Mike Bullard: Ladies and gentlemen, our next guest currently stars in Queer as Folk. Very funny guy and happy to have him here today, Hal Sparks....

~Hal comes out wearing the Miss U. crown and reign, waving like Miss Universe, sits down~

Mike: I'd have to say the real Miss Universe is a little forgetful.

Hal: And that list from Guelph (city in Ontario) is an easy thump too, I got these things ~~holding something that looks like paper money~~ and stuff. You've got so much booty lying around backstage I don't know what to do with myself. Oh man.

Mike: To tell you the truth, I don't know what to do with you either.

Hal: Well, watch the show, yeah, OK

Mike: Very nice to have you here.

Hal: Thanks

Hal to Miss U.: This is nice, it's pretty good ~~handing crown over~~.

Miss U.: Yeah, can I have it?

Hal: Yeah, "can I hold it?", yeah, give it back ~~laughing, takes crown back~~

Miss U.:Yeah, give it back ~~laughing~~

Hal to Miss U.: Can't stop it ~~tugging crown back and forth~~. This like, this cold look came into your eyes, as soon as I walked in.

Miss U.: Yeah can I hold it?

Hal: This is mine. I love how it's called a reign too, they have a reign, you have a reign. Here ~hands over crown and reign~. Are you going to reign with an iron hand, that's what I want to know. You know, the coldest Miss Universe in history, "Just kill them". Off with your heads kind of thing.

Mike to Miss U.: Do you have an army, do you get an army with that job?

Hal: Yeah, right.

Mike to Hal: Very nice to have you here Hal.

Hal: Well thank you.

Mike: Very nice to have you here and you're doing a great job on Queer as Folk.

Hal: Thanks, I don't, Uhh, coming from you. I don't know if that's a compliment or not. I don't know what compares.

Mike: It is a compliment.

Hal: Sorry about him guys (talking to audience) It's like I'm just an honorary member of the team but I understand.

Mike: Well I'm telling you, I watch that show, and you made a beleiver out of me. I mean it, you do a fabulous job. You're also the comic relief in the show, which I find is often the most difficult job.

Hal: Yeah, well especially when you're nude with a sock on your penis trying, pretending, to have sex with the guy from Kung-fu, The Legend Continues. Yeah, that's a lovely time we had. And I'm glad you watch the show, but keep your hands on the desk.

Mike: I will, right here, they'll be right here.

Hal: It's national masturbation week, if you hadn't heard.

Mike: Now has the show been picked up for yet another season?

Hal: Yeah, twenty more episodes.

Mike: Wow, fantastic.

Hal: I'll be spending more time, I'll be spending more time in the great north west.

Mike: Now it's the second season coming up, will your character, finally, uh, well, have coitis?

Hal: Have coitis? Well did you miss episode 12? And 7? And 18? And 20? Have coitis, will travel, man. On my birthday last year I was naked in the Canadian wilderness being coitised quite feverently, so yeah. Get the cliff notes, will ya?

Mike: To us that's just camping.

~applause~

Hal: Thanks for inviting me, but I'm not going then.

Mike: Now you have pointed out, well, ten or eleven times since you got out here so you are a straight man playing a gay man?

Hal: I didn't point it out several times, or whatever, did I? No, my only thing about letting people know, it is who I am and if I don't care if people think I'm gay, I just don't want them to think I'm a liar. That's you know... that's my only issue with it. That's what I say, and that's what I am. End of story.

Mike: So I didn't follow any of that.

Hal: Right, I'm sorry, too many syllables.

Mike: I still don't know, I stll don't know, and I don't care either because I feel the same way. I never am concerned as to whether or not people think I am a gay man or a straight man. It never bothers me on the show. My concern is if people realize I'm married.

Hal: Oh, right.

Mike: That really bugs me. That's really bad if you have female guests out here. You got a female guest out here and it's hard to be flirtatous when you are going like this ~makes hand gestures~ all the time.

Hal: Excuse me one moment, ~~Turns to Miss U.~~

Hal to Miss U.: So you're traveling a lot, so in the States?

Miss U.: Alot, I'm traveling a lot.

Hal to Miss U.: Oh, great. Did you know that under these lights your shirt is see-thru? I just wanted you to know. Sometimes you don't know if you're on T.V., And uh, on behalf of everyone here, but the women and the bears, thank you.

Hal to Mike: Sorry, what were you saying?

Mike: I really can't remember.

