‘Fellow Travelers’ Trailer: Matt Bomer and Jonathan Bailey Heat Up the Cold War with Forbidden Love

Samantha Bergeson
·2 min read
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Jonathan Bailey and Matt Bomer are determined to conceal their love across decades in the political circles of Washington, D.C.

Showtime limited series “Fellow Travelers,” created by Oscar-nominated director Ron Nyswaner (“Philadelphia,” “Homeland”), centers on a 40-year romance between men played Bailey and Bomer, starting in 1952 on the night Dwight D. Eisenhower is elected President, ushering in the era of Joseph McCarthy’s homophobic reign.

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Charismatic Hawkins Fuller (Bomer) maintains a financially rewarding, behind-the-scenes career in politics. Hawkins avoids emotional entanglements — until he meets Tim Laughlin (Bailey), a young man who’s brimming with idealism and religious faith. They begin a romance just as Joseph McCarthy and Roy Cohn declare war on “subversives and sexual deviants,” initiating one of the darkest periods in 20th-century American history.

Over the course of four decades, the series follows five main characters — Hawk, Tim, Marcus (Jelani Alladin), Lucy (Allison Williams) and Frankie (Noah J. Ricketts) — as they cross paths through the Vietnam War protests of the 1960s, the drug-fueled disco hedonism of the 1970s, and the AIDS crisis of the 1980s while facing obstacles in the world and within themselves.

The eight-episode political thriller-romance is based on the novel by Thomas Mallon. Series creator Nyswaner executive produces with lead star Bomer, as well as “My Policeman” producer Robbie Rogers and Dee Johnson.

“Fellow Travelers” is executive produced by Daniel Minahan (“Halston,” “American Crime Story: Versace”), who also directs the first two episodes. The series is a co-production between Showtime and Freemantle.

Actor Bailey told Vanity Fair that he had been waiting for a role like “Fellow Travelers” that centers on the “complicated, volatile” power balance in queer relationships.

“My answer was always, ‘Well, I’d love to do a sweeping gay love story,’ but my experience actually was that I’d never really seen them,” the “Bridgerton” alum said. “Or if I had, I hadn’t seen actors like me and Matt play those roles. […] To me, being queer also is about, as two men, how you negotiate your giving of your body to the other person. That is something that I’ve always yearned to see properly done because I know how extraordinary it is to experience it.”

An advance screening of the series will debut on October 21 during NewFest.

“Fellow Travelers” premieres October 27 on Paramount+ with Showtime before premiering October 29 on Showtime linear. Check out the trailer below.

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