#jelani alladin interview

[jbaileyfansite]

The cast of Fellow Travelers being one of the Out100 Storytellers of 2024 [x]

[thequeereview]

Exclusive Interview: Fellow Travelers stars Noah J. Ricketts & Jelani Alladin "this miniseries is a revolution"

Ron Nyswaner’s exquisitely crafted work of queer historical fiction, Fellow Travelers, is a compelling and deeply moving epic miniseries that takes in the Lavender Scare of the 1950s and follows its repercussions in the lives of those directly affected through the following decades, taking in the post-Stonewall period of liberation in the 70s up to the devastation of the onset of HIV/AIDS in the…

[ifthenslashers]

Disney on Broadway 25th Anniversary Concert for Broadway Cares' COVID-19 Emergency Assistance Fund

Here’s the If/Then-related performances:

Ashley Brown singing “No More Fear” from Freaky Friday The Musical, written by Tom Kitt & Brian Yorkey (If/Then, Next To Normal)

If/Then fam Tamika Lawrence & co. sings “Zero To Hero” from Hercules

“I Won't Say (I'm in Love)” from Hercules featuring Tamika Lawrence

Donate to Broadway Cares' COVID-19 Emergency Assistance Fund now: 

https://broadwaycares.org/help2020

Enjoy a special stream of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS’ benefit concert celebrating Disney on Broadway’s 25th anniversary. The online playback will raise money for Broadway Cares’ COVID-19 Emergency Assistance Fund, which is helping everyone in the theater and performing arts community impacted by the pandemic and work shutdown. Ryan McCartan (Frozen, TV’s Liv and Maddie) hosted the stream live from his family’s home and will interview special Disney on Broadway stars, from their homes, throughout the evening.

The streamed show featured performances by Jelani Alladin, Sierra Boggess, Christian Borle, Ashley Brown, Kerry Butler, Lauryn Ciardullo, Gavin Creel, Merle Dandridge, Lindiwe Dlamini, Bongi Duma, Susan Egan, Andrew Barth Feldman, Bradley Gibson, Whoopi Goldberg, Mandy Gonzalez, April Holloway, James Monroe Iglehart, Adam Jacobs, Ramona Keller, Nina Lafarga, Tamika Lawrence, Norm Lewis, Kara Lindsay, Tshidi Manye, Sibusiso Ngema, Ashley Park, Adam Pascal, Krysta Rodriguez, Michael James Scott, Sherie Rene Scott, Kissy Simmons, Josh Strickland, Katie Terza, Marisha Wallace, Rema Webb, Alton Fitzgerald White and Syndee Winters.

The show also included a much-anticipated, high-energy reunion of 18 Newsies from the show’s Broadway and national touring productions, and a moving performance from Broadway Inspirational Voices.

The November concert was directed Casey Hushion. Jeff Lee and Tom Viola served as executive producers. James Abbott was the music director and created the revised orchestrations. Jason Trubitt served as Disney’s production supervisor. Howard Joines was the orchestra coordinator. The creative team included lighting designer Ryan J. O’Gara and sound designers Kurt Fischer and Marie Renee Foucher.

Video by Reel Time Video Production.

Special thanks to SAG-AFTRA, Actors Equity Association and American Federation of Musicians Local 802.

[jonathangroffcentral]

Mindhunter’s Jonathan Groff on Spring Awakening Giggle Fits, His Hamilton Dream Role, Lea Michele the Goat & More

Jonathan Groff is known and loved by Broadway enthusiasts for his Tony-nominated performances in Spring Awakening and Hamilton. Now, even more fans are getting on board with Groffsauce as he leads the ultra-addicting Netflix series Mindhunter. Watch as he chats about branching out on the Netflix hit, laughing uncontrollably throughout his career, crying watching Frozen on stage and more on this week's Show People with Paul Wontorek.

Here are some must-read highlights:

ON MINDHUNTER DIRECTOR DAVID FINCHER “I had auditioned for The Social Network. I was doing Hamilton, and my agent sent me the script. It said ‘David Fincher,’ and I said, ‘Yes’ to auditioning before even reading it. When I did, I found that the scenes read almost like a play. They’re incredibly psychological, and they play out over such a long period of time. I was so intrigued by the density of the material. I put myself on tape, and the next day they asked me, ‘Can you fly to L.A. on your day off from Hamilton?’ So I did. I went to the audition and just sat with him and talked about the project, what his goals were, what he wanted to explore. And then it was on. The crazy thing about David Fincher is that he can do everybody’s job better than everybody else, including acting. I’ll be like, ‘Can you say that line again? ‘Cause the way you said it is how I want to say it.’”

ON HIS UNCONTROLLABLE LAUGHING PROBLEM “I would have these insane laughing fits. Holt McCallany, who plays Bill Tench—we’re so opposite. It’s like The Odd Couple. While we were filming, I remember watching him get into the car one day, and I just lost it. I couldn’t stop laughing. It became this sort of running thing. Weeks later, we’re in this scene, talking about something serious, and again, I had to run laps around the set because I couldn’t stop laughing. It’s my Achilles heel. It started on Spring Awakening. I think it was performance 303. I remember the performance number because John Gallagher and I broke. Something inside of us broke, and it’s never been fixed again. He came in for the scene before ‘Touch Me.’ He slid in with his crazy hair. It wasn’t anything we said. We just looked at each other and started hysterically laughing. But we started the scene. I pulled the mic out and [wobbley voice] ‘Where...I go...when I go there…’ Ever since that moment, it’s this thing that happens to me. I also find acting so absurd. ‘Cause we’re just in costumes playing pretend.”

ON GRILLING MARC KUDISCH ON MILLIE “I was grilling him the whole time we shot Mindhunter together on Thoroughly Modern Millie stuff. He’s such an amazing actor, and he’s so good in the show. I remember one time that I went to go see Millie, they were doing the speed test scene. She was sitting..Sutton Foster…The royal ‘She,’ and she was writing in her pad. Kudisch crossed over to stage right, and she sort of scurried over next to him and showed him a notepad. I remember it so vividly. He had this smile, and I remember thinking, ‘I think she wrote something inappropriate on that pad. I don’t think that they’re acting right now.’ I had to ask him about it while we shot Mindhunter. So I did. And he was like, ‘I don’t remember.’” ON HIS LACK OF SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE “I think social media is great. It’s useful in so many ways, but I think in order for it to be effective for any particular person, you also have to be really into it. You can’t really half-ass it. I don’t like being on my phone. It’s just not my thing. I don’t think it would be effective simply because it’s not something that gets my heartrate going. No one has ever pressured me into using it. I think if Facebook came out when I was in high school, I probably would be on all social media. It just was never a part of my everyday situation. I delete my texts and emails after I respond to them so that I can remember to get back to everyone. To then have to respond to all kinds of social media interactions just makes me feel tired.”

ON COMING OUT “When I came out, it was actually through Broadway.com—thank you, Broadway.com, for outing me. I came out like a month after I left Spring Awakening. I was 23. I had a personal revelation. I went travelling by myself. I realized I wanted to be open about who I was, and my whole life changed. I came out with my friends and family. But then there was no opportunity to come out publicly, but then I was at the march on Washington. I was dating Gavin Creel at the time. He changed my life in so many ways, that being one of them. I was in love, and we were in D.C., and it just made sense. A reporter from Broadway.com asked me: ‘Are you gay?’ She asked me, and I kind of took a moment. And she said, ‘Oh my god! I don’t want to make you feel weird. Forget I said that.’ I was just looking around at the crowd and at Gavin who was just like speaking into a megaphone. I felt so wrong to just be standing there. I always knew that I would come out. To me, love is more important than career. And so I walked over to her again, and I said, ‘Hey, I know you wanted to ask me a question. I’m sorry to walk over here again after you just asked me that. But yeah, I’m gay.’ And she was like, ‘On the record?’ And I said, ‘Yes.’” ON THE FEAR OF BEING TYPECAST AS G-A-Y “Looking came along, and it’s one thing to be a gay actor. It’s another thing to be gay on screen. Am I stamping a giant G-A-Y across my forehead? Maybe I’ll forever be typecast as a gay person. That was my insecurity in going for that project. But I put that insecurity aside after seeing our director Andrew Haigh’s movie Weekend. It blew my mind, so I thought, ‘Let me put away that dumb insecurity about being labelled as a certain thing forever.’ I just believed in the project. And then Mindhunter came along. It’s as much a surprise to me as anything else. It’s also a reflection of being an actor in 2017. Even 10 years ago, coming out was a different thing. Hopefully, it’s a reflection that everybody’s catching up with the times. It’s such a silly notion that your sexuality in your real life would determine your intimacy and chemistry with people on a set or on a stage.”

ON FINDING ROMANCE "I don't really have a type. I've dated all different types, all different ages. What I'm looking for is that thing when you sit down with someone, and you can't stop talking to each other. When all of a sudden, hours have gone by. I have that with close friends. Like, 'Oh my god! We've been sitting here for four hours?' That's what I'm looking for. It's one of those things that's either there or it's not. But I don't have a physical type."  

ON WHY HE CAN'T SPOIL FROZEN 2 "We started recording Frozen 2 the week of the stage musical's opening in Denver, actually. I am not at liberty to say anything about it. If I, in this moment, revealed the plot of Frozen 2 to you, I would implode. Blood à la Milly Bobbie Brown in Stranger Things would just start pouring out of my nose." ON WATCHING FROZEN ONSTAGE "Jelani Alladin made me cry when I saw it in Denver. Even just like thinking about it makes me want to cry. They wrote so much new material, so he knows more about Kristoff than I do because they wrote so much for the character. The whole story and the relationship between he and Anna is so filled out in this beautiful way. He has this moment in the second act with this beautiful song that just like made me cry. He was incredible. And Caissie Levy. At the intermission, after she sang 'Let It Go,' I felt like I was lit on fire." ON HIS REAL HAMILTON DREAM ROLE "Every day, I'm texting Tommy Kail about playing Angelica. I feel like Hamilton is such a groundbreaking show. Why not just like really take it to the next level, and just make Angelica Schuyler a white... man? [Laughs] I'm just obsessed with Renée Elise Goldsberry. I actually don't want to be myself as Angelica. I want to be Renée as Angelica, which makes it even more complicated." ON THE STATUS OF LEA MICHELE (THE GOAT) “Dead. Lea Michele the goat has passed.”

Watch the full episode of Show People with Paul Wontorek below!

SEE VIDEO HERE.

Interview is edited and condensed for clarity.

(Photos by Caitlin McNaney) - (Illustration by Ryan Casey)

Nov 29, 2017

[newyorktheater]

See August 1

See August 5

See August 7

See August 8

See Aug 10

See Aug 16

See Aug 18

See Aug 23

See Aug 26

Below is the day-by-day calendar of “theater openings”* in August, 2020, a month of abundance: Two theatrical celebrations of the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage (Aug 16 & 18), two ways to re-experience Amiri Baraka’s landmark play “The Dutchman” (Aug 8 & 20), at least two annual summer theater festivals re-imagined, and three “reunion readings” of plays with their original starry casts.

  And that’s just what we know about as the month begins. Since physical theaters were shut down in March, many  shows are put together at the last minute, sometimes not even announced until the very day of their launch. (And there have also been last-minute cancellations.) That’s why  I will be updating this preview guide every day, and highlighting the offerings each new day with a new link up top. This calendar as of this moment offers a glimpse of what’s in store. Come back day by day for a better look. (Some of the plays listed do require advance reservation.)

Several ongoing series have been consistent in quality and output, many of them new or even ad-hoc.

Four offer live performances (usually referred to as readings), often of original plays:

The Homebound Project (See Aug 5) Livelabs: One Acts from MCC Play-PerView (See Aug 1, 8 and 15th) Viral Monologues from 24 Hour Plays (some 10 short new monologues almost every Tuesday) This month, the similar 48Hours in…Harlem celebrates its 10th anniversary, by going online. (See August 20.)

There is also Stars in the House, a twice-daily variety and talk show that, twice a week — on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons — presents Plays in the House,  Zoom readings of well-known plays, often classics…and a Sunday matinee for teenagers.

*My definition of theater for the purposes of this calendar generally does not extend to variety shows, cast reunions, galas, panel discussions, documentaries, classes, interviews — of which there are plenty, many worth checking out. My focus here is on creative storytelling in performance. (I make an occasional exception for a high-profile Netathon,involving many theater artists, such as Broadway Bares on Aug 1.)

A reminder that this calendar lists when the shows “open.” Some are live and available only for that one performance. Other shows are available for four days, or a week, or longer.

August 1

playwright Lydia Diamond

Crystal Monee Hall

Jelani Aladdin

Stick Fly Plays in the House 2 p.m. Available until August 5 The Zoom reading of Lydia Diamond’s play (which ran on Broadway in 2011)  is the latest matinee  in the twice-weekly spinoff series of Stars in the House. The affluent, African-American LeVay family is gathering at their Martha’s Vineyard home for the weekend, and brothers Kent and Flip have each brought their respective ladies home to meet the parents for the first time. The cast features Jelani Alladin, Crystal Monee Hall, Caroline Innerbichler, Keith Randolph Smith, Tiffany Rachelle Stewart, Daniel J. Watts and Renika Williams. New original music by Crystal Monee Hall

RoosevElvis Play-PerView Launches at 5 p.m. $5-$50 A reunion reading of The TEAM’s 2013 comedy, directed by Rachel Chavkin (Hadestown, Great Comet): On a hallucinatory road trip from the Badlands to Graceland, the spirits of Elvis Presley and Theodore Roosevelt battle over the soul of Ann, a painfully shy meat-processing plant worker, and what kind of man or woman Ann should become.

Verdi’s Ernani Metropolitan Opera 7:30 p.m. available for 23 hours A complicated story based on a Victor Hugo play about a young woman and the three men vying for her affection

Murder in Montgomery Manor Broadway Whodunit $21.30 8 p.m. The first in a series of virtual unscripted murder mysteries created by Andrew Barth Feldman (Dear Evan Hansen), where we play detective after one Broadway star is murdered to figure out which Broadway star was the killer. The eight-member cast this time features Feldman as host Laurence Montgomery VI, Alex Boniello as Giuseppe Romano, The Lawyer (I’ll bet he winds up the killer), Will Roland and Shereen Pimentel.

Broadway Bares 9:30 p.m. The annual strip show for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS has gone online this year, featuring (clothed) appearances by Nick Adams, Charles Busch, Lea DeLaria, J. Harrison Ghee, Jane Krakowski, Nathan Lane, Beth Leavel, Judith Light, Andrew Lippa, Lesli Margherita, Angie Schworer, Marc Shaiman, Miriam Shor, Christopher Sieber, Wesley Taylor

August 2

Martin Luther On Trial Fellowship for the Performing Arts 4 p.m. A courtroom drama featuring Hitler, Freud, MLK Jr and Pope Francis as witnesses in a reenactment of Satan’s rebellion and his failed attempt to enlist Michael the Archangel!

