Leslie Jordan jokes that he came out "when I fell out of the womb into my mother's lap," but in reality the journey to self-acceptance was a much longer and more difficult process for the diminutive actor.

Although he has appeared in numerous movies, TV shows and commercials, Jordan, 53, is perhaps best-known for his Emmy-winning role as Beverley Leslie, the catty rival of Karen Walker (Megan Mullally) on the sitcom Will & Grace.

Out in America recently interviewed Jordan about his forthcoming book, My Trip Down the Pink Carpet, and his touring one-man show based on it.

"I wanted to write about being an openly gay actor in Hollywood and the way things have changed," Jordan said, "but it turned into something much more personal than that."

Part of his motivation for writing the book stems from his involvement with the Trevor Project, a national hot line for suicidal GLBT youth.

"When they plugged in almost 10 years ago, they got 15,000 calls from beautiful young gay men and women who were contemplating suicide," he said. "Most of those calls came from where I grew up - the Bible Belt."

So, rather than write a detailed memoir, Jordan decided to focus on "my journey out of the Deep South and away from the Baptist Church, and my journey into acceptance."

That journey began in Chattanooga, Tenn., where his original ambition was to be a jockey. (Jordan stands 4' 11".) He exercised race horses until his late 20s, when he decided to attend college in Lexington, Ky.

Jordan fell into acting almost by accident, taking an introductory theater course "on a lark."

"The first day, we did improvisations. I got up in front of people, and everybody started laughing."

His ability to make people laugh was born of necessity in high school back in Chattanooga, he said. "I learned a long time ago if I could make those bullies laugh, they'd leave me alone."

But when Jordan arrived in Hollywood in 1982, he was still carrying the baggage of his conservative Southern upbringing.

He soon found work in television, working with future stars such as Billy Bob Thornton and George Clooney, and living across the street from Luke Perry before the days of Beverly Hills 90210.

"I had these huge, unrequited, angst-ridden, completely out-of-my-head crushes," Jordan recalled. "It becomes a running joke in the book: 'George Clooney broke my heart,' " he said with a laugh.

Although Jordan was out at the time and forging a successful acting career, he was also living in a haze of drugs and alcohol.

"I had two or three DUIs in one year, and I thought, 'Girl, it's time to put the plug in the jug.' "

When he stopped relying on drugs and alcohol as a crutch, he realized, at age 42, that "I was absolutely riddled with internal homophobia - all that fear, all that shame, all that guilt had been suppressed over the years.

"So, 10 years ago, I felt that was my official coming out," he said. "Where I am now, 10 years later, because of the work I've done in various recovery programs and working on myself, I am closer now to my authentic self."

Jordan realized that his journey toward self-acceptance was complete at the 2006 Emmys, when he was onstage with actress Cloris Leachman.

When she asked him how it felt to win his first Emmy, Jordan brought down the house with his response: "Oh, Miss Leachman, I take it everywhere. I even sleep with it."

"I tossed that line off without any shame, without any hesitation, without one iota of self-doubt," Jordan recalled. "And I thought: what a journey for this guy who stepped off the bus in 1982."

As for the future, Jordan said he would like to do some New York theater and has two feature film projects in development. "But I just get up in the morning and I'm along for the ride, which is really a kind of cool place to be. You're just letting it unfold, and it's gonna happen the way it's gonna happen."

In the meantime, he is concentrating on his tour of My Trip Down the Pink Carpet and said he was "two really solid offers" to bring the show off-Broadway in the fall.

In July, he will appear in the Logo cable-TV series Sordid Lives, based on the 1999 film.

A longtime dream of Jordan's is to one day buy a farm near Lexington - "my favorite place on earth"- and raise horses and open a bed-and-breakfast to be run by his sisters.

He also has a shorter term dream when he attends his 35th high school reunion in August. "I have this fantasy - I know it's not going to happen - but I'm going to look up this one bully who just tormented me, and I want to tell him: 'Listen, because of you I learned to be funny because you would tease me. I've had this really lucrative career being funny, so I'd like to thank you. But I'd also like to tell you to kiss my rich gay ass!"