Matt Bomer (‘Fellow Travelers’) on his Emmy-nominated role: ‘A renegade and a badass’ [Exclusive Video Interview]

When he was approached to play Hawkins “Hawk” Fuller in Showtime’s “Fellow Travelers” —  a role that has earned him an Emmy nomination for Best Movie/Limited Series Actor — Matt Bomer went right to the source material, the novel by Thomas Mallon. “I read it in about two days,” he tells Gold Derby (watch our exclusive video interview above). “What I loved about it is not only did I fall in love with these incredibly well-written, well-crafted three dimensional characters. I also was getting an education, but not being hit over the head with it or feeling like I was getting an education. I was just getting it by falling in love with their lived experience of that time period, and that’s I think what we hoped had always hoped to translate to the screen.”

Bomer plays Hawk over the course of three decades, beginning in the height of the McCarthy era, a period when hiding was a necessary aspect of queer life. Bomer admits that he was shocked by the level of oppression, but he tried to set aside his own indignation and play the reality of Hawk’s surroundings. “You take all that in from a dramaturgical standpoint, but once you’re on set, you’re trying to just live the subjective reality of what that person’s day to day life is and how they survive day to day,” he explains. “So it’s tough to think of it from a holistic perspective when you’re just in the moment in the scene. You’re trying to carry the weight of the stakes of that world with you into everything you do.”

Some of those stakes lead Hawk to make decisions that are destructive to both himself and those around him. However, Bomer argues that all of Hawk’s choices are rooted in simply trying to survive. “If something threatens his own well-being or the well-being of someone he loves, he’ll make an executive decision that might not be the most popular one, but it’s the one that will enable him to survive,” says Bomer. “I kind of saw him as a renegade and a badass, and it was so fun for me to exercise that and be that guy instead of someone who plays by the rules.”

Although Hawk doesn’t get the chance to live in his truth until late in his life, Bomer believes that there is a lesson to be gleaned from Hawk’s struggles. “Hawk found a way to find joys in the way that he could and didn’t let a system and a society that told him he couldn’t or he shouldn’t or he was less than make him any of those things,” he argues. “I’m not going to say that it’s emboldened me, but I at least carry that with going forward after getting to play a role like this.”

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