2022 Rewind: Patrick J. Adams on Baring it All on the Broadway Stage: 'Sure, Why Not?'

EDGE is looking back at 2022 and we're resharing some of our favorite stories of the year.

Patrick J. Adams, star of the TV series "Suits" (where he co-starred with Meghan Markle) and now a lead in Broadway's revival of "Take Me Out," bared all about baring all in the baseball drama's famous locker room scene, in which Adams, co-star and "Grey's Anatomy" alumnus Jesse Williams, along with most of their cast mates, go full monty.

Chatting with the Daily Beast, Adams said he was initially inclined to walk away from the offer to play Kip, the character who narrates the play, because of the group nude scene.

"I thought, I'm gonna have to be naked?" Adams, who is straight, recounted. "No, I don't think I can do this play."

But then he read the script and changed his mind, because he "realized it's about so much more than that."

The Tony Award-winning play premiered in 2002, and posited the idea of a major league baseball player coming out as gay – something that has yet to happen in real life, the Daily Beast noted, despite pro ball player Bryan Ruby, whose team is not part of the MLB, coming out last summer.

In the play, the disclosure by Kip's best friend, Darren (played by Williams, who has also spoken about being "terrified" when it comes to being naked in the play) leads to locker room tension. What better way to dramatize the fear of a gay man in a naked male environment – and the raw insecurities that drives such fears – than a scene in which everyone is naked?

Adams spoke to that, telling the Daily Beast that the nudity "was weaved into that beautiful speech in that famous shower scene, where he's talking about how these guys feel exposed in a way that they never felt before.

"This sanctuary that used to be their locker room is now changed," Adams continued, hastening to note that it's "Not because Darren came out. It's our reaction to it, that we no longer can feel the way that we feel because of our own misgivings about what's going on. 'We see that we are naked,' as Kip says. It's not nakedness just for fun. It's nakedness to display this really profound point."

Adams revealed an emotional truth of his own. After suffering a panic attack on stage during a 2016 production of "The Last Match " in San Diego, he suffered from anxiety and stage fright for the rest of that play's run. He feared something similar might happen when he appeared on Broadway for the first time in "Take Me Out."

And while he did feel jittery during preview performances, he disclosed, it was the clothing-free scene where his fear vanished.

"By that point in the play, I already feel so vulnerable that being naked just feels kind of like, 'Sure, why not do this too?'" Adams said, before adding that, as far as the audience reactions go, "It's titillating and exciting for maybe three seconds. And then it's like, 'They're talking. Maybe we should listen to what they're saying.'"