Fellow Travelers Star Allison Williams on What Lucy Knows
Watching Fellow Travelers, it’s easy to get caught up in the love story unfolding between Hawkins Fuller (Matt Bomer) and Tim Laughlin (Jonathan Bailey) as they navigate the secrecy and prejudices of McCarthy-era Washington. But the series isn’t just about that one relationship. Throughout his affair with Laughlin, Fuller dates—and eventually marries—Lucy Smith (Allison Williams), the daughter of his mentor, with whom he goes on to have a family and long, complicated relationship.
In this week’s episode, one of the series’ most pressing questions is finally answered: What did Lucy know about her husband’s hidden life, and just when did she know it? During a tense visit to their country home, the Fullers’ secrets begin to spill out, and Lucy finally confronts Hawk about the behavior he thinks he’s been hiding so well and what it means for their marriage, their family, and the future of both.
Here, Williams talks with T&C about keeping secrets, fighting with Matt Bomer, and following your heart.
The latest episode of Fellow Travelers finally reveals something that’s only been hinted at so far—how much does Lucy know about Hawkins’s relationship with Tim and what does she mean to do about it.
What was hard about performing this role, and really hard about promoting the series, is that I’ve never done a project that jumps around in time like this. You prepare everything chronologically, and we had the whole story to work with before we began shooting, so filming those first episodes you knew where you’d been and where you would be going. It’s hard chronologically and from a dramaturgical standpoint, but also hard psychologically, because there's knowing and there's knowing. And this show deals a lot with people who know things, and those who know things, and they’re different. Lucy is a great example because she is so much sharper and more aware than anyone gives her credit for. She’s made choices and is also a living, breathing human being, so her choices, and her tolerance for the characters in her life, start to feel different with time.
Watching the episodes when Hawk and Lucy are dating, you think, wow, she’s such a catch. Is she settling for something that won’t be good for her?
I think this episode does a beautiful job of showing the setup for the life she wanted. She's a little behind schedule, because she wanted to go experience things; she traveled to Europe, and I think she had a lot of fun and exploration and learned a lot. And then she came back to the life that she had grown up with, among this very sophisticated, rarefied sort of political intelligentsia. She's at this threshold, where she feels alive and awake, but also knows that the life she lives doesn't totally have room for that. That's so painful in a way.
What do you think the draw of Hawk is for her?
She’s always had chemistry with this guy, who has just been around her, who has been a fellow traveler, to use the phrase in a different context. He was her brother’s friend, he was over playing tennis, and we can say about Matt Bomer that he’s not ugly. He has perhaps one of the most perfect faces to ever exist. I think she thought, he’s kind of perfect. He’s also who her dad has chosen as his heir apparent, but he’s not her brother. So, when she’s looking at life and the things that matter to her, Hawk seems like a great answer. And to her delight and everyone’s shock, he’s still on the market.
Do you think she was aware that he was in love with someone else?
At a certain stage, she wants what she wants, and she needs someone that she can have a life with. He’ll go with her to the opera, she’ll live in their house, and he’ll keep an apartment; I think there were certain deals struck, but the way you feel about the choices you make shifts through time. It does for her, and it does for him, and their ability to communicate through that is not always strong.
This week we finally see Lucy acknowledge to Hawk that she isn’t blind to what’s going on. How did that feel to portray? For the audience, it’s something of a relief.
Honestly, it felt great. I’m on her side, so from that point of view it’s like, “Go to Europe and marry a hot Italian and live on a vineyard! What are you doing?” But her math was different, and she wanted the kind of life she was used to and that Hawk could give her—with some asterisks. There weren’t clear boundaries, but once he’s overstepped for the thousandth time in a way that feels egregious for her, to finally be able to bite his head off felt very cathartic. It’s rough because you’re asking someone to feel shame for who they are, but the byproduct of her pain is having to chew him out.
It's almost less about what he’s doing in secret than is it about whether or not they’re still a team. She wants him to acknowledge that their family still comes first, not to swear off his other relationships.
She’s asking, “Are we co-protagonists? Or am I a blocking agent, or we still on a hero's journey together?” She's found ways to live, and he has made it impossible for her to use those coping mechanisms anymore.
Does playing a character like this make you paranoid in your own life?
I'm thrilled to tell you that I remain at my status-quo level of paranoia, which is extremely high. It wasn't this show that did it. The beautiful thing is, though, in the relationships that I have, I am a good picker, and the people I've chosen to be around, I very much trust. The show is a good reminder, though, that even today there are people all over the world who can't love who they want to love and who can't live with the identity they want, and it's devastating. It reminds me in every interaction to make room for the person you see before you as well as the potential person in there, just waiting for the right moment.
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