Hal: Me neither, we're both going, "it is see-thru"! No, I'm sorry.

Mike: I know, I'm rivited now too, I don't know.

Hal: You're going, "why did I pay a buck-fifty for those stupid glasses from that comic book"?

Mike: Ever since that incident with a staff member last year I only look them in the eye.

Hal: I see..

Mike: We've had a lot of problems...ok, now you are a busy guy, you were the host of Talk Soup. Which, by the way, I thought you were the best host of Talk Soup ever,

Hal: thanks, thanks

Mike: and there were quite a few, Greg Kinnear included. And now yoy are running around, you are doing this show. I mean, you are a busy, bust fellow. Yet, you appear to me to be a man who's in peak physical condition. How do you do it?

Hal: Well, when you have a lot of people peeking at you, it's important. I'm a martial arts, I've been studying martial arts since I was 8 years old.

Mike: I had no idea.

Hal: Yeah, so I do that every day. You need it in a focus, when you are going to 14 hour shoot days up here. The Canadian crews are insane. They'll just like, "what? we keep working? is there bacon in it for us? sure, we'll stay up all night". You know, the actors are all bloodshot. Like when you notice in the shows that are shot up here, like half the time the actor is chipper and nice, and half the time his hair's like that and he's got sleep lines on his face. It's 'cause you work non-stop here.

Mike: Our crew's very hyper. They come to my house right after and film my life there.

Hal: okay...

Mike: So you are in martial arts, what particiular art is you specialty?

Hal: I teach and art called Kung-Fu Sansu, which is like a streetfighting art. But I studied Wushu which is a northern long-fist. It's what Jet Li does. A lot of people are familiar with it like that.

Mike: The description is making me hungry.

Hal: Yeah, right. It's great with some woyseen (sp??) sauce, and I'm also good at Peking duck. I'm very good at Peking duck. They come on that pointy stick, you know. Ahh, ohhh ~~making noise of stake going into throat~~

Mike: So you're living here in Toronto?

Hal: Yeah, well we have to, 'cause we're up here for 9, 10 months shooting the show, and we're going to be here next year, so....

Mike: Now how do you find the people of Toronto? Do you find they are friendly to you, do people recognize you from the show?

Hal: It was odd, I was recognized from Queer as Folk first up here, even though it was on later, and we hadn't evn started airing anywhere yet. Some guy went, "hey, Queer as Folk"! I'm like, I don't even know I'm on the show yet! I like it a lot.

Mike: By the way, it's also a Canadian expression that means stranger in town.

Hal: Oh I see, great, right.

Mike: So they might not recognize you.

Hal: Oh, that's just what you say to people, "hey, Queer as Folk, hey..." His belt matches his shoes, and that's how we know. "Hey, Queer as Folk", oh that's possible. I hadn't really thought about that, but now that you bring that up....

Mike: Now you are a great actor, a great personality, are there movie offers forthcoming as well?

Hal: They're just flying in, but unfortunately, I'm shooting a TV show 14 hours a day, so I don't have much time to do antything else. Although, I'm doing this movie Bleacher Bums for Showtime also, which is a play that ran for years in Chicago.

Mike: Now what's the plot?

Hal: It's about guys gambling in the stands at Cubs games, but we can't say Cubs anymore.

Mike: They do it at the back, so nobody can see them, 'cause it's illegal....

Hal: No, these guys are sitting in the stands, trading like maniacs. But Major League Baseball won't let us use the Cubs or Wrigley field or any of that stuff, so now it is the "Chicago Bruins", playing at some obscure field, which is atcually, the Toronto, the University of Toronto field.

Mike: Right, yeah I've been there.

Hal: Where Field of Dreams, For Love of the Game, were filmed. I don't know. Every American, I think all American baseball is actually played at the U of T.

Mike: Boy, yeah, it's a beautiful campus. While you are there, you may....the money in film school here is not good, but you may get a credit.

Hal: That's true, I enjoy your money, it's cute. I think of it like a comic strip. You know, it's like "Queenie". Every week, you know it's a little color, it's like the Sunday comic strip. "Oh, she's 20 today, oh, she's 10 and it's purple". Oh, that's nice. I got like 50 bucks on Park Place and I'm ready to roll.

Mike: We're quaint, friendly people up to a point, you're about to get you ass kicked!

~Shakes Hal's hand, both laughing~

Mike: Hal Sparks, ladies and gentlemen!

~applause~