An Interview With David Pevsner, Musical Comedy Whore

A couple of weeks ago Dewitt introduced you to David Pevsner, the LA-based actor/silver fox whose hot, hot bod recently caught everyone’s attention here at Manhunt Daily. David’s got a Tumblr called Shameless, which features many years’ worth of arty nudes, and we highly advise you to check it out.

Anyway, the response to Dewitt’s post was so positive that I decided to track Mr. Pevsner down to see what his story was. He filled me in on his acting career, his modeling hobby, his one-man show Musical Comedy Whore, and his recent blossoming as an exhibitionist.

– Lawrence

Photo credit: Jay Jorgensen

Read what Pevsner had to say (and see more pics) in the interview below:

Let’s start with the nudes.

I started Shameless maybe a year ago, but I didn’t really start to put stuff on it until about six months ago. Pictures that I had in the annals for the last few years. I thought it was time to put them out there, little bit by little bit. It’s amazing to me as someone who’s older and not as wizened about the internet how fast things fly around. Any time you do anything on the internet you can’t take it back.

Are you modeling a lot these days?

Not regularly, but I do a couple of shoots a year, if someone shows an interest and if they have a point of view. It started in 1989 when I posed for Tom Bianchi for the first time. I posed for maybe three or four photographers when I lived in New York, but the bulk was after I moved to LA in 1998.

I’ll go to things like the Tom of Finland Art Fair. I went to one and Jay Jorgensen had a few shots up, and I thought they were spectacular. He’s a fantastic person and a real artist. Sometimes people see my photos and contact me. The possibility that I might be posing naked again is what keeps me lean. Your body starts to go when you’re my age.

How old are you?

I just turned 55. And most of the photos on the blog were shot in my late forties and early fifties. I hope it’s sort of inspiring that you can put yourself out there with your physicality and your sexuality. I know that it’s an incredibly narcissistic thing that I’ve done, but it was time to put them out there with a statement.

Do you have fans that you’re aware of?

Sometimes people who write to me say some nice things, and they blog and reblog and reblog. It’s a funny kind of support that I’ve never gotten before. I’ve gotten support, but some people have always been there to say, “You know, good luck if those pictures ever get out.”

Every photographer that I work with works very collaboratively. It’s just another extension of what I do as an actor and an artist. It’s all sort of an exploration and a process. I enjoy working with people who understand that, the ones who are creative and have a point of view. I know that I’m not 23, but there’s something about a man of my age who has his own sexuality, who can still be attractive in a natural way. I do feel very strongly about it.

As an actor have you ever done nudity?

I remember being in a play where I had to be naked onstage, and I had two schools of people who would react: one said, “I can’t believe you’d ever do that,” as in this is going to kill your career. And the other school said, “That’s great but I could never do that myself.” Which is good. And this isn’t their journey, it’s my journey.

Tell me about Musical Comedy Whore, the one-man show you wrote and star in.

The show is risque, it’s all about sex but it’s funny and very sweet. I did a five week run in Palm Springs over the summer at a theater in Rancho Mirage called the Desert Rose Playhouse. It was great. I’ve been in a lot of films that showed at festivals in Palm Springs, which is the reason I wanted to do it there. It’s a different audience from plays in LA. But I’m now working on trying to get the show up for a run, here in LA and in New York.

You’ve done quite a bit of TV work, with credits including Grey’s Anatomy, Modern Family, and the Lifetime movie Liz and Dick. What’s that like?

Most of the TV roles I do are doctors and lawyers. I deliver a lot of good news and a lot of bad news. It’s fun. It’s not the be all and end all of my career, but it’s nice to be a part of shows like Modern Family. But the independent films that I’ve done have given me a chance to do meaty character work. I played Ebenezer Scrooge in Scrooge and Marley, and James Dean’s acting teacher in Joshua Tree, 1951: A Portrait of James Dean. Those have been my really exciting opportunities as an actor.

Do you think anybody in film or TV cares that you’re cultivating this image as an exhibitionist?

I have no idea! I don’t. There’s enough dirt in my life to kill twelve careers. Lord knows, my whole life I’ve been out there. I wrote a post for the Huffington Post a few years ago about A-list celebrities coming out of the closet.

I certainly have thought long and hard about this. It’s possible that someone down the road will care. But the people that I’ve worked with these past few years, who are artistic and creative, those are the people I actually care about. And the theater world doesn’t care. At all. And some people look at the photos as porn, and some look at them as art, and they are what you make of them.

Have you ever thought about doing porn?

I wrote a song about it once, called “Perky Little Porn Star”, about being gay and Jewish and having porn fantasies. It was in Naked Boys Singing. I fantasized about being a porn star, and writing was my way of fulfilling that fantasy in a different sort of way.

I have total respect for porn. I watch it. Everybody in the world watches it. But it would really depend on the opportunity. I’m not really interested in doing just flat-out gay porn. I’d like to do something with story and with character. A movie like Shortbus would be very appealing to me. And I actually wrote a film that has a lot of blatant sexuality in it, but it’s a very funny and very sweet picture. I’m too old for Men At Play.

It’s funny, last month when Dewitt crunched our Man of the Week numbers for the year, far and away the most popular guy, by a pretty significant margin, was 54.

Was it Derek Anthony?

It was!

I don’t know him, but he goes to my gym, and I know how popular he is. I’ve read some of the comments on the blogs, and people can be really nice, or they can be really snarky. It’s easy to sit behind your computer and just spew. I guess that goes with the gig.

So what do we have to look forward to?

My show. Musical Comedy Whore, coming somewhere soon, if anyone wants to possibly help produce the show. And I have a couple of movies coming out. One is called Waiting In The Wings: The Musical. And I’m also in the web series Old Dogs and New Tricks. We’re going into our third season, and that’s been a lot of fun. We’ll be shooting new episodes of that next month. And if anybody needs their house organized, that’s my side business, which I really love.

_______________________________________________________________________________

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE…

––