‘Fellow Travelers’ star Jonathan Bailey on the life-changing impact of playing Tim Laughlin
Ahead of roles in “Wicked,” the new “Jurassic World” and the next season of “Heartstopper,” Bailey opens up about the part that earned him his first Emmy nomination.
Jonathan Bailey admits he’s still grieving the loss of Tim Laughlin, the wide-eyed congressional staffer turned fervent gay rights activist he played in Showtime’s groundbreaking limited series “Fellow Travelers.”
“Playing a character who is always searching for truth and has something to fight for that is meaningful and important made me really think, ‘How do you want to leave the world behind?’” Bailey told NBC News. “It’s a tiring thing for everyone to be like, ‘I want to make the world a better place.’ But Tim is an example of someone who’s a normal guy. He didn’t come from wealth, and he lived life to its fullest, including loving in a way that was just spellbinding.”
That love is the animating force of “Fellow Travelers,” which chronicles the decades-spanning romance between Bailey’s Tim and Matt Bomer’s Hawkins “Hawk” Fuller against the backdrop of key moments in queer history. After falling in love at the height of the Lavender Scare in 1950s Washington, D.C., Hawk and Tim weave in and out of each other’s lives for years at a time, unable to sever their bond. But after learning of Tim’s terminal AIDS diagnosis in the ’80s, Hawk drops everything to take care of Tim in San Francisco, where the former lovers are forced to address the true nature of their volatile relationship.
“Fellow Travelers” was nominated for three Emmys in limited series categories last month: Bailey (who also won a Critics Choice Award) for supporting actor, Bomer for lead actor and creator Ron Nyswaner for writing.
Jonathan Bailey and Matt Bomer play gay men whose love story spans decades in Showtime's limited series "Fellow Travelers."Ben Mark Holzberg / ShowtimeFollowing the success of Netflix’s romantic drama “Bridgerton,” in which he played a rakish viscount looking for his viscountess, Bailey expressed a desire to tell a sweeping gay love story. He booked the coveted role in “Fellow Travelers” six weeks before the start of filming in Toronto, following an electric Zoom chemistry read with Bomer — one of the most prominent openly gay actors working today — that even brought one of the executives to tears.
Rating: 5