'Fellow Travelers' Boss Had Two 'Rules' for Sex Scenes in Upcoming Gay Series
Fellow Travelers boss Ron Nyswaner has shared the two "rules" held by the crew for sex scenes between leads Matt Bomer and Jonathan Bailey.
The eight-episode miniseries stars Bomer and Bailey as lovers Hawkins Fuller and Timothy Laughlin. The pair embark on a forbidden romance against the backdrop of a turbulent time in American history, including McCarthyism, the Vietnam War, and the AIDS crisis.
According to Entertainment Weekly, when it came to the pair getting intimate in front of the camera, the showrunner quoted queer poet Oscar Wilde for the first rule, saying: "Everything in the world is about sex except sex. Sex is about power."
Nyswaner continued by adding that the second rule became more difficult to abide by as filming and writing for the show progressed.
"The other rule was that we wouldn't do the same sexual act more than once, or the same combination," he revealed. "I remember when we were writing episode 8, my co-writers and I said, 'What haven't we done?'"
Fellow Travelers is based on a novel of the same name by Thomas Mallon. Bridgerton star Bailey will play "a young man brimming with idealism and religious faith," while Bomer's charismatic Hawkins likes to avoid emotional entanglements despite his successful political career.
Speaking previously to Vanity Fair, Bailey touched on the “extraordinary” nature of queer sex onscreen.
"I will be so interested to see how people respond to it," Bailey said. "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."
Bailey went on to describe "every single sex scene" between Tim and Hawkins as a "meticulous examination of power".
Fellow Travelers will premieres October 27 on Showtime.
You Might Also Like