Today I Saw A Bird…and Waze Playdate Theatre Two 15-minute plays on day two of this new theater company’s festival. In Ben Kaye’s “Today I Saw A Bird and Watched You Fly Away With It,” Sean (Owen Thiele) logs on for a work call with Roxie (Wonza Johnson), but discovers he’s in for something else entirely. In Lizz Bogaard’s “Waze,” Casey’s desire to get a job at Waze is thwarted when his grandmother causes a ruckus during his interview.

Frankie Faison

Happy by Alan Zweibel Playing on Air

In Alan Zweibel’s audio play, starring Frankie Faison and Scott Adsit, directed by Fred Berner, a baseball fan shows up at the home of his childhood hero, George “Happy” Halliday. Has the stranger come to pay his respects or to throw a curveball?

Wagner’s Die Walküre Metropolitan Opera 7:20 p.m. available for 23 hours The second installment of Wagner’s four-part Ring cycle, the most popular and most self-contained episode. It combines the mythical machinations of gods and demigods with the love story of the brave hero Siegmund and the dignified Sieglinde, whose passion is undiminished even when they discover that they are long-lost brother and sister,

August 3

The Olympians Theater Breaking Through Barriers 7:30 p.m. The first of eight new plays from the festival entitled Voices from the Great Experiment, which will be presented on TBTBTheater’s YouTube channel every night at 7:30 through August 10.

August 4

Who’s There New Ohio Theater Available through August 8 Cross-cultural encounter involving artists based in Singapore, Malaysia, and the United States: Accusations, feuds, and revelation. Created by The Transit Ensemble, co-directed by Sim Yan Ying “YY” and Alvin Tan.

August 5

  Homebound Project # 5 7 p.m. Available through August 9 The fifth anthology of short new plays (and planned as the last), this time with a cast featuring Laurie Metcalf, Kelli O’Hara, Brian Cox, Austin Pendleton, Daniel K. Isaac, performing in works by playwrights Craig Lucas, Lena Dunham, Sylvia Khoury, Stephen Karam, Donnetta Lavinia Grays.

Black Trans Women at the Center Long Wharf Theater 8 p.m. A free Zoom reading of three short plays: Dezi Bing’s “Things Unknown,” CeCe Suazo’s “You Will Nevaaa …” and Douglas Lyons’s “Sunshine.”

August 6

The Bathroom Plays Eden Theater Company 8 p.m. All three plays take place in a bathroom, and will be streamed on Eden’s YouTube channel In Amy Berryman’s “Pidgeons,” a woman confesses to a priest via Zoom, as she “lurks the bowels of the Internet” after her husband’s death. In E.E. Adams’s “Mary,” a young woman who is sheltering in place alone attempts to befriend the ghost haunting her bathroom. In Brennan Vickery’s “Monogamous Animals,” the characters would’ve never thought being so close could make them feel so lonely. A cigarette, a bathtub and a one-night getaway from quarantine might just break them.

August 7

Lin-Manuel Miranda as Usnavi

In the Heights: Chasing Broadway Dreams PBS Great Performances A documentary of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s first Broadway musical, as part of the program’s new “Broadway at Home” series. A cool follow-up to Hamilton on Disney+ (still available to subscribers) and the Freestyle Love Supreme documentary on Hulu (ditto.)

The Understudy Play Reading Fridays 7 p.m. Theresa Rebeck’s comedy focuses on Roxanne, who is charged with running the understudy rehearsal for the Broadway premiere of a heretofore undiscovered masterpiece by Franz Kafka. She is rattled when she discovers it’s her ex-fiance who is understudy for Jake, a mid-tier action star yearning for legitimacy.

August 8

WeSongCycle Tokyo Performing Arts 8:45 a.m. The season finale of an online documentary-style series, centered on several cultures’ definition of “Heroism.” The 16-member cast hails from the U.S., the U.K., Australia and Japan.

Dutchman Play-PerView 7 p.m. A read of Amiri Baraka’s 1964 play that’s a stark, allegorical confrontation between Lula, a white woman, and Clay, a black man, on the subway in New York, featuring the cast of the 2007 Cherry Lane production — Dulé Hill, Jennifer Mudge, and Christopher Meyer.

August 9

Anniversary Playing on Air Sarah Sokolovic, Michael Esper, Sue Jean Kim, and Steven Boyer star in this play by Rachel Bonds in which a grieving New Yorker finds herself drawn to a quirky, flirtatious friend-of-a-friend.

  August 10

Songs from an Unmade Bed 8 p.m. B.D. Wong and videographer videographer Richert Schnorr create a series of music videos out of this song cycle by librettist Mark Campbell and 18 composers about the inner musings and romantic life of a gay man living in New York.

Corkscrew 4.0 Available through August 23. What was going to be the fourth annual  Corkscrew Festival has been delayed until August 2021. HOWEVER, in the meantime, “the creative teams behind the five world premiere productions have adapted, reimagined, and exploded their plays, ending up with five unique interactive web experiences.” So, for example: “In Yankees, it’s Study Abroad Florence 2015! Introduce yourself to the Facebook group, check out the program website, and get ready to become a citizen of the WORLD…’

August 13

A Burning Church New Ohio Theater Available for two days Staged as a religious service as part of the Ice Factory Festival, this new musical traces the lives of church leaders and congregants amid protest movements, tragedies, and spiritual rebirth.

August 14

Danielle Brooks and Grantham Coleman

Much Ado About Nothing PBS Great Performances A recording of the 2019 Shakespeare in the Park production starring Danielle Brooks as Beatrice. (My review at the Delacorte)

August 15

The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity Play-PerView The tenth annual reunion reading of this play written and directed by Kristoffer Diaz. Macedonio “The Mace” Guerra is a middle rank wrestler who may have discovered his ticket to the big time: a charismatic, trash-talking Indian kid from Brooklyn whom he recruits as the perfect foil to the all-American champion, Chad Deity. But when their rivalry is used to exploit racial stereotypes in the name of ratings, all three men find themselves fighting for much more than the championship title.  (My review of the play Off-Broadway in 2010.)

August 16

Cell Playing on Air Tonya Pinkins, Condola Rashad, and Melanie Nicholls-King star in this audio play by Cassandra Medley:When a jaded guard at an immigrant detention center finds jobs for her sister and niece, family tensions erupt into a battle over home and homeland security.

August 18

Finish the Fight New York Times 7 p.m. The play by Ming Peiffer (“Usual Girls”) was commissioned by the Time to mark the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, giving women the right to vote The performance is available for free to viewers who R.S.V.P. in advance.

August 19

The Hombres Two River Theater 7 p.m. $25 A look at the complexity and intimacy of male friendship. Set somewhere off the New Jersey Transit line, the play follows Julián, a Latino yoga teacher, as he clashes with the Latino construction workers outside his studio—particularly the older head of the crew, Héctor, who seeks from Julián something he never expected.

  August 20

The six producers of Harlem9 (three dropped out over the years) Back row: Jonathan McCrory, Garlia Cornelia Jones, Sandra A. Daley-Sharif and Spencer Scott Barros. Bottom row: Bryan E. Glover and Eric Lockley.

