Jonathan Bailey and Matt Bomer thrill as forbidden lovers in first teaser for Fellow Travelers
Matt Bomer landed his Fellow Travelers role after turning down a part in the Barbie movie. (Showtime/Paramount+)
Things are getting heated between Jonathan Bailey and Matt Bomer in the first teaser trailer for their steamy gay political thriller Fellow Travelers.
Bridgerton heartthrob Jonathan Bailey and Magic Mike flame Matt Bomer are the iconic onscreen duo we never knew we needed.
While Bailey prepares to take on the role of Fiyero in 2024 movie Wicked and Bomer gets set for gay historical drama Maestro opposite Bradley Cooper on the life of musician Leonard Bernstein, sparks are flying for the industry titans in the first explicit teaser of their highly anticipated series Fellow Travelers.
Based on Thomas Mallon’s 2007 novel and adapted by Oscar nominee Ron Nyswaner, the eight-episode series chronicles “the volatile romance of two very different men who meet in McCarthy-era Washington”.
Bomer plays Hawkins ‘Hawk’ Fuller, a man who has a lucrative behind-the-scenes political career and tends to avoid emotional entanglements. That is until he meets Tim Laughlin (Bailey), who is described as “a young man brimming with idealism and religious faith”. The rest, as they say, is history.
The official synopsis explains that their romance begins “just as Joseph McCarthy and Roy Cohn declare war on ‘subversives and sexual deviants'”.
“Over the course of four decades [1950s to 80s], we follow our five main characters – Hawk, Tim, Marcus [Jelani Alladin] Lucy [Allison Williams], and Frankie [Noah J. Ricketts] – as they cross paths through the Vietnam War protests of the 1960s, the drug-fuelled disco hedonism of the 1970s and the AIDS crisis of the 1980s, while facing obstacles in the world and in themselves.”
Other cast members include Linus Roache, Erin Neufer and Christine Horne.
The first teaser trailer begins with our star-crossed lovers dramatically passing one another in the corridor. As their gazes meet, we see flashes of the life they are destined to lead – one filled with stolen kisses, nights of passion, painful breakups and even imprisonment.
From the brief glimpse of the lovers lying together to the shot of Hawkins smoking while pushing Tim to the ground with his foot, fans are gagged by every scene in the clip.
Plenty are sharing their excitement at two openly gay actors playing the main gay couple – a rare occurrence in Hollywood.
The series hopes to offer an authentic portrayal of the moral panic around homosexuality that dominated the second half of the 20th century.
Speaking to Vanity Fair about the sex scenes in the show, Bailey shared: “I will be so interested to see how people respond to it. 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.”
“It was really interesting to find the different types of expression of their love and intimacy over the different time periods,” Bomer added. “It was like opening a Christmas present every time I would see Jonny [Bailey] in a new time period and see what he would bring to the table with it in this new chapter of Tim’s life.”
Fellow Travelers will arrive this autumn on Paramount+ with Showtime.
