Jonathan Bailey explains the importance of Fellow Travelers’ sex scenes
Jonathan Bailey has explained the importance behind the sex scenes in the Showtime drama Fellow Travelers.
In the eight-part series, Bailey plays Tim Laughlin opposite Matt Bomer as Hawkins ‘Hawk’ Fuller. The two embark on a whirlwind affair over 30 years starting in the 1950s and ending in the 1980s.
Along the way, there are a number of explicit but very authentic sex scenes between the two men, with both actors identifying as gay.
Appearing on The Jess Cagle Show on Sirius XM recently, the two stars delved into what’s going on with the characters during the sex scenes.
Bomer mentioned that his character’s family and military past led to his need “to be in control.” Tim and Hawk’s relationship begins on a dominant-submissive note with the older Hawk taking control over the wide-eyed Tim.
“Yes it’s provocative and yes people will talk about it, but then what?” – Jonathan Bailey
Meanwhile, Jonathan described Tim’s “incredible chemical awakening” after Tim and Hawk’s first sexual encounter. The Bridgerton actor also said the scenes were important because they show what it meant for queer people at the time, particularly in 1950s McCarthy-era America, to be together.
“Yes it’s provocative and yes people will talk about it, but then what? It’s actually showing the level of the sort of chemical supernova of what it is in that environment to come together and to achieve what most people would be able to have without question, a level of intimacy and validation and soothing in that sexual act.”
He went on to say that for a long time gay men “have had a really bad time of being written off as being animalistic in the way that they meet and have sex with each other.” Bailey added that his hope was the show would educate people that things like cottaging were “the only places that they could go to meet these people.”
Bailey also said that “everyone should be able to have sex with the people that they want to, obviously within consent.” This, he went on to say, is why it was important “to give the audience an experience which is similar to what Skippy [Tim] experiences, which is this overwhelming, shocking, hopefully, euphoric explosion.”
Speaking to Attitude ahead of the show’s release on Paramount+, writer Ron Nyswaner explained that the sex scenes were all about moving the plot along. Describing them as an “exchange of power,” Nyswaner further explained: “The sex scenes are in the script and our actors came so thoroughly committed to the scripts, and to giving the show what it needed, that it wasn’t a particularly challenging part of making the show.”
Fellow Travelers is streaming now.
The post Jonathan Bailey explains the importance of Fellow Travelers’ sex scenes appeared first on Attitude.
