Will Neil Patrick Harris be the first openly gay, male A-List actor?

What’s better than Neil Patrick Harris in general? NPH in a bathtub, looking adorable, that’s what. Seriously, when did Neil Patrick Harris turn into this… this… bombshell? That’s the best word I can use – he looks amazing, and he’s just so handsome. I’m sorry, I’m crushing hard on him. Something about a shirtless gay guy in a bathtub, it gets me going. Call me weird, I dare you. Anyway, this is the photo used to accompany NPH’s interview in Rolling Stone. When asked how easy it was to come out, NPH told Rolling Stone: “I love going to the Playboy Mansion party with my boyfriend. Last year, we got dressed up as dead foppish Brits with topcoats and white contact lenses. These naked girls on Ecstasy kept coming up to us, like, ‘We love your contacts.’ We’d twirl around and say, ‘Well, we like your breasts!'” Love. It.

NPH is also the cover boy for October’s New York Magazine. The complete interview is here, and most of it is about NPH’s hit show (How I Met Your Mother) and his hosting duties at the Emmys. It’s a lovely piece, and very complimentary of NPH, who they declare someone like the next Hugh Grant/Cary Grant type, and applaud his success at “becoming almost supernaturally productive, a kind of human variety show in a range of genres, high and low, mass and niche. With his boyish likability, a gift for banter in the style of Cary Grant (or Hugh Grant—really any Grant), and a versatile range of skills, Harris seems poised to become the first out gay actor to become an A-list star.” He also talks about babies, and whether he and his partner David Burtka plan to adopt:

Despite rumors to the contrary, Neil Patrick Harris, star of How I Met Your Mother and host of this year’s Emmys, says he and partner David Burtka and are not expecting a child – yet.

Still, “We’d make very good parents,” Harris, 36, tells New York Magazine. And they’re already making one very good couple.

“We yin and yang very well,” he tells the magazine. “I’m just bowled over by him. I’m his forever protector, and I’m happiest when he’s happy.”

But coming to terms with his sexuality in Hollywood wasn’t always so easy for the former child star of Doogie Howser, M.D. “I tried … dating different girls, being the funny, witty guy at the party,” he says.

One person that helped inspire him? A gay Real World cast member. Danny Roberts, of The Real World: New Orleans, “was a unique entity at the time, as someone who was seemingly so confident in their own skin,” says Harris.

As host of this year’s Emmy Awards, Harris jokes that he hoped to include the Muppets – specifically Statler and Waldorf up in the balcony – in the opening number. And while that plan didn’t pan out, the actor jokes, with self-mocking air quotes, that he’ll make this year’s show the “classy Emmys.” Tune in to the show Sept. 20 to see what he means!

[From People]

The NY Mag piece also cites NPH’s numerous YouTube sensations, and points out that his status is coming close to a fully saturated pop-culture icon, the kind of guy that all people adore. NPH himself seems totally charming, intelligent, and fascinating. Like, he’s the kind of guy you would love to have at a dinner party. He does magic tricks, breaks out into song, does a flawless British accent, and “he adores variety shows, Buster Keaton, slapstick and acrobatics, cryptography and treasure hunts. He worships Sondheim; he collects puzzles. He’s “very reverential” about puppets and has been reading Street Gang, a history of Sesame Street. (He hopes to reinvent the children’s-show format someday.) The man is seemingly incapable of having a conversation without making a reference to Cirque du Soleil. This spring, in his spare time, he produced a Hollywood version of Accomplice, an interactive theatrical game in which participants mingle with actors and solve puzzles.” I love this man. I want him in the tub with me, doing magic tricks.

Neil Patrick Harris is shown on 9/12/09 at the premiere of Cloudy With a Chance of Meat Balls. Credit: WENN.com. He’s also shown in the header in a sexy photo from RollingStone, via CoverAwards