48Hours in…Harlem Harlem9 7 p.m. Available for four days The 10th anniversary edition of the annual theatre festival begins August 20. The new plays were written in 48 hours July 17–19, then rehearsed and recorded during an additional 48-hour period July 24–25. For this year’s festival, playwrights were inspired by the same six Black plays from 48 Hours in..’s. inaugural year: Zooman and the Sign, The Colored Museum, Day of Absence, Funnyhouse of a Negro, Dutchman, and Black Terror. The festival brings together six playwrights, six directors, and 18 actors, including A Strange Loop star Larry Owens and its choreographer Raja Feather Kelly. Penning the pieces are playwrights  Keith Josef Adkins, Brittany K. Allen, Tracey Conyer Lee, Nadine Mozon, Jeremy O’brian, and L. Trey Wilson. (My article on the ninth annual 48 Hours in Harlem)

August 21

The King and I PBS Great Performances

August 23

Julie Halston,

Lois Smith

playwright David Ives

St. Francis Preaches to the Birds Playing on Air An audio play by David Ives sarring Carson Elrod, Julie Halston, and Matthew Saldivar with cameos by Lois Smith and Ives In the middle of the desert, two vultures find their lunch interrupted by a man of faith. Now, they have a bone to pick with Saint Francis of Assisi.

August 24

August 26

Talking Statues Monumental Women This nine-minute “dialogue” (or 11 minutes in Spanish) will accompany “Monumental Women,” a 14 foot tall statue being unveiled in Central Park that depicts three pioneers in women’s rights, Sojourner Truth. Susan B. Anthony and Cady Stanton, in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the women’s right to vote. The cast: Jane Alexander, Viola Davis, America Ferera, Rita Moreno, Zoe Saldana and Meryl Streep! There will be an app, and also a Qcode at the site of the monument. Will there also be a website? Stay tuned.

Sunken Cathedral Here Arts 7 p.m.

August 27

Real-life married couple Ed Harris and Amy Madigan as unhinged, unhappily married couple in Beth Henley’s The Jacksonian in 2013.

The Jacksonian The New Group $10-$25 7 p.m Continuing with the company’s reunion reading series, a starry cast (Ed Harris, Jane Krakowski , Amy Madigan, Juliet Brett,Bill Pullman) star in Beth Henley’s play set in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1964 – a town poisoned by racism – as a dentist Bill Perch (Harris), kicked out by his wife, commences a downward spiral at the Jacksonian Motel. (My 2013 Off-Broadway review)

  August 2020 Online Theater Openings: What’s streaming day by day Below is the day-by-day calendar of “theater openings”* in August, 2020, a month of abundance: Two…

[jbaileyfansite]

The entire Fellow Travelers panel for the SAG Committee Screening (December 05, 2023)

[jbaileyfansite]

A little snippet of the Fellow Traveles's interview with On Stage that will air Saturday and Sunday at 7:30 pm [x]

[jbaileyfansite]

Promo of the cast of Fellow Travelers at the Drew Barrymore Show, airing tomorrow.

[jbaileyfansite]

Jonathan Bailey, Matt Bomer, Jelani Alladin and Noah J. Ricketts interviewed by Frank Dilella (December 7, 2023)

[jbaileyfansite]

The cast of Fellow Travelers at the Drew Barrymore Show, airing tomorrow. Pics posted by Noah J. Ricketts.

[jbaileyfansite]

Interview with Jonathan Bailey and Matt Bomer from GQ Hype

Filled with cozy, Hemingwayesque signifiers of midcentury masculinity (think: taxidermy and artfully-tattered boxing gloves), the restaurant seemed perfect for a breezy, late-autumn hang in the West Village.

But there’s one problem: Matt Bomer and Jonathan Bailey have burgers on their minds. And while this place boasts a surplus of dead animals nailed to the wall, it somehow only serves snacks and salads in the afternoon. And as Bomer points out, Corner Bistro—a pub that, in his opinion, serves some of the best burgers in town—is just a six-minute walk away.

The British-born Bailey—who, in his black sweater, floppy beanie and overstuffed backpack, looks more like a backpacker who just rolled out of his hostel rather than one of the streaming era’s top heartthrobs—waxes rhapsodic about In-N-Out, the California burger institution, which he recently tried for the first time.

He asks the suave, Old Hollywood-handsome Bomer, who spends most of his time in L.A. with his husband and three teenage sons, where In-N-Out falls on his personal burger index. “Our boys are really good judges of burgers,” Bomer says, and for them, In-N-Out is up there—but so is the burger at Corner Bistro. And how can we send Bailey—the Viscount of Bridgerton himself—back to London without tasting New York’s best?

Our location, midway between Stonewall Inn and Julius, two of New York’s most historic gay bars, is apt. The project we’re here to talk about—the epic new Showtime series Fellow Travelers, in which the pair star—tips its hat to the legendary 1969 riots that happened in Stonewall, but goes even further, telling the story of gay liberation in the second half of the twentieth century.

Part epic love story, part political thriller, Fellow Travelers begins in 1950s Washington, D.C., with an illicit affair between the strapping Hawkins “Hawk” Fuller (Bomer), a State Department official savvy to the ways of power, and the earnest, energetic Timothy “Tim” Laughlin (Bailey), the kind of wide-eyed idealist who goes to D.C. wanting to change the world. When they first meet, Tim is a conservative Catholic boy; his passionate, intensely erotic affair with Hawk both liberates him and throws him off his path.

Through the decades-spanning run of their relationship, the series takes us from the Lavender Scare of the 1950s—when a McCarthy-era policy that institutionalized homophobia expelled many “sexual deviants” from government, resulting at one point in a suicide a day—to the AIDS crisis of the 1980s.

The series is based on the Thomas Mallon novel of the same name. But where Mallon’s book generally focuses on the 1950s and the explosive romance between Hawk and Tim, the series expands the Fellow Travelers universe to reach through the decades and cover the Vietnam War protests of the '60s and the White Night riots of 1979.

“It's been taught that LGBTQIA+ history begins at Stonewall,” says Jelani Alladin, the actor who plays queer Black journalist Marcus Hooks in the series. “It’s a kind of false narrative. Queer people have been around taking a stand for themselves since the beginning of time.”

It feels like a disservice to call a series so sexy and so compelling as educational. But Fellow Travelers does serve as an important history lesson for younger generations who may not fully understand the battles fought before their time. “It was a really dark period in American history that obviously we're not taught in school,” says executive producer Robbie Rogers, who prior to his work in film and TV was the soccer player who became the first openly gay man to compete in a North American professional sports league. “We're not taught LGBT history.”

When the first episode of the series came out in late October, a viral clip showcasing Bailey and Bomer in a particularly kinky sex scene had Gay Twitter shuddering with excitement. In the scene, Bailey’s Tim uses his power as a sub to persuade Bomer’s Hawk to take him to an important D.C. party. “I’m your boy, right?” he tells Hawk. “Your boy wants to go to the party.” In surely one of this year’s hottest scenes on film or TV, we see Bailey hungrily suck on Bomer’s toes and gamely attempt to put his foot in his mouth. Earlier in the series, Hawk gives Tim the name “Skippy” after thoroughly dominating him in bed, a gesture of affection as much as of ownership.

Sex is a powerful, world-shifting force in Fellow Travelers, but it’s also a Trojan horse. While the early episodes bristle with erotic energy, every exchange between Bomer and Bailey is about power as much as it is about sex. And the further you go into Travelers, the more you realize what’s really at stake when these two hit the sack.

“Even in the ‘50s, they had joy,” Travelers creator and writer Ron Nyswaner, the Oscar-nominated screenwriter of Philadelphia, says. “You might be struggling, but that doesn't mean every moment of your life you're a victim of oppression. Behind closed doors they had a life—it's just that at any moment, the police could come through those doors and ruin that life.”

That unapologetic approach to queer desire is still pretty revolutionary in a big-budget prestige series on a major network. Gone are the days when gay characters were allowed to exist onscreen as long as they adhered to respectability politics. In Fellow Travelers, the queer characters are allowed passionate, unapologetically freaky pleasures.

