'Fellow Travelers' is an 'incredibly sexy' gay love story. It also couldn't be timelier.
Ron Nyswaner knows how it feels to be censored.
Growing up as a closeted gay kid in the 1970s, "I knew what it was like to constantly be on guard about how I spoke and how I walked," says the "Homeland" producer. "I never knew walking down the aisle of that school bus whether I was gonna get punched that day or not."
So when he picked up Thomas Mallon's 2007 gay romance "Fellow Travelers," he immediately connected to the book's star-crossed protagonists, who feel pressured to hide and blend into straight society. Now, he's expanded the story into an eight-episode limited series (streaming Fridays on Paramount+; premieres Sunday on Showtime, 9 EDT/PDT).
'Fellow Travelers' tells a 'high-stakes' gay love story
“Fellow Travelers" charts the forbidden relationship between Hawkins “Hawk” Fuller (Matt Bomer), a closeted federal bureaucrat, and Tim Laughlin (Jonathan Bailey), an assistant to Republican Sen. Joseph McCarthy (Chris Bauer).
The show begins during the 1950s “Lavender Scare,” a witch hunt targeting gay and lesbian government employees who were unjustly labeled “sexual deviants." As many as 10,000 queer people are estimated to have been fired or bullied out of their jobs because of anti-gay policies, which were spearheaded by McCarthy and his chief counsel Roy Cohn (Will Brill).
“It horrified me as an LGBTQ man,” Nyswaner says. “But as a dramatist, it excited me because those are high stakes. When we say it’s dangerous to love somebody, well, now it’s really dangerous. Your life will be ruined.”
The series is produced by Robbie Rogers, a former soccer player who came out in 2013, becoming the first openly gay man to compete in U.S. professional sports. Although a "very different" arena than McCarthy-era politics, he could relate to “the secrecy and hiding” that Hawk and Tim experience.
“Being a closeted professional athlete and in a locker room, it’s a bit homophobic,” says Rogers, who is now married to "Love, Simon" director Greg Berlanti. “When I was younger, I felt like there's no way that I could ever have a relationship and be out and be a professional athlete.”
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The series tracks the ebbs and flows of a covert courtship, as Hawk marries a senator's daughter (Allison Williams) to keep up appearances and Tim finds purpose in activism. Although Mallon’s book primarily takes place in the 1950s, the show follows Hawk and Tim through the ‘80s AIDS epidemic, with other historical backdrops along the way including Vietnam War protests and Harvey Milk’s assassination.
It also adds two major new characters: Marcus (Jelani Alladin), a Black journalist covering politics, and his boyfriend Frankie (Noah J. Ricketts), a drag performer.
"When Marcus walks out the door, he's a Black man first and he's still fighting for equal rights," Rogers says. "But on top of that, he's dealing with his sexuality. If his peers knew he was a gay man, he’d lose all that power as a writer.”
Sex scenes capture the 'emotional, physical explosion' of gay intimacy
Nyswaner has written other gay-themed projects, including 1993's Oscar-winning drama “Philadelphia” starring Tom Hanks. But “Fellow Travelers” is his first time working with a predominantly queer cast and creative team.
“The difference it made is that there was just a sharing of our lives and our life experiences on the set,” Nyswaner says. “It really contributed a level of truthfulness to the performances.”
It also brought some comfort to the series’ frequent (and unspeakably hot) sex scenes, which push the boundaries of what’s normally shown on premium cable TV. The show’s kinky, at times aggressive sex has already attracted gay fans online, although it was never meant to be gratuitous.
“When you're keeping so many secrets inside and you get into the privacy of your home, that can be somewhat of an emotional, physical explosion,” Rogers says. “We wanted the audience to feel all of that, but we never talked about the show as being incredibly sexy. Obviously, we’re aware of it, and Matt and Johnny and Noah and Jelani are all really attractive men.”
Instead, Nyswaner says, the sex is entirely story-driven, illustrating the complex power dynamics between the suave Hawk and na?ve Tim, and how they flip in the bedroom.
Coming out during college, “sex was an important part of the joy I found in being liberated,” Nyswaner says. “The connections I was making with other gay men sexually were really profound, whether it was for a night or longer. And that's one of the things Hawk especially has: He loves having sex with men; we don't see one moment of guilt in him about that. So it was very important that we captured that in the writing and filming of those scenes."
With renewed moral panic on the rise, the show feels more 'relevant' than ever
But for all its carnal pleasures, “Fellow Travelers” is also an alarming reminder of how stealthily rights can be encroached upon. In June, the Supreme Court dealt a potentially devastating blow to LGBTQ+ nondiscrimination laws, after siding with a Colorado woman who refuses to design wedding websites for same-sex couples. Earlier this year, a group of Iowa legislators proposed a same-sex marriage ban, while just last month, a Florida school district ordered the removal of all books featuring LGBTQ+ characters and themes.
“Progress always comes with a backlash. That’s just history,” Nyswaner says. “As human beings, we take steps toward equality and love and respect for everybody, and then some people create fear and hatred because that gives them power. So there's a lesson to be learned in the Joseph McCarthy-Roy Cohn story in our show.”
"It's very relevant," Rogers adds. “There’s always people that want to take us back to the '50s. I know it's a cliché, but history really does repeat itself."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Fellow Travelers': Showtime series is a timely, sexy gay romance
