Jonathan Bailey and Matt Bomer were told to see how far they could take things while filming sex scenes for the mini-series Fellow Travelers.
Fellow Travelers is an Emmy-nominated historical romantic drama following the love story between Timothy Laughlin (Bailey) and Hawkins Fuller (Bomer), set against the backdrop of the AIDs crisis, Vietnam War and McCarthyism.
In other words, it’s pretty serious. But there were also sex scenes and toe sucking.
Yes, the show does indeed a lot of bed-breaking between naive congressional staffer Tim and more experience State Dept official Hawk; and Bomer and Bailey have just revealed that they were encouraged to “push it” when it came to trying things during the Fellow Travelers sex scenes.
“From the beginning, [they] were giving us notes that weren’t constricting at all,” Bomer told Entertainment Weekly‘s The Awardist podcast. “They were actually really liberating. They were saying: ‘No, go further. Embarrass yourself. Go too far. Try to scare us. Try to see how far you can push it’.
“And that kind of permission, I felt, even bled into the acting work on set because it came from people who were in power, who could make those decisions.”
The series, which was created by Philadelphia screen-writer Ron Nyswaner, and garnered Emmy nominations for both gay actors Bomer and Bailey, is also notable for having queer stars play queer characters.
“The majority of awards go to straight actors playing gay because there’s this sense that that means that they’re somehow brave or that they’re mixing it up,” Bailey said, adding that there’s “a bruise” in Hollywood, preventing out queer men from portraying their own experiences on screen.
Bailey’s upcoming projects include a part in Heartstopper, the lead in the latest Jurassic World film, and a turn as Wicked‘s bachelor Fiyero.
His schedule is going to have to be bent into more shapes than Tim to fit it all in.
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