“There's no shame attached to that,” Bailey says. “And I do think Matt's character detonates something in Tim. It's a gift to meet someone [who does the] radical act of helping you feel less shame and understand that intimacy that can be explored in so many different ways.”

Religion is a big theme in Fellow Travelers. Hawk is bound by covenant to his wife; Tim struggles with Catholic guilt. And like many queer people, Bomer and Bailey themselves have both had to negotiate religion within their queer identities.

“It took me a long time to dismantle it and to question what I was being told,” Bailey says. “Religion is interesting because it’s the voice of the shame but also [a source of] relief. There was this person that I could speak to—and I definitely did have that full conversation with a higher power. But the contradiction is brutal. To really lean into that as a gay kid who's not born into a gay family, you see both sides of what religion can provide, which is scathing judgment—as I felt it looking back—but also a real space for catharsis and nourishment.”

Bomer says he has an individualized approach to religion: “It's something that I've found for myself over years and years of exploration. It's just highly personal that way.” Bomer is proud to have raised his kids in a truly intersectional environment. “They go to an Episcopal school, but they're in school with Muslim kids, with Jewish kids,” he says. “We gave them that experience and then let them find their own way from there.”

On the way to Corner Bistro, Bomer gives Bailey a capsule tour of gay West Village. “That’s an iconic lesbian bar,” he says, pointing out Cubbyhole on West 12th street. Later, he asks if we’ve ever been to Fire Island. “You can have any experience you want there,” Bomer tells me, when I confess my anxiety around Speedos. “It's not just one thing.”

These streets bring up certain memories for Bomer. He tells us about coming up as an actor in New York in the early 2000s, at one point living in “a renovated crackhouse in Brooklyn.” Later, he worked two jobs to afford a one-bedroom apartment he split with a fellow aspiring actor—none other than Lee Pace, the famous, and famously tall (6′ 5″, if you don’t know), actor and Internet Boyfriend who Bomer has known since high school. “I’ll tell you how long I've known Lee Pace,” he says. “I’ve known him since he was shorter than me, when he was 14 and I was 15.”

As gay men are wont to do, trust that the group veered off-topic to talk about vocally-prodigious divas. Bomer has just seen the Broadway production of David Byrne’s Here Lies Love, which tells the story of the rise and fall of Imelda Marcos, the wife of the Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos. And when he finds out that I grew up in the Philippines, he tells me how much he loves Lea Salonga, the Tony-winning Filipino Broadway star who appears in the production.

We ask Bailey if he’s familiar with her. “Do I know Lea Salonga?” he asks. “She was Fantine!” he retorts, referring to her role in Les Misérables in Concert: The 25th Anniversary.

From there, we fall into a Filipino diva rabbit hole, talking about former Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger (currently appearing in a well-received West End production of Sunset Boulevard that Bomer tells Bailey they must catch together), Mutya Buena of the Sugababes (an iconic U.K. girl group that Bailey and I separately saw live recently), and Darren Criss (who Bomer directed on The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story—technically a straight male, but one who earns diva status for his formidable vocals and the dance he did in a red speedo on Versace).

As we near the pub, a thirty-something woman walking hand in hand with her man does a hilariously convincing impression of the Distracted Boyfriend meme at the sight of Neal Caffrey and Anthony Bridgerton casually strolling through West 4th Street.

“Her neck!” Bailey says, audibly concerned.

In Corner Bistro, with sandwiches and coffees in hand (Bailey decides on a classic burger and a grilled chicken sandwich), we settle down in a cozy booth and talk about the points in their careers where Fellow Travelers found the actors, the hard-won representation Hollywood’s queer community has been fighting for for decades, and the LGBTQ+ talents of color they’d like to support on their own projects.

Bomer, of course, has been famous since the early 2010s, when he became a star on the series White Collar, and along with Neil Patrick Harris, proved that openly gay actors could become leading men. Since then, he’s conquered Broadway (The Boys in the Band), won a slew of awards (Golden Globe and Critic's Choice trophies for The Normal Heart) and become a producer and director.

In the past, Bomer has discussed the way doors closed on him even as he was being celebrated for being an out gay actor. When asked about that now, he says, “I choose just to never look back in anger about anything. Ultimately, my career is a lot richer because I decided to be open with who I am.”

“It’s a wave of progress that Matt's been surfing and is at the front of,” says Bailey. “And it's been a real honor to be able to get on my boogie board next to him.”

Before he became a global star mid-pandemic playing the grumpy, furry-chested Anthony Bridgerton on the Netflix juggernaut Bridgerton, Bailey was an award-winning actor in both the West End and British television. Huge fame didn’t find Bailey until his early 30s, so when it did, he had a clear idea of what he wanted to accomplish with his platform.

“I feel the responsibility immeasurably,” Bailey says. “I get it when people are saying you create a chair and bring people [to the table].” He talks about the connection between the civil rights movement and the queer liberation. “The Black queens are the ones who really started to fight,” he says. “It's amazing to feel politically activated. And if there's any project to do that, it's going to be Fellow Travelers. It will change the way I see myself in and the world I live in.”

The intersectionality makes the story Travelers is trying to tell even richer—most of all in Alladin’s scene-stealing portrayal of the conflicted Marcus Hooks, a pioneering Black journalist who pushes against segregation as he grapples with his own sexuality. “When I look at older men today, I'm like, You guys have endured so much,” Aladdin says. “From the Second World War all the way through to the AIDS crisis, it was nonstop life crisis after life crisis. To have been able to survive through all that, there needs to be a real, solid weight on the feet of [these characters].”

Part of the pleasure of watching Fellow Travelers is picking up on the cinematic references hidden in each scene. Hawk and Tim’s first interactions evoke the forbidden affair in David Lean’s 1945 classic Brief Encounter. When Hawk’s family settles in suburbia, the show evokes the Technicolor repression of the great Douglas Sirk melodramas. When Hawk and Tim run through the beaches of Fire Island in the ‘70s, that iconic image of Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr kissing on the beach in From Here to Eternity may flicker in your mind. And in some ways, the series plays like a gayer, hornier The Way We Were—an epic love story tossed on the tides of political change. (In this version, of course, the Barbra Streisand character is an eager foot-licking sub and Redford’s Hubbell Gardiner is a daddy with a pit fetish.) Fellow Travelers allows us to imagine an alternate timeline where queer love has always gotten as much screen time as cinema’s great heterosexual romances, giving other kinds of stories the chance at celluloid immortality too.

In the book, Hawk is described as being more handsome than Gregory Peck. But seeing Bomer in period-appropriate clothing, the Old Hollywood leading man I thought of was Montgomery Clift, the talented and ultimately tragic gay actor who starred in classics like Red River and A Place in the Sun. For a time in the mid 2010s, Bomer was attached to star in a Montgomery Clift biopic for HBO, to be directed by the great gay director Ira Sachs. “Ira is a genius,” Bomer says. “[But] I think that ship may have sailed.”

Still, when I press him about doing it in the future, he lights up. “You know, I’m [now] the same age Monty was when he passed away,” Bomer says. “I always thought it'd be really interesting to do a play about the last night of his life, when he's watching one of his old movies on TV. And he had this man who lived with him and took care of him for the last chapter of his life.There's an interesting play in there somewhere…. Maybe Liz Taylor swings by.”

What’s changed since the mid 2010s is that a lot of Hollywood’s current gatekeepers are queer people who were fighting from the bottom a decade ago. “It's the people, the gatekeepers who are now going, ‘We are going to make this [queer] story,’” Bailey says. “This narrative that gay people have to be closeted in order [for a project] to be commercial and in order for things to be interesting to people—it's been dismantled. But it's slow because it's not just straight people who think that—I think everyone believed that in the system of Hollywood.”

