Actors Matt Bomer and Jonathan Bailey discuss the much-talked-about sex scenes in their phenomenal historical and political short series ‘Fellow Travelers’, and they have a lot of insights about how they view their characters vis-a-vis the sexual acts they show on the screen.
Bomer, who plays the role of Hawks, describes his character and his attitude towards sex as someone who “needs to control” and “be in control.”
“[Hawks] has this horrific experience with his father and first love and this traumatic experience in the war that gave him a perspective where he always felt that he’d be letting anyone who loved him down, that the cost of loving him would be someone’s life,” Bomer begins. “That’s his kind of greatest fear. So he has these tremendous obstacles to true intimacy and this tremendous need to also control — and to be in control — of what’s going on.”
Bailey, on the other hand, who plays Bomer’s partner, Tim, also known as Skippy, agreed that his character can be “subservient” but has a lot of power. “He has that incredible chemical awakening in that first interaction. Also, I think for Skippy, his intimacy has exploded by truth and honest conversation, and they have that conversation I think probably for the first time, they talk about his first experience [ . . . ] but it’s through that conversation that suddenly, he goes, ‘Yeah, let’s explore it.’ And then he does quickly sit in his power.”
Bailey also adds that showing these sexual acts on screen is necessary for the gay community to feel validated in expressing their selves without judgment. “There’s something about gay [people] coming together, like its the experience of what it is to see these sexual acts on screen. Yes, it’s provocative, and yes, people talk about it, but then what? It’s actually showing the level of chemical supernova of what it is, to achieve what most people would be able to have without question, a level of intimacy and validation in that sexual act.”
Check out the full interview here:
