The cast and crew of the ongoing queer mini-series ‘Fellow Travelers’ took themselves down memory lane as they talked about the chapters of queer history as well as their own experiences as members of the queer community.
Actors Matt Bomer, Jonathan Bailey, Jelani Alladin, Noah J. Ricketts, executive producers Dan Minahan and Robbie Rogers, creator and executive producer Ron Nyswaner, and costume designer Joseph La Corte gathered for a four-minute-twenty-seconds long talk about their experiences as they learned about queer history vis-a-vis their experiences as queer individuals.
“The circumstances I grew up in, I was in this industry at the time that was very repressive, and it was very hard to be an openly gay person,” Matt Bomer said. “As a matter of fact, it could cost you your career.”
Director Dan Minahan, meanwhile, shared the time when he moved to New York in the 1980s. “There was this thing called AIDS that hit. Although we were watching people die around us, we still managed to fall in love, and it was, like, very confusing.”
Costume designer La Corte, who grew up in the ’70s and the ‘80s, said that there were days on the set when he could stay for one or two takes, but then he had to walk away because the performances were “so extraordinary.”
Asked what it was like playing a character in queer history, Bomer revealed that he thought he “knew a great deal of our history,” but he eventually realized that his understanding of queer history began at Stonewall, and so he had no idea what happened before that.
Jonathan Bailey, on the other hand, said that he was surprised “at the level by which people had to homogenize themselves in order to survive.” Jelani Alladin added, “The amount of cover that these characters have to have to protect themselves was vital.”