Nyswaner, who has been working in Hollywood since the early ‘80s, has seen that shift up close. “When I grew up in the ‘60s and early ‘70s, I never heard the word ‘homosexual’ spoken aloud,” he says. “There was no conversation that I ever had with anybody about homosexuality. It was not just bad, it was the unspeakable thing—that's how terrified people were of us.”

And while he agrees that, in some ways, it feels like the LGBTQ+ community is once again losing ground on some rights, Nyswaner refuses to accept that there hasn’t been change. “Sometimes I hear people say, ‘Well, we haven't gotten anywhere.’ And I'm here to say, ‘Oh, yes, we have.’ Because actually you can turn on the television and find gay characters.”

Fellow Travelers is the culmination of a dream for a number of the men involved in the series.

“When I met Ron, he was talking about how he thinks about this as his lifelong legacy project,” Bailey says. “And I just said to him, ‘Whoever ends up going on this journey with you, I think it'll be the same [for them] probably.’”

“In some ways, Fellow Travelers is a span of my life,” Ron Nyswaner says. “I was an infant in the McCarthy era. And then I came out of the closet in 1978 and just danced and did cocaine and had multiple sexual partners—we didn't know what was coming, which was the AIDS crisis.” Nyswaner was nominated for a Best Original Screenplay Oscar in 1993 for Philadelphia, the landmark drama about an AIDS patient who sues his employers for AIDS discrimination. In a way, the historical span of Fellow Travelers gives the battles fought in Philadelphia their context.

Rogers remembers being a closeted soccer player in the late 2000s, watching Tom Ford’s A Single Man and hoping one day to be able to find love and take control of his own narrative. And Bailey recalls, post-Bridgerton, realizing that he could suddenly write his own destiny and vowing to seek out “a sweeping gay love story.”

Bomer, meanwhile, says—laughing, but seemingly dead serious—that it’s his goal to play a queer character from every decade of the 20th century. “A queer Decalogue,” he says, referencing the Krzysztof Kieślowski classic.

Bomer’s next project might just help him do that. He’s currently producing a Steven Soderbergh film on Lawrence v. Texas, the case that overturned the sodomy laws in Texas in 2003 but started in the 90s.

There are many more stories to tell. And as our interview winds down, Bomer and Bailey start spitballing dream projects.

We talk about All of Us Strangers director Andrew Haigh, who’s revered for his portraits of gay intimacy. “Andrew Haigh has been a special filmmaker for years,” Bailey says. “I think [his film] Weekend informed actually how I approached the sex scenes in [Fellow Travelers].”

“I’d love to play Jessica Fletcher's queer grandson who moves back to Cabot Cove,” Bomer says, referencing Angela Lansbury’s iconic role in Murder, She Wrote. “He's inherited her house and he finds an old journal in her library, and it's a case she never saw and he takes up her mantle.”

And moments before the restaurant speakers suddenly start blaring George Michael’s “Freedom ’90,” Bailey comes in with a killer pitch: “I’m obsessed with the Sacred Band of Thebes, an army of 300 gay lovers in [ancient] Greece. They partnered in pairs, this gay army, and they overthrew a Spartan army… I want to do that as a comedy.”

“Oh hell yes!” Bomer says.

“Just get all the queer actors together,” Bailey says, laughing.

“Lee Pace, everyone,” Bomer says.

“Where would we film it?” Bailey asks.

“Mykonos?” Bomer suggests.

“Flaming Saddles, down the road,” Bailey counters with a chuckle, referring to a gay bar in midtown.

“Oil us up and let’s go!” Bomer says.

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Jonathan Bailey, Matt Bomer, Jelani Alladin and Noah J. Ricketts interviewed by On Stage [x]

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Jonathan Bailey, Matt Bomer, Jelani Alladin and Noah J. Ricketts interviewed and photographed by Out Magazine for Fellow Travelers [x]

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Interview for 'Out Magazine' for Fellow Travelers (2023)

Starting in 1950, hundreds to thousands of gay men and lesbians were fired from government jobs for allegations of homosexuality under the intrusive eyes of Sen. Joseph McCarthy and his chief counsel, Roy Cohn. They were labeled deviants and morally weak. McCarthy and Cohn said that gay people couldn’t be trusted with your children, let alone to run your country. It’s shockingly similar to what’s happening today.

By 1953, President Dwight Eisenhower signed Executive Order 10450, which barred homosexuals from working in the federal government. Five thousand people were not just fired but were outed to their families and communities, effectively and in some cases literally ending their lives. More followed. It wasn’t until the 1970s that this policy barring gay people from federal jobs started to change, and not until 1998 that it completely ended.

In Fellow Travelers, an eight-episode series airing on Showtime this fall, actors Matt Bomer and Jonathan Bailey play Hawk Fuller and Tim Laughlin, two men who meet while working in Washington, D.C., at the start of McCarthyism. They fall in love. For Hawk, this means living an existence of discipline and barriers, hiding who he is so he can build a life working in the government. For Tim, it means losing his career and finding a path that allows him to follow his truth.

In order to survive, Hawk and Tim form a chosen family with two other gay men swept up in the big political and cultural changes happening: journalist Marcus Hooks (Jelani Alladin) and drag-queen-turned-activist Frankie Hines (Noah J. Ricketts). Throughout the four decades covered in the series, the four men come back into each other’s lives when things get hardest. For the four out stars of the show, forming that kind of found family was important in order to be able to play some of the most complex and challenging (but rewarding) roles of their careers. That family found its leader in Bomer, a veteran actor (Magic Mike, The Normal Heart). Bailey, an English actor with an extensive background in theater, is internationally famous as the male lead in season 2 of Netflix’s Bridgerton. Alladin (Frozen) and Ricketts (Frozen, Beautiful: The Carole King Musical) are known for their Broadway roles.

“Matt is such a giver, and he gave to all of us and provided the space for all of us to feel safe, to feel that we can make bold choices and that we can all play along,” Alladin says, thanking Bomer. “And it really connected everybody on set to say, to trust each other. Rarely do I feel like there’s a circle of four queer men or four queer bodies and I feel like we can all say, ‘I would fall on a sword for you.’”

For Bomer and Bailey, that also meant building the kind of trust that allowed them to film some sex scenes that are among the hottest in the careers of two men who have filmed a lot of heated moments. “It’s funny, isn’t it? Personally, when I read the script, I didn’t think it was explicit,” Bailey laughs. “I think it’s so important. You can’t tell the queer love story and not show how the sex is so intrinsic.”

“It’s all something that is hard to talk about to people who come together and have separate bodies,” he adds. “But if you exist in the same body, how you negotiate that and what that means, how being submissive [affects sex], and well, really what is kink…. It’s all a thing. I just think it’s a really hearty and honest examination of something which I know I’ve always yearned to see properly explored.”

Bomer says they were able to explore that because they had conversations throughout filming the scenes. “We could call audibles on the fly or really communicate with each other or say we wanted to try this or that, so it all felt pretty free,” he says. “And in terms of the story, all those scenes really carry the story forward. Their relationships are not the same after those above scenes as they were before. So they’re all intrinsic and inherent to the story.”

“I think it’s so nuanced and personal, isn’t it? The way that people have sex is so presumed,” Bailey says. “It definitely was the first time that I’ve seen a light being shown on the roles within a gay relationship and power and status with being submissive and dominant.”

“But to me, what I find interesting, it’s a give and take between the two,” he continues. “So actually it’s not one person going, ‘I’m now going to do this.’ It’s like they move as a unit. And I think that’s beautiful. And I feel like it always is negotiation, and I’m always interested in people who identify as one role, and I would wonder what that is.”

