At the tender age of 25, actor Michael Cunio says he is finished acting — but not before indulging his thespian side a few more times. This month, the actor who made his break as an introverted young man obsessed with a gay porn actor in the 2001 film, The Fluffer, will appear in a production of Sneaux, at the 99-seat Matrix theatre in West Hollywood. After that, he will leave for the East Coast, where he will serve as an understudy for the character of Link (Tracy Turnblad’s main squeeze) in the traveling production of Hairspray. In addition, as part of the Sundance Channel’s month of gay programming, “Out Loud,” The Fluffer will be shown three times in June.

Though The Fluffer provided Cunio a leading role in a much-hyped film (he also starred in the long-running production of Refer Madness and on an episode of “The West Wing,” to name a few gigs), speaking with the Gay and Lesbian Times this month, the young runner (who was in San Diego for the Rock ‘N’ Roll Marathon) expressed a desire to return to his roots as a singer. Well, maybe….

Michael Cunio: That’s been really interesting…. There’s sort of been a resurgence of ‘Oh, hey, aren’t you that guy?’ which is kind of fun…. If I remember it correctly, the people who sort of seemed to embrace it the most … were, like, straight, middle aged women. I don’t know what exactly in the film spoke to them, but they seemed to really respond to the story — just sort of the silly things we do for obsession or love or whatever you want to call it.

GLT: Are you excited to be joining the cast of ‘Hairspray?’

MC: I don’t know if I would have taken it were I in a different situation, but I haven’t really worked much since The Fluffer and I’m broke off my ass…. It’s a good paycheck.

MC: Yeah, it was, I guess, a high profile, starring role, whatever. But I’ve made a lot more money from TV and stuff that I’ve done…. I’m doing a play out here right now that I’m working on (Sneaux, a spoof on the novels of V.C. Andrews). It’s the whole ‘incest is best’ … basically Flowers in the Attic meets Ice Castles. And that’s going to be the last thing I do in town before I go on the road…. I’m actually thinking about just quitting acting altogether after Harispray, which is why I’m going to sort of pad the bank account and go out that way.

MC: No, a friend of mine from New York knew the guy who wrote it and they were looking for somebody to sing. I’m a singer first, that’s like my main priority…. Actually, the only reason I got into acting is because my mom wanted me to be a singer. … It’s still the thing that I love most and it’s still what I want to do….

MC: Axl Rose meets Tina Turner. I have a really high, crazy voice and I grew up listening to Motown and Gospel…. The Temptations were one of my all-time favorite groups, especially the more political stuff they did in the ’70s.That’s half the reason I’m getting out of acting…. You know what I mean, you don’t have a platform from which to speak. And when you write music, you can say whatever the hell you want. You’re not a puppet…. Chasing [roles] down is just so boring and so unfulfilling. Even if I were working left and right, half the projects that I go out on aren’t projects that I would be very proud of putting out to the world…. Like, I don’t think The Fluffer is a perfect movie; I think it’s a flawed film…. It’s not Citizen Cane, but it’s better than a lot of mind-numbing trash.

GLT: What was it like working with Chi Chi LaRue and the whole Hollywood take on the gay porn industry?

MC: Chi Chi was only on set for one day — she was in her trailer the whole time. The only porn personality that I got to really work with was the leather daddy who was in that scene toward the end where I have to, like, go fluff him…. His real name is, oh fuck, I don’t remember…. Cole something?

MC: Like Mr. Leather guy. Fuck. Cole tucker maybe?

MC: But that was like our second day of shooting and that was the most intense scene to shoot emotionally. Actually, a lot of what we shot that day didn’t make it into the film, but … there was a whole lot of crying going on. You know, it’s a pretty bizarre position to put yourself into.

GLT: In what sense?

MC: Just the idea of this naïve, poor kid who had sort of fallen into this industry out of a desire to get close to this guy; and really, once he has the opportunity to get close to this guy, he totally misinterprets what their relationship is. He justifies what he’s doing because it’s someone he likes. And then the minute he realizes … he’s just a hired mouth — so to speak — he’s basically a hooker, the fact that the guy that he works for has enough power to make him go suck this, no offense to Cole, this … (searches for the words) terribly threatening guy. It’s just like, were I that person in real life, I would run kicking and screaming. It’s just incredibly demeaning and sad to me….

MC: … The kind of person that I am and the kind of character that Sean is could not be less alike…. So for me, the challenge was how do you make this person human and not a caricature? It was tough trying to make him a real, live, three-dimensional person that people could care about given all the bad choices he makes. That was a challenge for me….

MC: I’ve been doing this stuff in some fashion or other for a very long time. I think Los Angeles is a very bizarre place to try and find yourself because the filter through which everybody sort of sees things is skewed. There’s like ‘straight people fat,’ and then there’s ‘gay people fat,’ and then there’s ‘Hollywood people fat.’ You know what I mean? Somebody you might think is a little chunky at a club, if they were straight, would be considered pretty good-looking…. I moved out here when I was really young and it’s an interesting place to sort of form your worldviews and grow up…. I am looking forward to hitting the road and getting away from it for a while.

MC: Motocrossed was this movie we did in San Diego. The money was so good, and the movie was so cheesy…. Like honestly, I get recognized by more 13 or 14 year old girls than I do by anyone whose ever seen The Fluffer…. I was in Chicago … shopping at The Gap or whatever. I went in to change and came out and there was like this whole gaggle of preteen, adolescent girls. This one girl came up to me and she goes, ‘You know, all these girls are 11, but I’m 14,’ and she slipped me her phone number.

For tickets to Sneaux, call the Matrix Theatre at (323) 852-1445. The Fluffer will air on the Sundance Channel Thursday, June 12, at 11:00 p.m.; Monday, June 16, at 3:00 a.m.; and Tuesday, June 24, at 2:00 a.m.