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AE: So I imagine, since your character gets involved with Jenny, you've filmed some love scenes. How did you feel about doing that, especially as kind of a beginning actor?
DS: A funny fact would be that our first scene was actually a making out scene. I just got thrown right in there. You know what? It's fine. It's funny because it doesn't feel like you're—I mean, I don't know if it doesn't feel like you're making out with somebody, but it breaks it down to this really technical thing. For example, you start the scene, and then it's like, “OK, cut, we've got to change the lights here,” or turn it around or.…

When I first started…I felt a little—I won't say shy, but it's really revealing in a certain way. But it's acting, so it's not like somebody watching you making out with somebody you love, because you're not you and they're not them; you're both characters. I guess I really liked it; it was fun. And they've seen it all—the whole crew and everything—it obviously has a lot of stuff like that in the show; it has a lot of love scenes, so it was nothing new for them. I felt pretty at ease with it, and Rose Troche was my first director and she's just so awesome, so I feel like she really helped break me in.

AE: I was actually going to ask you what was the atmosphere like on the set there. Did you guys hang out after filming?
DS: They've all been doing it for a few years now, so they've got their routines. The Canadian crew up there is just so awesome, and the directors—each one was just so special in a different way. We had all the way from Frank Pierson, who is like 80-something years old, directing some of my most graphic sex scenes, to older women, younger women—it's just a whole mix of people. We're all so busy, so it's not like you're hanging out all the time, but…I feel like definitely some of the time we'd be hanging out. But most of the time I feel like that happened on set…. You're working so hard, and I was working with a coach and stuff, and just living my life. I just liked to go for a lot of hikes and stuff…and I think everyone's kind of like that in a way. I feel like we definitely got some good time in together. There's so many wonderful people that worked on it.

AE: I wanted to ask you if you personally identify as a lesbian.
DS: I think that depends on how I would want to identify. I mean, I definitely have only had significant relationships since I was 19 with women. And politically I'm definitely a lesbian, or a dyke, or on the queer spectrum. Every few years it changes, how we want to define it. But I feel very woman-centered. Most of my—I won't say most of my friends—but definitely a significant amount of my professional career has been with women, as an actor but also with music.

But I…don't believe that gender is just binary, and I never have, so that's what pulls me to sometimes politically identify as a lesbian, because I'm a feminist, and I feel like women are still so suppressed. I don't feel like we've come that far. But I also feel like there are people all along the spectrum, so in that sense, I feel like I would be more bisexual or just, you know, open-ended.

AE: I know that you're in a relationship with Bitch, and it sounds like you guys have a great relationship.
DS: Yeah, we've been together for three and a half years.

AE: When you say that you might identify on the bisexual end of it, that really intrigues me, because I'm wondering: Would you ever be attracted to a man, do you think?
DS: Well, a man, that's what gets strange. Like I said, I believe that there are people all [along]…a spectrum. I'm more of a boy than some of the people who are born as men are in some ways, our society would say. [I have some] friends who were born as women, [and] they may or may not be taking hormones, but they definitely live as women, and so are they women or men? Then it starts to get hazy. In my life as an adult, since I've been 19, I've only had significant relationships with women, people who were born as women, who have stayed identifying as women.

But I have to keep it open, because what about my friends or people I meet who used to be women, and now they look like men or they identify as men? What if I fall in love [with them] or feel something? For now I'm happily committed to a monogamous relationship with my girlfriend, but I'm talking theoretically about sexuality. My father's gay and I was raised in a really open environment, so sometimes I feel like any kinds of lines you try to draw always end up—you always end up being flexible in some way. People are so creative, I think.

AE: That's true. Do you feel like The L Word has been accurately representing the diversity of lesbian culture?
DS: I feel like it's a slice of lesbian life of a certain group of lesbians. It seems to be mostly on the wealthy side, women from L.A., which I think is a small slice compared to my life [and] when I think of all the different kinds of lesbians I've met in the world. I don't think it can represent a whole cross-section of our culture; it's just one little piece. I do like that it age-wise it's got a little variation, and I like that it's a little bit culturally mixed. But I wouldn't say it accurately represents all lesbians. I think for the L.A. scene I could imagine it's like that.

I don't really know; I haven't spent that much time there as an adult. I'm not much of a TV watcher; I'd never really seen [The L Word] when I got the job, but I've definitely watched everything now, and I actually really enjoy the writing and the acting of it. I feel like it's pretty creative. I did feel like some of the subject matter, especially like showing lesbians who want to get pregnant, or lesbians who have a history of drug problems…are pretty intriguing.

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