He started out playing the handsome boyfriend of many a prime-time straight gal before segueing into fame on the controversial Queer As Folk. Today, with his new gay action movie, the out and proud ROBERT GANT is a secret agent man for our times

Some lucky bastard is getting to lick Robert Gant’s face, and it ain’t me.

“My puppy, Bodhi, is feeling pretty inquisitive at the moment,” he laughs. “He’s so sweet.”

I concede defeat—it’s impossible to compete with a 10-month-old chocolate Lab who wants his tummy rubbed—but the next round is mine, mostly because I have the power of speech—and a killer opening question.

“How’s it going, Robert?”

“I’m really good, man, really good,” Robert says. “I’m a little tired today. I had a late night filming last night.”

In the late ’90s, there was a lot of talk about Rupert Everett playing a gay James Bond, which never happened. Let’s talk gay spies, like Gant's character, Jacob Keane, in here! Networks’ new movie Kiss Me Deadly.

“I’m just really excited that the whole gay spy thing is happening! The concept conjures chuckles. You can certainly go that way, but I love that we made the choice not to. Our movie shows that the gay guy can kick ass, that the gay guy can be the hero.”

FANTASTIC FOUR

The last time The B-52s dropped an album on us, it was 1992: There was no Internet, no iPods, and people still shopped the shelves at retail dinosaurs like Musicland. But if 16 years seems like a lifetime ago to us—and for some of our younger readers, it might be—it’s an eternity in the music industry, where one day you’re hot and the next you’re the Backstreet Boys.

Quite to the contrary, the beehived ones are back, ready to strap on the go-go boots, dust on the body glitter and get the party bumping again. (Incidentally, they’ve cut the long-standing apostrophe from their name.) Their newest album, appropriately titled Funplex, features 11 brand-new tracks covering everything from futuristic robot lovin’ (“Love In The Year 3000”) to heartbreak at a mall crawling with—what else?—pleasure-seekers, diet-pill poppers and sasstastic waitresses (“Funplex”).