Interview: For Matt Bomer, Bringing ‘Fellow Travelers’ to Life was a Chance to Bring Queer History Out of the Dark

Growing up queer in the bible belt of the United States is a fascinating and unique experience best understood by others in a similar experience. This is one of the first things I chatted about with Matt Bomer when we chatted recently about his Emmy-nominated performance in Showtime’s Fellow Travelers, a singular understanding formed that we were able to reciprocate for each other when getting ready to talk about one of his latest roles. Both having grown up gay in the south, Bomer being from Texas, it was only a natural introduction to speaking about queer history.

Bomer has made quite a name for himself in the past decade, turning heads and attracting critical acclaim for his breakthrough performances in USA’s 2009-2014 series White Collar and HBO’s Emmy-winning 2014 television movie The Normal Heart before finding roles in the Magic Mike film series, Ryan Murphy’s adaptation of The Boys in the Band, and joining the DCEU in the MAX series Doom Patrol. Last year he could be found in a supporting role in Bradley Cooper’s Maestro or keeping the attention of Jonathan Bailey in Fellow Travelers, an emotionally explosive queer drama about the nature of repression and the lengths we go to just to hide ourselves. It’s a gorgeous series that finds Bomer providing one of his best performances to date as he embodies Hawk, a man whose determination towards hiding his true self only serves to pain those around him. The series has provided Bomer with his second Emmy nomination – the first being from his performance in The Normal Heart – while allowing the actor to explore new places in history.

I spoke to Bomer recently about the emotional catharsis of being oneself, seeking out queer projects, and his thoughts on stepping behind the camera again. 

Tyler Doster: When you’re looking towards joining a new queer-centric project, is there anything specific that you’re looking for?

Matt Bomer: Well, I try to come to any project when I’m reading it for the first time, and trying to ascertain whether it’s something that I can contribute to or not, I try to come to it with a pretty neutral, blank slate. But this particular project came to me early in the pandemic, so it’s been almost five years now that I’ve been with it, four years and change. The novel just immediately spoke to me. I had never seen a character like Hawkins Fuller, I’d never seen a character like Tim Laughlin before, the complexity of their relationship, and the sexual component of their relationship, and how that told the story of who they both were as men.

I had a very tangential understanding of the Lavender Scare, but I didn’t understand the lived experience of it at all. So it was one of those dream projects where, as you’re reading the source material, you’re also being educated about your own history without it being smacked over your head. You’re being educated because you fall in love with the characters. That, to me, is the best of all worlds. It had political intrigue, it had really well-drawn, unique, complex characters, and it had an aspect of our history that I had never seen on screen before, and that I felt… You just got the sense that it really wanted to come to light.

TD: Fellow Travelers specifically gives voice to gay men seeking the courage to be honest with the world around them by being honest with themselves. What were your early conversations like with other cast members, with Ron, with everybody involved that you wanted to… How did you soak up everything to get to this point?

MB: Well, it was very important to us early on to add the Marcus and Frankie storyline because we wanted it to be a more comprehensive experience of our community at large. I had no idea what people of color were experiencing in the 50s, and what their life was like, and their progress from the 50s to the 80s as members of our communities. So we all thought that was a really important story to include in this. Those were some of the initial conversations.

Then I remember finishing the book, and having all these ideas. I’m kind of a homework nerd when it comes to acting, so I had all these notes in the margin, and so many things underlined and highlighted, and I brought it all to Ron, and he was like, “Listen, take everything in the novel and keep that in the back of your head, but now my script is the novel.” So he was really collaborative and informative. We had an incredible research team as well who just did such a beautiful job. Everybody was very personally incentivized in this story, from the writing staff to everyone on the creative team, everyone had a personal investment in this story. It cost them something to be a part of the project, even if that just meant opening themselves to a part of their own authenticity in their experience of it.

So it was a lot of beautiful conversations early on with Ron and Robbie. Then we had really great notes from the folks at Showtime who were just so on board and supportive. I’ve been in episodic for a while now, and oftentimes the notes you get are more restrictive, or, “Cut this back,” and they were saying, “No, go farther. Take it farther. Push it farther.” To have those kinds of notes from executives is a dream come true as an artist. There were so many conversations, obviously, between Jonny and I about our characters. But we really just sat down together and made a pact that we were going to dive into this together, and just go for it, and support each other and have each other’s back throughout the entire filming process because we knew that we were going to have to be in a lot of really emotionally and physically vulnerable positions with each other, or circumstances with each other, and positions I guess, technically. That’s something that Jonny really held true to. He really lifted me up and supported me. I feel like, for me as an artist, sometimes I’m really only as good as the people I’m around, and I feel like Jonny just lifted me up, and Allison did, and so did Jelani and Noah. They just lifted me up and made me better in every scene, and everybody just came to the table so prepared and so just ready to go.

TD: Yeah, I think the intimacy of the show really speaks to how vulnerable it can be. Do you think your working relationship with Jonathan Bailey was helpful in navigating those really complex and volatile moments in their relationship?

MB: Yeah, I think the writing was so beautifully drawn from the get go. It was such a great template to launch off of, but I couldn’t have done the work we did if I didn’t trust Jonny completely. I can only speak for myself. But in a way, we’re kind of bonded for life because it’s very rare that you have to go through these kinds of circumstances with another actor, and tell an eight-hour story of 30 plus years of these characters’ lives. So if I didn’t trust him the way I do, I don’t think I could have been as in the moment in those intimacy scenes.

I think that’s always a challenge in those scenes, but they were written so well that the characters were never the same at the end of one of those intimacy scenes as they were at the beginning, it always furthered the story, and was also kind of a way for the characters to find a sense of… It was almost like their relationship was therapeutic in a way because the way they expressed themselves sexually was so indicative of their societal conditioning and the way they reacted to their societal conditioning, Hawk to rebel against it and Tim to give into it and find freedom in there. So it was a way for them to liberate themselves in a way, even though it had its own specific nuances, let’s just say.

TD: 100%, there’s this catharsis when breaking free from that repression.

MB: Yeah. Yeah. It’s almost like it was the only time they could really be 100% free, certainly for Hawk.

TD: Going back to the extensive research done for the show, and by you, what was the most shocking thing that you learned about this period of history?

MB: I would say the numbers. An estimated 10,000 people lost their jobs. Basically the government, the way the McCarthy regime could justify firing all these people was that they deemed LGBTQIA+ people inferior, that they were more impressionable, and thus more susceptible to conditioning from communists in the government. So that was their rationale. But the fact that they put people through lie detector tests, that they raided their homes, that an estimated 10,000 people lost their jobs, and many of those people took their own lives because, at that time, they didn’t see a way out. Everything they had worked so hard to conceal, to protect, was suddenly exposed to everyone around them, and everything they’d worked so hard for in terms of their career was suddenly eradicated. There were no more possibilities in their career field. So it was a very, very traumatic and difficult time for our community.

TD: Does it excite you artistically to play someone as complicated as Hawk?

MB: I think what excited me about him was how nuanced he was and how complicated he was. I’ve seen so many straight characters who have, not the same circumstances or the same complexities, but who are complex, and hard to like, and unapologetically flawed. So it was so nice to see it in a queer character, and to get to explore those nuances so unapologetically. As an actor, you’re always your character’s defense attorney, and I never saw him as a bad person. My job was to see him for what he was, which is a survivor. He was doing what he had to do to survive. Because the reality was, if he had made the more humane choices in certain circumstances, it would’ve put him, his loved ones, and other people he loved at tremendous risk. It wasn’t until, sadly, it was too late that he could really begin to step into his own authenticity.

TD: Which is, especially for that time, and still to this day, a huge tragedy for a lot of queer people.

MB: It is. I don’t mean to ever imply that it’s too late for anyone because, God, we should all be so lucky to get the chance to step into our authenticity in this life, no matter who you are or what community you belong to. I was so grateful that Ron wrote in that his daughter was there with him at the end. Because you did get the sense that, even though he was mid-60s, he was going to have a chance to at least start a path of real authenticity at some point in his life.

TD: And that’s where real hope can come from.

MB: Yeah. 

TD: Do you think a show such as this, with such bare intimacy with this relationship, paves the way for a more emotionally charged response from its audience?

MB: I don’t know. Obviously the first time you read a script, you are getting the most pure audience objective response, or that’s how I try to read it. I’m trying not to confuse too much performance or ideas, unless I get a really great first impulse or first impression of something. But then after that, it was hard for me to be super objective about it. I was so subjective in terms of the character and his worldview that it was very hard, for me even as a producer, to look at it holistically. Once we were in the trenches that way, so to speak, I was really leaning on Ron, and Robbie, and the producers, and the writers, to be more the objective eye.

TD: Do you feel a responsibility as an artist to help tell the stories of gay history?

MB: Honestly, Tyler, I’m so grateful that I’ve had the opportunity to. We talked about this, but I grew up loving Larry Kramer, and Terrence McNally, and Tony Kushner, and all these incredible writers whose plays illuminated a huge part of our history and gave us all a sense of hope, and understanding, and humanity, and context in terms of our community. So I guess it was kind of my 15, 16-year-old dream that I would get to be a part of stories like this at some point.

The fact that I’ve gotten to do Normal Heart and The Boys in the Band, and now this, even Doom Patrol, which told the story of a guy in the 60s trying to find his own way, I just feel like I’ve been so lucky to go through these decades of our history and to get to be a part of these projects. It’s something that I’m really, really grateful for. Anytime I do get the opportunity, and it’s a project like this, I will always do my best to try to bring it to light in any way I can. There are a lot of things I’ve tried to bring to light that don’t get there, but I’m really grateful when something like this gets to sneak through.

The big thing for me that I always consider, and then try to let go of and just focus on the work, is that I just want to make sure that we do the best job we can so that somebody else gets the opportunity, and that other queer creators get the chance to tell their stories, and make it even more nuanced, and tell even more specific parts of our history, or unearthed parts of our history that none of us knew about, or know about, or forgot about. I think in terms of our community, I’m so grateful for where we are now. Obviously we still have a long way to go, but it’s so important for me to have perspective in terms of where we’ve come from as well to get here.

TD: It has been a decade now since The Normal Heart came out. What have you seen on the other side in this industry, and what do you think has been the progression of queer media since The Normal Heart?

MB: Oh, wow. Well, my goodness, there’s been a tremendous amount of progress in the past 10 years, just in terms of LGBTQIA+ stories and projects being greenlit, and the whole advent of RuPaul’s Drag Race bringing drag into the public lexicon, I never thought I’d see that in my life. That didn’t come from The Normal Heart, I just think, circumstantially, those things have all transpired in the past 10 years, bringing queer and trans artists to light, and giving them a chance to tell their stories, I think has come so far in that time.

We have a long way to go, but we’re getting there. And thankfully, it seems trending in the right direction. I feel very hopeful. But I don’t know how, or if, The Normal Heart affected that at all. I was just so grateful that we got to make that film. It’s one of those that it’s kind of a slow burn in the fact that not everybody wanted to sit down and maybe watch it right when it came out. But it’s one of those that, over time, I feel like more and more people find, and come to, and have a really emotional and direct response to. Hearing those stories, and hearing them even more on a project like Fellow Travelers, has been the most meaningful thing to me.

TD: I just wanted to go back and mention that you directed an episode of American Crime Story, and I was wondering if you had any plans to ever return to that side of the camera?

MB: Yes. I’ve had a couple of opportunities, and they either haven’t worked out timing-wise, or they didn’t feel like the next thing in terms of the progression of that. I would love to keep directing. I love doing it. I love actors. I love everyone on the set. I love the whole crew. So I love a chance to just get in, and create a family, and be a part of it from the moment everybody starts in the morning to the moment everybody walks home at the end of the day.

I did just get sent a film actually to consider for directing, so I have to read that at some point this week, and it’s an ongoing conversation that I’ll have with Ryan Murphy as well. I think when the right thing presents itself, I definitely want to do it again. I really put myself through a four-month crash course where I was shadowing directors, and I read probably 2,000 pages worth of books, and I did a DGA intensive, and I really fell in love with it. I’d love to keep using what I learned before I forget it all.

TD: I’m sure it’s pretty all encompassing with your extensive research tendencies.

MB: Yeah, but I like that. It goes really well with a director, because I feel like directors need to do that kind of homework. They need to be the person on set who anybody from any department can come to with a question, and they have an answer that fits the story.

TD: There’s definitely a different appreciation you get to have when you experience stories from a different side like that.

MB: Yeah, I think so. You also realize how sheltered we are as actors. What we do is very vulnerable, and it’s very raw. If you’re doing it right, I feel, especially in a drama like this, it has to cost you something. So in a way, you do need to protect that. Actors don’t need to know every little detail or complexity that’s happening on a set. They need to come out and be able to do their job when the cameras are rolling, so I understand that. But you do get a much more 360 degree perspective on everything that goes on set when the actors go to their dressing room or trailer, and everybody else is still there doing their thing.

Matt Bomer is Emmy-nominated in the category Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie for Fellow Travelers.