episode of the “Just for Variety” podcast. “Like it could be Chris Nolan large, could be PlayStation 5 large. Like some kind of big where you’re doing wires.”

Years ago, Harris auditioned to play Nightcrawler in the second X-Men movie, 2003’s “X2: X-Men United.” “I remember being in the audition room on my haunches,” Harris says, adding, “I remember feeling insecure in my own skin at that time to be heroic and animalistic at the same time.” The part eventually went to Alan Cumming.

In his latest project, “It’s a Sin,” NPH plays an older gay gentleman who becomes a father figure and mentor to a young man coming to terms with his sexuality. The HBO Max limited series (premiering on Feb. 18), from “Queer as Folk” creator Russell T. Davis, is about a group of gay friends living in London during the early days of the AIDS epidemic. Davis first approached Harris about the role. “I got on phone call with Russell and his producing partner,” Harris says. “He told me about the idea, and that there was a character in it that he was interested in me playing. And I said, ‘Sure, I’d love to.’ And that was six months before. It was early on in the process. And then I thought it had gone away and then it appeared again and it was happening in earnest. And suddenly, I was in Manchester and learning an accent and growing a mustache and loving life.”

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