Tuc Watkins: Star Of New Queer Indie ‘Exit Interviews’ [VIDEO]

“I thought I was doing everything right. Love them. Treat them well. Make them laugh. But somehow they all left. One, after another. Like ghosts disappearing into the night. For the last 6 years I have failed at relationships. If you want to know the truth about yourself, ask someone who left you. This is my attempt to understand why.”

These are the opening words spoken by Robert (Tuc Watkins) the gay documentarian Robert at the center of Garrett Abdo’s debut feature, Exit Interviews, which world premiered in August at Film Out San Diego.

Protag Robert has spent years in short-lived relationships after his husband of 12 years walked out on him. And he’s made the brave, scary decision that his next project will blend the professional with the personal via a project where he plans on interviewing his six most significant relationships to understand why he’s still alone. Each ex entered his orbit for one reason or another and have one thing in common; they all left.

As Robert sets about contacting each of his (mostly younger) lovers and setting up honest chats with them, confusion and frustration begets clarity and revelation. In the end, Robert must look to himself for the answers to his burning questions.

Writer-director Abdo’s highly personal film co-stars a slew of talented actors including, Adam Huss, Joseph Haro, Thomas Dekker, Ray Santiago, Nick Hagelin and Paul Zenas.

And at the center of this probing and affecting work is a superb central performance by Watkins, an actor who has swirled through TV, film and stage for over three decades.

The thesp began his career stinting on various popular ’90s TV shows like Growing Pains,  Baywatch, Melrose Place and Sisters.

From 1994 to 1996 he played the devious comedic role of David Vickers, opposite Robin Strasser’s Dorian Kramer Lord, on the ABC soap One Life To Live. A brief run on General Hospital followed. He would then return to One Life periodically through 2013.

In 1999 he starred on the Showtime series Beggars and Choosers and also made his film debut in Brian Sloan’s gay rom-com, I Think I Do.

Subsequent TV show appearances include, NYPD Blue, Six Feet Under, CSI, Parks and Recreation, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, The Other Two, and, recurring, as Bob Hunter on Desperate Housewives as well as Netflix’s Uncoupled (which should have had a second season) and Criminal Minds: Evolution. Upcoming, he co-stars in Season Two of Paradise.

On stage, he’s appeared in a number of regional productions and made his off-Broadway debut in 2010 in Ben Andron’s comedy, White’s Lies, opposite Betty Buckley.

He also starred in Nick Corporon’s queer-themed indie, Retake, alongside Devon Graye in 2016.

Watkins’s most prominent theater and film work was portraying Hank in Joe Mantello’s revisiting of Mart Crowley seminal gay play, The Boys in the Band, which featured a groundbreaking, all-out cast of gay actors including Jim Parsons, Matt Bomer, Zachary Quinto, Andrew Rannells (Watkin’s partner) and Charlie Carver. The show opened on Broadway in 2018 and won the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play. The entire original cast reprised their roles in the Netflix distributed film version.

Exit Interview will screen as the Centerpiece at Out On Film Atlanta, Sept 26, 2026.

The Contending had the pleasure of a Zoom chat with the accomplished actor.