‘Fellow Travelers’ Actor Jonathan Bailey Shares Behind-The-Scenes Photo Of Prosthetic Penises
Image: The Jess Cagle Show Screengrab and Jonathan Bailey Instagram
Fellow Travelers actor Jonathan Bailey shared a peak behind the scenes of the gay miniseries.
On Tuesday, Bailey pulled back the curtain, posting several behind-the-scenes production photos from the series, including loads of prosthetic penises.
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A Romance Amidst The Backdrop Of Joseph McCarthy’s Red Scare
In Fellow Travelers, Bailey and Matt Bomer (Magic Mike) play a gay couple living in 1950s Washington DC. The pair start a romance amidst the backdrop of Joseph McCarthy’s Red Scare witchhunt for “subversives and sexual deviants.”
The series follows 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.”
In September, it was revealed that Fellow Travelers would include the “most erotic depictions” of gay sex filmed for a TV network.
Depictions Of Sex Are Vital To The Story
On November 21, during an interview on The Jess Cagle Show, Bailey explained why the depictions of sex are vital to the story.
“Historically, you know gay men, I think, have had a really bad time of being written off as being animalistic in the way that they meet and have sex with each other, but I’m hoping the show will allow people to understand that these cottaging and the toilet, they’re the only places that they could go to meet these people.”
Bailey continued, “Actually everyone should be able to have sex with the people that they want to, obviously within consent, and so that to me feels like why it’s so important to then give the audience an experience which is similar to what Skippy [Bailey’s character] experiences, which is this overwhelming, shocking, hopefully euphoric explosion. That’s why I think it’s a critical exploration.”
‘Our Goal Was To Really Tell The Story From An LGBTQIA Perspective’
The eight-episode historical fiction miniseries was created by Oscar nominee Ron Nyswaner (Philadelphia), and adapted from the novel of the same name by Thomas Mallon.
Nyswaner told EW, “Our goal was to really tell the story from an LGBTQIA perspective of what happened in the ’50s and then to take it past the ’50s.”
Speaking about the portrayal of Queer characters in the media, in comparison to their portrayal in Fellow Travelers, Nyswaner said, “I find sometimes that gay characters are made too clean,”
“They’re made too noble. I’m just tired of that. Hawkins Fuller [Bomer] certainly is a very complicated, sometimes unlikeable antihero. I’d marry him in a second and then regret it probably in a few days, but there’s something fascinating about watching someone who is in charge and you don’t like him, but you kind of enjoy it. I think that helps us get away with a lot.”
Nyswaner went on to say, “[Bailey’s] version of Tim is so vulnerable. You just don’t know if you want Tim to get away from [Hawk] or stay with him and change him.”
The series also stars Allison Williams (Get Out), Jelani Alladin (Tick, Tick… Boom!), Linus Roache (My Policeman), Will Brill (The OA), Chris Bauer (Sully), Christine Horne (Degrassi: Next Class).
Fellow Travelers is available to stream on Paramount+ in Australia
This production is so affirming for the gay community! I truly hope that our society has finally embraced homosexuality as being no more aberrant than being left handed!