Sorry for the late addition, I have updated the gallery with photos of Matt at the Tod’s special dinner celebrating their Fall/Winter 2024-2025 collection in Los Angeles.
Publicity > 2024 Publicity > Oct 23 | Tod’s Los Angeles Dinner
Matt stepped out last Sunday for the prestigious Emmy Awards! He and his co-star Jonathan Bailey were nominated for their acclaimed performances in Fellow Travelers, along with series creator Ron Nyswaner for Outstanding Writing for the series premiere. Unfortunately, none of them took home an award. But still congratulations for the well-deserved recognition. You’re still the winners in so many people’s hearts, including ours.
Alongside Joshua Jackson, Matt also presented the 2024 Governors Award to Greg Berlanti, who is also the husband of Fellow Travelers producer Robbie Rogers! I have updated the gallery with photos of Matt at the event!
Publicity > 2024 Publicity > Sept 15 | 76th Primetime Emmy Awards – Arrivals
Publicity > 2024 Publicity > Sept 15 | 76th Primetime Emmy Awards – Show
Matt was one of the celebrity servers who participated in the Server for an Hour fundraising dinner led by Chrissy Teigen last Thursday night. The fundraiser was meant to “highlight the urgent need to raise wages, end the sub-minimum wage for tipped workers, and improve conditions for the millions of waiters, waitresses, bartenders, bussers and other tipped workers who earn suppressed wages,” according the official press release. Also among the participants were Keegan-Michael Key, June Diane Raphael, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, and Ike Barinholtz. Such lucky customers! Check out some photos of Matt at the event in our gallery.
Publicity > 2024 Publicity > Sept 05 | ‘Server for an Hour’ Fundraiser
Matt also talked about the White Collar revival in a recent interview with People Magazine!
If Matt Bomer could have his way, White Collar would get the revival it deserves.
During a recent interview with PEOPLE, the actor, 46, discussed the reboot script written by co-creator Jeff Eastin.
“It’s fantastic, and it’s completely in line and in keeping with the show that we were able to do six seasons of,” Bomer tells PEOPLE. “It really just feels like he was able to pick up the right where we left off.”
“It’s a really intelligent, fun, organic way to bring all the characters back together to pay tribute to Willie Garson, Diahann Carroll and folks we’ve lost since the show ended, which was really important to me,” he continues. “It’s something that if you enjoyed the show, you really will have a good time watching it.”
While a White Collar revival isn’t surefire thing yet — “Many of those decisions are above my pay grade and out of my control,” he says — Bomer is excited by the prospect of reprising the role of Neal Caffrey, the elusive criminal-turned-FBI consultant. He’s also thrilled to possibly reunite onscreen with Tim DeKay, who played Peter Burke, and Tiffani Thiessen, who portrayed Elizabeth Burke.
“So much of that experience was just being with that group of people,” says Bomer, pointing out that DeKay remains a close friend. “We worked long hours on that show, and it never felt like work. It was just such a fun, free, open environment and a great place to just create and explore the characters.”
White Collar, which for six seasons from 2009 to 2014, featured a cast that included Bomer, DeKay, Thiessen, Garson, who died in 2021 at age 57, and Carroll, who died in 2019 at age 84.
In an interview with PEOPLE in February, Bomer remembered Garson, who played Neal’s close friend Mozzie.
“I have only special memories of working with Willie,” Bomer said. “He made every day more fun. He made every day more funny. He certainly added color to any room he was in, any conversation he was in, and he was a beautiful actor to get to work with. … Whenever I looked in the call sheet and I said that I was going to have scenes with Mozzie, coming up that next week, I knew it was going to be a fun day at work.”
In addition to White Collar, Bomer also discussed his role as Hawkins “Hawk” Fuller in Fellow Travelers, which earned him a 2024 Emmy nomination for outstanding lead actor in a limited or anthology series or movie.
Hawk is a State Department official hiding his sexuality who is swept up in a decades-long relationship with Tim Laughlin (Jonathan Bailey). She show spans from 1950s Joseph McCarthy communist trials to the 1980s AIDS crisis.
“When I was nominated, I was so grateful and happy, obviously, but I was also mostly just grateful that a show like Fellow Travelers could exist in the world today, because we’ve all been around at a time when it couldn’t, and we could be on the precipice of a time when it couldn’t again,” he says. “So I’m just really thankful that we were able to get the show made.”