He points to the first time Hawk and Tim have sex, where Hawk takes on the dominant (top) role, and the last time, when Tim takes charge. “Literally, it’s a complete reversal,” he points out. “It’s a love story. So that bleeds into these scenes. So even in the way they have sex, it’s always about generosity and communication. And that is essentially how I feel how this whole show was made on generosity and communication and truth.”

While the sexual intimacy is groundbreaking in the show, the intimacy is there for the characters in other ways too. Because the actors played the characters throughout four decades of their lives, they were presented with a unique opportunity to showcase development — especially for Alladin and Ricketts, who know the importance of showing Black queer love on screen.

“There’s also something so powerful in telling this story to the world right now in hope of either educating or simply revealing to those who don’t understand that love can happen in all shapes, sizes, and forms, and be inside of all people,” Alladin says. “And that it should not be something that is limited by law or limited by the venom of segregation.”

“For me, some of the intimacy that I enjoy the most in this series is when we’re all old,” he continues. “Because they’re still caring for one another. I’ll never forget shooting that scene in the bedroom in one of the later episodes where we’re at age 80 and we’re still connected, we’re still loving each other. That’s something I’ve never seen — caring that lasts through decades.”

For Ricketts, playing the role of a Black gay man who is a drag performer in an illegal gay bar in the ’50s and then becomes an activist and organizer throughout the rest of his life, caused him to look at his own life and priorities.

“I think there’s something so beautiful and beautifully hard about being yourself in a world that is determined to hate you,” Ricketts says. “And playing Frankie, a character that was out and loud and proud with a glossy lip and a painted nail. It really forced me to look inward at the way I moved through the world and see if I’m coming out authentically, if I’m moving in the world authentically. And so I hope that as people watch this, they ask themselves that question so we can break down these barriers of hypermasculinity and feeling like we have to change who we are to subscribe to societal norms.”

“I think living out loud and living as an effeminate person in the world, you put on a type of armor,” he continues. “There is a lot of fear underneath that. And even though to the external world, you’re going out there being brave, what I tried to show was that it’s actually a really difficult thing to stand up and be yourself. There’s a lot of emotion underneath that. And so I think throughout the years, you beat someone down one time and you get stronger the next time. And I think that’s what you see in Frankie’s evolution.”

“It’s amazing to see how much [Frankie’s] priorities shift as the world shifts through the decades. And I think that’s what I responded to so much, is that my character Frankie gives up, puts his heels away to fight the good fight and to make a better existence for the people that come after him,” he says. “And I think that’s something that’s so real for queer people that it’s a call to action. We don’t have the luxury of hanging back. We have to fight for everything that we have.”

That fight became even more real for each of the actors the more they learned about the real Lavender Scare — the aforementioned persecution of queer people in the U.S. government — a history lesson that’s not taught in most schools. “I had no idea it was a thing, and I was embarrassed by that,” Alladin admits. “I was ashamed of that. Why was that chapter skipped in the history books? Why not in social studies class? It is 101, and here we are staring in the mirror being like, Well, did anything change? Well, no. Because we didn’t teach it. We haven’t taught it. So therefore, how can you learn the lesson?”

“I think there’s so much erasure that happens of queer history in general that I’m happy this exists because it forces people to ask the question, Did this really happen? And to seek out answers for themselves,” Ricketts adds. “And the answer is, ‘Yeah, it’s real.’ And it’s happening again today. So yeah, call to action, babies!”

“A lot of the transformations that we’ve seen in the community come from Black and brown bodies that really put themselves out on the street and out on the front lines to fight the fight. And so that’s something that I knew, but it’s amazing to see that it didn’t just happen at Stonewall, it happened in San Francisco and other places with the street queens, that they were out there really going to jail, fighting for their lives so that we could have what we have today,” he says. “And I just think it’s so beautiful to show that. I’m happy that it’s represented.”

Before the July photo shoot for this article, Alladin and Bailey had the chance to go to London Pride together, something both actors say they’ll never forget. “I think it was really crazy to have to experience Pride in New York City and to land in London and experience Pride in London and feel that it’s almost exactly the same,” Alladin says. “There’s a need to release joy. There’s a need to feel that. The world is trying to squish it out of the community with every law that’s being passed, every kind of denial of existence. And you’re like, I just want to enjoy one day.”

Bailey says that working on the show has made him more aware of the political fervor at Pride than any time he’s been previously, and it’s causing him to examine how he uses his platform to fight for LGBTQ+ rights. And Bomer also felt that this year’s Pride was a special one — particular in the wake of Supreme Court decisions that struck down affirmative action and opened the door to businesses discriminating against LGBTQ+ people.

“In light of the past week in all the Supreme Court rulings, it was so important for me personally yesterday just to go out into the streets and take in the Pride celebrations and the sense of community and hope and joy and love that everyone was feeling,” he says. “And to allow that to fill my cup a little bit and inspire me to educate myself and form myself to do what I can and keep moving forward and in the most productive way possible for our community.”

Bomer also wants to make sure he honors those who fought to get us where we are today. “I was fortunate enough to be in Houston last week for the 20th anniversary of Lawrence v. Texas [the SCOTUS ruling invalidating U.S. sodomy laws], and it was so profound for me to meet members of the community in Houston who I was totally unaware of,” he says. “There are generations of heroes who are doing the real grassroots behind-the-scenes work who don’t want accolades, who don’t want awards, who are doing the real work that’s changing all of our lives. And I think I value that today more than I ever have before.”

“For me, I think Pride is always a time to reflect on how far we’ve come but also to realize how much further we have to go,” Ricketts says. “And I think that’s what I’d say to the younger communities, is really understand and know how we got here in the first place and figure out what your form of fighting is. If it’s just showing up in the world authentically as you, that’s wonderful. If it’s getting on a podium and preaching until midnight, that’s wonderful too. But we all need each other and no one can sit back and rest. We have to keep fighting in the fight.”

Talking about queer joy as a form of activism at Pride makes Alladin think of a note he was given during filming from series creator Ron Nyswaner (Philadelphia) about the balance of difficulty and joy found in the series.

“Ron gave me a note one day,” Alladin recalls. “I texted him being like, ‘I’m watching all this research on the ’80s and the AIDS crisis and I’m just sitting here crying.’ He was like, ‘Yeah, but Jelani, I still went to birthday parties. I still found a way to play games with my friends. I still found a way to have a beer and enjoy that.’ So there is still some semblance of light being found in darkness and chaos.”

“When I was in Houston, I was at home with one of the activists and he was showing me pictures from the time period,” Bomer contributes. “And obviously, there was so much heartbreak and loss, but there was also so much celebration and so much joy. It’s really the balance.”

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Jonathan Bailey and Matt Bomer's Interview with The Hollywood Reporter (2023)

“Johnny B! Johnny B!” Matt Bomer exclaims as he logs in to Zoom to join his Fellow Travelers co-star, Jonathan Bailey, to do press for their critically acclaimed Showtime limited series.

“Hey, Matty Mo,” Bailey replies. 

The actors spent about six months filming the eight-episode series — so, of course, they’ve established a playful bond. On this particular day, they’ve even given each other nicknames.  

“I don’t think I’ve ever called Matt ‘Matty Mo’ in my life,” a smiling Bailey says.

“I love Matty Mo,” Bomer replies. “Listen, I love Matty Mo. I appreciate it.”

Bomer and Bailey built a brotherhood and onscreen chemistry for the historical romantic drama about two male political staffers who fall in love at the height of the Lavender Scare, a time when homosexuals were banned from holding positions in the federal government. The series — based on Thomas Mallon’s 2007 novel of the same name — follows their intense affair into the ’80s, also visiting Vietnam War protests and the AIDS crisis.

