In the new comedy series “Faking It,” Michael Willett plays a witty gay high schooler. You may recognize him from the last time he played a witty gay high schooler. Or the time before that.
“I’ve received a lot of scripts for gay roles,” he says with a laugh.
“Faking It,” premiering Tuesday at 10:30 p.m. on MTV, follows two high school girls who decide to pretend to be lesbians to gain popularity. Willett stars as Shane, a popular gay student at the school, where the outcasts are the alphas. In the pilot, it’s his mission to get the two faux lesbians elected prom queens.
At 24, Willett has covered the gay-high-schooler arc before — earlier this year as the star of “G.B.F.” (gay best friend, duh) and previously as the H.G.I.C. (head gay in charge, duh) on “United States of Tara.”
But, he says, his latest gay character is different.
“I felt it was new and interesting. He was cool and popular without being bullied,” explains Willett. “He’s not angsty. He is confident. He has bravado, and I feel like he’s more complex.”
Though he says he doesn’t feel like he’s been typecast so far, it’s important to Willett, who is gay himself, that his characters be more than just the token gay kid. He recalls a director on a former project telling him to “be gayer.”
“What does that mean?” he says. “I just sort of lisped a little bit more.”
This time around, he’s spoken up when he felt the “Faking It” writers were taking Shane into cliché territory. For a recent photo shoot, he refused to pose in a manner — most likely flamboyant — he didn’t think was right for the character.
He’s ready to move on from pretending to be a teen. And maybe someday, he’ll even play it straight.
“It’s not like a goal,” he says, laughing. “But I believe I could easily!”