We love it when actual queer people get cast in queer roles! Which is what has reportedly been done for a new limited series based on the Thomas Mallon novel, Fellow Travellers, with The Normal Heart's Matt Bomer – not to be confused with Henry Cavill – and Bridgerton Star Jonathan Bailey securing two lead roles for the upcoming series.

It's apparently slated to be a big gay love story-cum-political thriller (yes), where two men fall in love with each other during the height of the historically homophobic McCarthy years. Below, is everything we know about the sxc new thriller.

The plot

Love story meets political thriller (as all the best TV shows are), Fellow Travellers is based on “the volatile romance of two very different men who meet in the shadow of McCarthy-era Washington.” Where two "very different men", Hawkins Fuller (Bomer) and Tim Laughlin (Bailey) find themselves in a romance just as Joseph McCarthy and Roy Cohn declare war on 'subversives and sexual deviants', launching America into one of the darkest periods in modern history. The limited series will be eight episodes long, and will span four decades, following the pair's love story throughout “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.”

The cast

The new project has come at an exciting time for both actors, with Bomer currently working on HBO Max's Doom Patrol, while Bailey is riding the ever-popular wave of Bridgerton. As for the rest of the cast, joining the two actors is Ron Nyswaner, the Oscar-nominated screenwriter behind Philadelphia, who created the limited series; Daniel Minahan, the director behind shows like Game of Thrones and Six Feet Under, who will helm the first two episodes, and Allison Williams of Marnie of Girls, who will appear as someone named “Lucy Smith”

 

Release date

There are no details on the release date of Fellow Travellers so far, but you can believe my fervent queer heart will post updates here when there are any developments.