‘Fellow Travelers’ Star Matt Bomer On The Growing Representation Of Gay Actors On TV And ‘White Collar’ Reboot Script: “It Pays Tribute And Homage To Willie Garson In A Way That I Was Happy With”
Actor and executive producer Matt Bomer has earned his second Emmy nomination, this time for his role as the lovelorn State Department official Hawk Fuller on Showtime’s Fellow Travelers.
Created by Ron Nyswaner, based on Thomas Mallon’s novel, Fellow Travelers is a love story and political thriller, chronicling the clandestine romance of two very different men who meet in the shadow of McCarthy-era Washington. Bomer plays Fuller, a man with a successful career in politics who generally avoids emotional entanglements — until he meets the idealistic Tim Laughlin (Jonathan Bailey). The two 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, we follow the pair 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 in themselves.
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In addition to Bomer’s recognition for Best Actor in a Limited Series, Fellow Travelers garnered three nominations Wednesday morning, including Best Supporting Actor in a Limited Series for co-star Jonathan Bailey. Nyswaner also received a nomination for Outstanding Writing For A Limited Or Anthology Series.
Here, with Deadline, Bomer reflects on his career and the significance of Queer representation on screen while also teasing the upcoming White Collar reboot.
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DEADLINE: Congratulations on your nomination, were you at home watching or working?
MATT BOMER: I was actually at home, and I know it sounds contrived, but I really didn’t know that today was the day and everyone in my life knows not to say anything to me so that I’ll sleep at night [laughs]. I knew it was sometime in the middle of July, but no, I was just making coffee in the kitchen and my husband Simon [Halls] came in and told me and we celebrated. It’s really nice that Ron Nyswaner’s profound writing and incredible heart and soul along with everyone on the creative team are being recognized.
DEADLINE: Though the characters that live in this 1950s era are repressed, the show is so bold in representation. Not to repeat your career back to you from Tru Calling, Doom Patrol, American Horror Story, The Normal Heart and White Collar … but you’ve been in this industry well over two decades. Now, you’re a part of a show like this with two gay male leads, not a common occurrence, but it’s getting better. How does it feel to be recognized by your peers in this way?
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BOMER: Just the fact that a gay love story with two openly gay actors in the roles has been recognized in this way is profoundly moving to me and mind blowing at the same time. I was just talking with a friend on the phone and I said, “This is not the industry I entered into 20-whatever years ago. It’s really moving that type of recognition. It’s really meaningful to me.” And I hope it gives hope to future generations as well.
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DEADLINE: What do you think people are responding to in the relationship between Tim and Hawk?
BOMER: Their profoundly difficult circumstances, and there is a great deal of oppression between them. It’s also about the cost of what that type of repression is to a relationship, to intimacy, to connection. But at the end of the day, they’re two human beings who have a connection that was strong enough to span decades their whole lifetime. It’s their once in a lifetime connection, and I think that’s something that speaks to all human beings regardless of who they are.
DEADLINE: What was the most challenging or favorite part of playing Hawk, against your co-star Jonathan Bailey?
BOMER: First, I am so thrilled that Jonathan and Ron were nominated, and I’m grateful the three of us get to go and represent everybody who worked so hard on this project and poured their hearts and souls into it. It was just a one day at a time job, I think I did 96 out of 100 days on this job and then I flew home internationally for Thanksgiving, and then I had to do additional photography on Maestro in New York, so there weren’t really days off [laughs]. This was one of those roles that was just a gift to get to play every day. And obviously there were challenges, just like with any shoot, but it’s all about the endurance and being able to sustain. Fellow Travelers was something I was really grateful for every single day and excited to get up and go to work and be a part of.
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But I would say, look, there were days where we were spanning multiple decades and I’d be 62 years old in one scene and then 30 years old in the next scene and taking prosthetics off and hoping that my skin wasn’t still stuck together. And so those things come with their own challenges, but that’s kind of what we dream about as an actor. They’re terrifying when you think about it, but it’s really what you’re hoping for those kinds of challenges as an actor.
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DEADLINE: The show is getting so much recognition in the intricate ways that queerness and sexuality is depicted. What have been some of the joys of embodying this role and what have you learned along the way?
BOMER: The response from people on the street or at the grocery store. Because it covers all spectrums of humanity. It’s people who had an uncle who was a Hawk, or a cousin who was a Tim or a grandfather who was a Marcus or whatever, or a sister who was a Lucy or whatever it was. There are people who saw their own humanity reflected in Fellow Travelers, and that to me is the most meaningful thing you can hope for as an artist. And the kind of conversations that’s incited with people who want to say hi or talk about it are very deep and meaningful and profound and moving, and oftentimes very emotional. I’ve been fortunate enough to be a part of projects where people want to say something when you’re on the street, but the types of conversations this has inspired have been truly unique and really kind of a once in a lifetime experience.
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DEADLINE: With this Emmy nomination, do you think there’s space for a Season 2 to explore something a little happier for Tim and Hawk in the end? Or exploring something else?
BOMER: Season 1 is definitely a close ended season and that’s what that was meant to be. I feel at peace with where we left that. But in terms of going abc and telling different chapters of our history in terms of the LGBTQIA+ experience, yeah let’s do it. Let’s do multiple seasons until different parts of our history that have maybe been glossed over by some of the history books. And I’d even like to do a deeper dive with characters like Marcus and Frankie and find out what their whole experience was on a deeper level and what it was like for people of color in the ’50s and ’60s being queer people as well. There’s so many of our stories that haven’t been unearthed that we need to honor and pay tribute to, and I don’t think there’s anybody better to do that than Ron. Maybe he’ll have a season two that we don’t even know about yet.
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DEADLINE: As we all know, that White Collar reboot was announced not too long ago. Do you happen to know where they’re at in development? And what do you think Neal has been up to all these years since the series ended?
BOMER: I don’t know where they are in development at this time. I do know that Jeff Eastin wrote a really incredible script that is really keeping the show in line with the folks that have been responding to it all this time. It’s really true to all the characters and really pays tribute and homage to Willie Garson in a way that I was really happy with.
[This interview has been edited for length and clarity]
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