People
Matt has a new interview with Los Angeles Times and discussed Fellow Travelers! From going through the book to seeing it made as a limited series adaptation, he shared his commitment throughout the journey. You can read it below if you’re getting paywalled. I have also added the two outtakes into our gallery! Hopefully there’s some more to come, it’s yet another pretty shoot.
Professional > Photoshoots > Photoshoots from 2024 > Set #009 – Los Angeles Times
You were committed to this project from the start, long before there was even a deal in place. What drew you to such a big swing?
I got through [the book] in a couple of days and just fell in love with the characters and the world of the piece. It was just a book at the time, but Ron had kind of given me bullet points as to what he planned to do with the show. I’ve always been a fan of his writing. He really understands dimension and light and shadow in characters, which is kind of essential for episodic [TV] in this day and age. It was one of those novels where I got an education without feeling like I was getting an education.
Why do you think the series was ultimately green-lighted at Showtime?
It was really Ron’s writing. It was so powerful and so kind of undeniable that I think they knew that they had something that could be really special.
We were so grateful to partner with Showtime and Fremantle. These executives were giving the most brilliant notes. Normally, these notes are trying to curtail or make something smaller. But they were saying, “No, push it further, go all the way, and then we’ll see if you need to go back.” That’s just a dream scenario as a creative.
Were you concerned that Hawk, who’s an often selfish and deceitful character, would be seen as too unsympathetic?
No. I was so excited that there was an unsympathetic gay character in the lead. I’d been watching my fellow actors, whom I love and admire, play these hyper-nuanced, really seemingly unlikable, shadowy lead characters for years, and it was so nice to see a character from the LGBTQIA+ community written that way. But I think you’re always your character’s defense attorney.
How did you approach playing such a complicated, dualistic guy?
It’s impossible to be objective about it, even now. I always saw him as a survivor. The game he’s playing has the highest stakes possible, and if something’s going to compromise that, he’s going to make an executive decision that may not be the most likable, but it’s what he has to do to survive [in his world, at that time]. You’ve got to remember, he’s somebody who lived through a war and watched his entire platoon die. He understands life and death, and also living on the edge, in a way most of us can’t even fathom.
Much has been made of the series’ frank and graphic sex scenes. Were there ever any times that you — or maybe you and Jonathan Bailey — felt like perhaps not quite as much “vividness” was needed? Or maybe even more?
Honestly, I was just trying to be in the moment and not disassociate, which I’ve done in the past in scenes like that. But because the scenes were so acting-centric, and because Jonny and I had a comfort and trust with each other and knew each other’s boundaries, I feel like we were able to play in the moment and I could actually be present in my body.
Still, there was a distinct purpose, an arc, if you will, to the sex scenes.
The characters [Hawk and Tim] were never the same after those scenes as they were before, and I think that’s the mark of knowing when a scene like that is integral to the story. It was actually the one time in both of their lives when they could feel truly liberated, because of the different way they [each] responded to their social conditioning. They were able to find a kind of common therapeutic way to relate to each other in the bedroom that, in a strange way, allowed them both their moments of greatest freedom.
Do you think the series is even more timely today than when you first read the source material?
Yes. I’m just so grateful that a show like this can exist in our world. It’s so easy now to look around and see how fragile our democracy is and how quickly rights that we have are taken for granted — and can be taken away from us.
Los Angeles Times
Matt and Jonathan attended the SAG-AFTRA Foundation Conversations last Friday for a screening and panel for Fellow Travelers! I don’t think the full panel is available to watch somewhere, but I’ll update this post if it ever gets posted. Visit our gallery for photos of Matt at the event.
Publicity > 2024 Publicity > Aug 16 | ‘Fellow Travelers’ SAG Screening
Matt recently talked with People Magazine in two separate articles, wherein he talked about developing Fellow Travelers, parenthood, and being “competitive” during family time with husband Simon and their three teenage sons. I have also added the two outtakes and scans into our gallery! Check out the other article under the cut.
Professional > Photoshoots > Photoshoots from 2024 > Set #008 – People
Professional > Magazines > 2024 > People Magazine – August 26, 2024
read moreFor the actor, who also served as executive producer on the Showtime series, adapting Fellow Travelers from Thomas Mallon’s 2008 novel into an eight-episode limited series was a years-long passion project with emotional ups and downs.
