When Travel companions creator Ron Nyswaner looks back on filming the series, gets emotional. Tears begin to flow as the writer-producer recalls being on set and making history with a series starring four openly gay actors playing gay characters, along with four proud LGBTQ executive producers working behind the scenes.
“There was a mission in what we were doing Travel companions,” Nyswaner says The Hollywood Reporter. “To do the right thing for the people who suffered and who were persecuted, who lost their lives during the Lavender Scare, and to do the right thing for the people who died of AIDS and to honor them. It was sacred in a way.
“[Jonathan Bailey] he told the crew on his last night, when he wrapped. I get emotional,” Nyswaner says, pausing for a second as his eyes water. “He said, ‘It’ll never be like this again.’ And that’s how we all felt.”
In Travel companionsBailey and Matt Bomer star as Tim and Hawk, two male political workers who fall in love in the 1950s, when gay men were considered national security risks and communist sympathizers, alongside Jelani Alladin as reporter Marcus Gaines and Noah J. Ricketts as drag performer Frankie Hines. Nyswaner, Bomer, Daniel Minahan and Robbie Rogers serve as executive producers on the Showtime series, which also streams on Paramount+, and has received critical and audience acclaim and has garnered three Emmy nominations, including acting nods for Bomer and Bailey. Nyswaner is up for Outstanding Writing for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie.
“[Tim and Hawk] could be one of the first gay couples to have a television love story played by two openly gay actors, [and] “The fact that the couple has been so enthusiastically embraced by people on social media and now with the Emmys is really, really powerful,” she says.
Nyswaner, who earned an Oscar nomination for his screenplay for the 1993 film Philadelphiastarted working on Travel companions in 2012, when he moved to Los Angeles to dive into the world of TV. He continued to write and produce for Homeland AND Ray Donovanand has spent the last four years finishing his pet project, which aired late last year.
In this article, Nyswaner discusses her connection to the Emmy-nominated series, a potential spinoff, and her cut cameo in the series.
(left to right) Robbie Rogers, Jelani Alladin, Matt Bomer, Ron Nyswaner and Daniel Minahan at the 2024 Peabody Awards.
The series has sparked so much buzz and conversation. What have viewers and fans said to you?
I've had these amazing conversations with people who felt like part of their life was revealed in a way that they'd never experienced before, whether it was someone telling me how they'd never fully forgiven their father for leaving their mother for a man, and that they wished he was still alive because they understood. You're making me very emotional today. A woman wrote to me to tell me that her son had died, and you know Hawk loses a son, and she'd never seen that grief expressed so well as Matt did in that episode. Those are the things that really move me, that people are sharing their personal lives, that the show is pushing them to do that.
Did you think Jelani and Noah's gay love story would be this successful?
I was determined to bring out black characters in Fellow Travelers. They only exist in the series [and aren’t in Thomas Mallon’s book, on which it’s based]. In my research into that era, the '50s, seeing that there was this really vital black journalism, that really inspired me to have a black journalist character. And thanks to Stormé DeLarverie, who was this famous drag performer, drag king, who I didn't even know existed, she inspired me to create Frankie. I wanted that culture. It was absolutely essential.
I was a little nervous because, obviously, I'm not black and there's something weird about a white creator creating black characters. But I worked hard to connect with black collaborators: my writers. [Brandon K. Hines]director [Destiny Ekaragha]crew [key hairstylist Antoinette Julien]and with the actors. Jelani kept a diary that he wrote in Marcus' voice, and every now and then he would come into my office and read me the pages of his diary. I'm really proud of that part of our show. And we got the [Social Impact] African American Film Critics Association Award.
Matt Bomer as Hawk, Jonathan Bailey as Tim, Allison Williams as Lucy, Jelani Alladin as Marcus and Noah J. Ricketts as Frankie in Travel companions.
Kurt Iswarienko's film
Jelani and Noah's characters could star in a spin-off.
And we're going to have all our fans write to Paramount and ask them. We've proposed it. They haven't come forward yet, so let's put pressure on them.
You made a cameo in Philadelphia as a priest. You made a cameo in Travel companions?
It got cut. I did it in episode five. There's a part where Hawk takes his brother-in-law to a mental hospital, and I was one of the mental patients. Matt walks in, looks at me, even makes eye contact with me, and he gets the scene, and he leaves. And we didn't tell Matt I was going to be in the scene, so we're all like, “Didn't he notice?”
Jonathan Bailey’s Tim drinking milk in the show became a moment. Did you think it would resonate when you were writing the show?
No. You never know with this stuff. When you come up with the idea and you say, “What if he gave him milk and it dripped down his chin?” — you're sitting in the writers' room thinking, this is going to be really bad or really good. And it turned out to be really good. And it was Johnny who wanted to take the milk away from Hawk and say, “No, Tim's going to pour it all over himself.” He's starting to take power, which he does, and he continues to take power in the sex that follows.
Matt Bomer and Ron Nyswaner (Photo by Emma McIntyre/Getty Images)
It's the twentieth anniversary of your memoirs, Blue days, black nightsWhen you think about writing this, what goes through your head?
Matt very kindly wrote a beautiful introduction to the reprint, and I wrote an epilogue to the reprint that talks about Travel companions in relation to my experiences of that period of my life.
It’s a very distant part of my life. It was a time when I almost destroyed myself with drugs and alcohol. It’s also the story of a tragic love story. The things that I do that I’m really good at are the things that people die tragically at. I guess that’s my thing, my thing. But I’m glad I’m not that person anymore, that I’m not a slave to drugs and alcohol anymore. I mean, I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t have much more to live if I hadn’t stopped when I did. But I love the young man it’s about: the book is about my relationship with this young man, and I still miss him.
Is this something you would ever adapt for TV or film?
If the right person was interested, I would think about it.
Your first Emmy nomination came in 2016 for HomelandDoes this nomination seem different to you?
This nomination is different in the sense that there is so much of my life that is in and woven through the story of Travel companions. I brought things from my life into the show. The pain that Hawk experiences in episode seven has a lot to do with how I coped with drugs and alcohol to the grief of the death of my friend that I write about in my memoir.
It's a very different experience when you watch a TV show and you realize, “I actually said those things to some people.” Tim is a lot about how I feel about myself. I'm a very religious person; it's weird to be an outspoken gay rights activist and be a Christian, but it's not a contradiction, depending on your version of Christianity. If it's a loving, open, all-inclusive Christianity, it's not a contradiction at all. Here's why Travel companions It has a special meaning to me: I'm in it.
A version of this story first appeared in an August standalone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.