Sean Hayes

This manic comic performer initially supported himself as a musician before becoming an actor. After joining the legendary improv group Second City, he started appearing in TV commercials and series. But his life and career kicked into overdrive in 1998 when he played the lead role of a gay photographer obsessed with a model in the indie comedy Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss. The pivotal year continued when he then signed on to Will & Grace as self-absorbed gay actor Jack McFarland, a part he essayed with charming flamboyance for eight seasons and for which he scored an Emmy Award, six Emmy nominations and six Golden Globe nominations. Although he appeared sporadically in outside projects---most notably playing Jerry Lewis in the TV-movie Martin and Lewis, creating a production company called Hazy Mills, executive producing the cable series Situation: Comedy and making his New York stage debut in Damn Yankees! in 2008---Hayes remained inextricably linked to his signature sitcom role. Off screen, he had long been protective of his private life until shedding light on his sexual orientation in a 2010 interview with The Advocate, saying, "I am who I am. I was never in, as they say. Never." ~ Rovi