Zoom, it turns out, is where the actors first met, reading lines together to see if there was magic. And there was.

Since debuting in late October, Fellow Travelers has had an overwhelming response from viewers — some connecting directly with Bomer’s Hawkins Fuller, a veteran and State Department official who carefully hides his homosexuality, or with Bailey’s Tim Laughlin, an eager and naive congressional staffer who falls hard for Hawk. Others have identified with some of the supporting cast, including Allison Williams in the role of Hawk’s wife, Lucy Smith, and breakout stars Jelani Alladin as reporter Marcus Hooks and Noah J. Ricketts as drag performer Frankie Hines, whose gay Black love story is one of the show’s many highlights. 

“It’s so nice to be able to have discourse with people who are responding to the show. That’s been really refreshing and enlightening,” says Bomer, who is also an executive producer on the series.

Bailey, best known for Bridgerton and his theater work, says he was drawn to the show because “it felt new and it hadn’t been done in this way — in an elevated, eight-hour, rich aesthetic with gay actors.

“The queer experience is so different for so many people,” he adds, “but the one thing that unites the queer experience is these moments in history.”

In an interview with THR, Bomer and Bailey talk about prepping for their roles and being gay while playing gay, while also breaking down those milk and toe-sucking scenes.

What has it been like to have people connect emotionally to the series?

MATT BOMER: I won’t name names or anything, but I’ve known people over the years who’ve made similar choices that Hawk made in order to survive. Not governmentally — I mean in a society that certainly didn’t want to see them succeed. But for me, the most refreshing thing has been the young people who are really engaged in the show and knew nothing about the Lavender Scare, and are speaking to the show and the characters, but also, aspects of our history that they were unaware of that the show has — I don’t want to say taught them about, because it’s not a teaching tool — but they’ve learned about through the show.

JONATHAN BAILEY: When people respond in that way and you hear their personal stories, it’s amazing that people feel that they want to share that. It’s the most grounding thing to tell a story and investigate a time or a period or a movement, that hopefully leaves an imprint on people, and/or catalyzes them to tell people and talk about their own stuff. That’s the dream, really.

Jonathan, it’s so heartbreaking to watch Tim hurting in various scenes. What were you pulling from to give such a strong emotional performance? 

BAILEY: Thirty-five years on this earth. (Laughs.) Drawing it from the ground. Naturally, it’s totally parts of me and parts of people that I know, experiences that you think of. Tim’s character arc is so huge, and [I wanted] to capture his youth in those early moments and then expand into what breaks such a pure, optimistic, passionate soul and all the different ways in which that could show itself. There were moments on set that you couldn’t help but be incredibly moved by. 

We found ourselves filming by coincidence on World Aids Day. It is really not hard to feel the importance, but also just the grief is palpable in the stories. And there is a lineage — you inherit this in your community. It just felt like an opportunity to learn as much as I possibly could, generally, about the queer experience. We are surrounded by amazing gay men, as well. And then, of course, I’ve lived my life trying to understand the gay experience, so it wasn’t a shallow pool to [pull from].There’s a well there.

Matt, your character is so cutthroat, but obviously there’s sympathy for him, as well. What was it like playing Hawk?

BOMER: Hawk does what he has to do to survive. He has his empathy and his allegiances, but anything that calls his survival into question, there are immediate and severe boundaries. But then enters Tim, who is so guileless and so full of love and all the things that Hawk wishes he could be at his core, or maybe once was before certain aspects of his life changed that or his point of view about that. You’re always looking for a shadow in your character, and it was so refreshing — he obviously has a public persona, a veneer that he presents to the world in order to maneuver in it, but he really leads with a lot of the more shadowy aspects of a typical character. It’s the love and the more open and vulnerable aspects that are his shadow in many ways. That was an interesting flip for me to get to sink my teeth into. 

It’s profound to have two gay actors playing two gay characters on a TV show. Did you ever think something like this could exist?

BOMER: Honestly, no. My mind has been blown so many times over the past 20 years. I’m just so grateful that the gatekeepers gave us this opportunity. I was doubtful, almost up to the 25th hour on this, that they were really going to put the money and the opportunity into this series that they did. And I’m just so grateful that people who are in the position of calling the shots gave us the chance to tell the story — and the way we needed to.

BAILEY: It’s the Tims of the industry, who are searching for more, who are deconstructing, who are questioning. Because they’re all a similar peer group — [series creator] Ron [Nyswaner] knows Dante [Di Loreto, executive producer of Glee and P-Valley], who’s at Fremantle [which produced the show], and they’ve worked together for years. This isn’t something that just got commissioned overnight, because there’s a wave of progress. The people who are really doing it, as well as the actors, are the people in positions of power who have worked their way up with these questions.

And it’s funny, the one thing I have thought over the years is — I’ve just looked at gay characters, they’re such rich, brilliant, oppressed, complicated, joyous characters to play, so of course people want to play them. And this is a brilliant example of: What better way to do a character study of two polar-opposite gay characters than have gay people play them? But that’s what I felt growing up. I just thought, “Of course people want to play those parts,” which is great. It’s just, what happens if, just for a moment, gay people play them?

And I do think that everyone can play everything, and that’s what we should be headed toward. But I do think there’s a balance that needs, and needed, addressing. And there are a lot of people whose questioning and hard work have created a world in which this can fly.

BOMER: I agree with you wholeheartedly. And it is the Tims of the industry or maybe some Hawks, too, hoping for retribution.

BAILEY: That’s true. We stand on the shoulders of all the Hawks, as well. 

BOMER: (Laughs.)

BAILEY: [The Hawks] did all the work at MGM, yes. (Laughs.)

Jonathan, your character drinking milk in the series got a lot of attention. 

BAILEY: It was a brilliant way of showing such naiveté, and immediately you know that this is a character who’s completely outside the world Hawk inhabits, and he sees the world completely differently. He’s so open. It’s so interesting, isn’t it? Because, it’s funny that Tim leads with his heart and his openness and his childlike wonder, and his shadows are his compulsive nature of constantly needing something that he can’t fill. There’s a moment in episode six — they’re in Frankie’s flat, and I was like, “He’s got to be drinking milk.”

BOMER: There was a power shift in episode eight, too.

BAILEY: Exactly. The milk was on the call sheet. It’s a character in its own right. And also the milk’s character arc is more dramatic than everyone else. Give it a spinoff, I say. (Laughs.)

There was also that toe-sucking scene. Jonathan, did you get the script and it said “suck toe”? 

BOMER: Just “suck toe.” (Laughs.)

BAILEY: It was very, very precisely written down — it was as precise as it needed to be. I saw that as an incredible way to dissect power. I got it when I read it, and I wasn’t intimidated by it. I was just like, “If in the first episode that’s what we are doing, it’s going to be worth five months moving to Toronto, and it’s going to be a series that I would want to watch.” Because not only is it incredibly complicated, not only is it really hot, it’s also something that masks as being provocative, but actually it’s really psychologically impactful and the people who get it get it.

BOMER: I think all those scenes were a really external representation of what was going on with these characters internally, emotionally. And for me, it was really refreshing to see the gay love scenes brought to light in a really unflinching way.

BAILEY: The shock and overwhelm and the tantalizing chemical combustion that happens seeing it — it’s a greater sensory experience because that’s exactly what it meant for Tim in that moment. It captures exactly what’s going on for Hawk and Tim, hopefully, allowing the viewer to experience a bodily reaction to it in the same way, whatever that may be. 

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