“I was really cynical about the prospects of the show going into production from the get-go,” he tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue. “A period piece is very expensive. And I think I was protecting my own heart, but I was cautious about whether or not it would actually come to fruition.”
“Oftentimes, the notes you get from executives can be kind of restrictive, like, ‘Well, let’s pull this back,’ or ‘maybe don’t do that,’” Bomer continues. “But their whole ethos was, no, go further, push yourself further, go as far as you can, see how far can you take it. And those are the kind of dreamy situations you hope for as an artist.”
“When I was nominated, I was so grateful and happy, obviously, but I was also mostly just grateful that a show like Fellow Travelers could exist in the world today, because we’ve all been around at a time when it couldn’t, and we could be on the precipice of a time when it couldn’t again,” he says. “So I’m just really thankful that we were able to get the show made.”
While their characters had a complex onscreen relationship, Bomer and Bailey meshed well professionally right from the start — from their Zoom screen test to their coffee five days before they began filming.
“We were pretty focused on set,” Bomer recalls. “But Jonny being Jonny — one of the funniest people I know — whenever we had time or we’d finished a day or before we’d started a day, he’d have me laughing quite a bit.”
People
Matt is on the cover of the latest issue of Style Magazine Italia! The interview is in Italian, if anyone would like to contribute and help out with proper translation so I can include in this post, feel free to email. Visit our gallery for some outtakes and scans!
Professional > Photoshoots > Photoshoots from 2024 > Set #007 – Style Magazine Italia
Professional > Magazines > 2024 > Style Magazine Italia – July-August 2024
Matt and Jonathan were featured in one of Emmy Magazine’s issues last month, still as part of their Emmy campaign for Fellow Travelers. Visit our gallery for outtakes and scans of Matt from the issue!
Professional > Photoshoots > Photoshoots from 2024 > Set #006 – Emmy Magazine
Professional > Magazines > 2024 > Emmy Magazine – No. 8 2024
The love affair in Fellow Travelers doesn’t end happily — that’s clear from the opening scene — but the Showtime limited series resonates as a romance for the ages because of its captivating 30-year journey.
“Being able to step into a gay love story as sweeping as Fellow Travelers, and to tell this brilliant story that explores four decades of liberation for gender, for women, for race, for civil rights — and the way all those intersect — is fascinating,” says costar Jonathan Bailey (Bridgerton).
Inspired by Thomas Mallon’s 2007 novel, the eight-episode limited series from Ron Nyswaner (Homeland) explores a forbidden relationship in 20th-century America. In 1952, Hawkins “Hawk” Fuller (Matt Bomer) is a war hero and State Department official who hides his sexual encounters with men. Then he sparks with the younger Tim Laughlin (Bailey), a Catholic idealist who begins working for Senator Joseph McCarthy. Their passionate romance is forced into the shadows by an executive order that authorizes a witch hunt for government workers engaged in “sexual perversions.”
The liaison servers as a framework for the evolving LGBTQ experience. The Lavender Scare of the 1950s gives way to the 1960s, when an unsatisfied, married Hawk raises two kids while Tim protests the Vietnam War. They live through the gay rights movement and White Night riots of the 1970s, and in the 1980s, they face the AIDS epidemic.
“I’ve never been part of a project that has invited so much conversation, vulnerability and engagement from complete strangers,” Bomer says. “Men and women, straight and LGBTQIA, saw themselves or someone they loved in the material.”
Both actors still feel the weight of playing their characters. “Hawk is the most complicated, multifaceted and compartmentalized character I’d ever read,” adds Bomer, an Emmy nominee for the 2014 TV film The Normal Heart. “He’s a survivor, an iconoclast and a renegade.” Seconds Bailey, “Tim’s journey in his search for something more is so [powerful]; he’s who I am today as a person. He’s a character that I have yet to fully grieve.”
Sorry for the delay on these, Matt attended the Filming Italy 2024 last June 22 & 23! He was one of the recipients of the Filming Italy International Award, which recognizes “extraordinary performers with truly unique talents.” And Matt perfectly fits that, congratulations Matt! I have updated the gallery with high-quality photos of Matt at the two events!
Publicity > 2024 Publicity > Jun 22 | Filming Italy 2024 – Day 3
Publicity > 2024 Publicity > Jun 23 | Filming Italy 2024 – Day 4