Show People (US)
Let's Misbehave
Fall 2004
by Hailey Lustig
Photographed by Elizabeth Zeschin
Don't let those choirboy looks fool you. "I'm notorious for being naughty both on stage and off," he says, bounding into the tony London furnishings depot Heal's. Making a beeline for the beds, he bounces up and down on a handmade one, his hormones in overdrive.
"I feel like Naomi Campbell mugging for the cameras," says the British musical star. That sexy charisma is a perfect match for the music of Cole Porter that Barrowman, 36, has been exploring of late, as Billy Crocker in the West End revival of ANYTHING GOES, in the recent biopic De-Lovely, and on his new cd, JOHN BARROWMAN SWINGS COLE PORTER.
When he's not onstage or in the studio, he's nesting in his Chelsea home that was furnished almost entirely out of Heal's. "I'm not the antiques kind of guy," he says. "Give me modern, but comfortable." The palette, appropriately enough, is earthy, dark-stained woods, unfinished teak, browns, greens and the heather of his native Scotland. In addition to an elaborate entertainment room with wooden Chinese horses flanking a Yamaha piano, the house boasts a flat-screen TV hung over a sectional sofa large enough to accomodate fifteen.
This is a guy who likes to entertain, who whips up lavish gourmet dinners--and a chocolate cake or two--in a kitchen with a six-burner oven and stainless steel fridge and freezer. "The kitchen really reflects my personality: practical, functional , no pretense," says Barrowman. On those occasions when the fifteen guests pare down to just one, the party moves into a bedroom that has few hard edges. "You want it soft in the bedroom--but not too soft," he says, flashing a devilish smile that would seem to make him, like his well-appointed digs, so nice to come home to.
Give me modern, but comfortable
I feel like Naomi Campbell!
John favors earth tones in his home
