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Photo: Courtesy of Andrew Haigh
What do you think of January 2014?
If you were a millennial, a member of the so-called next wonderful generation, you’d be wasting all that potential by posting #gpoy on Tumblr, downloading Game of Thrones episodes on torrents, tagging tweets with #IWokeUpLikeThis, and applying an Amaro clear to a photo. of your latte art before posting it on this new Instagram app.
And if you were a gay man, you’d sign up for a CrossFit gym, examine the availability of PrEP, debate the pros and cons of same-sex marriage, and, of course, tweet with #IWokeUpLikeThis. looking forward to the premiere of Looking, a sweet, unpretentious series about an organization of gay friends in San Francisco that had the honor (and then notoriety) of being HBO’s first series focused on gay men.
For two seasons and a TV movie, author Michael Lannan and director Andrew Haigh (who had just finished his groundbreaking film Weekend and was years away from the award-winning film Forty-Five and All of Us Strangers) led the show’s cast and crew in the creation. A new kind of gay TV show: raw, relaxed, character-driven, and intimate. It didn’t quite work; In the end, Looking was canceled due to low ratings, but the series was ten years away from premiering. Released, it’s clear that the show’s legacy lives on.
On screen, the cast of Looking, adding longtime stars such as Jonathan Groff and Murray Bartlett, played characters who worked to locate others while creating a select circle of relatives with others. Off-screen, the actors did the same, taking into account their own identities and the location of a circle of relatives within others.
On the tenth anniversary of the series’ January 2014 premiere, GQ looks back at Looking, narrated through Groff, Bartlett, Haigh, Lannan, Russell Tovey, Raul Castillo, Lauren Weedman, Daniel Franzese, and many more members of the team that created the series. dear serie. show.
Michael Lannan, a thirty-something producer and assistant director who had worked on Sons of Anarchy and Damages. After writing and directing a short film, he embarked on a screenplay for a feature film. He called her Lorimer; the story about a gay boy who lives in Brooklyn, his two most productive friends, and a boy he meets on the subway.
Michael Lannan (Looking creator): Through a random series of connections, it got in the hands of an executive at HBO and he read it and he liked the characters. It was just sort of a lightning-in-the-bottle meeting where we just clicked on the opportunity before us. There wasn’t anything [on TV] with gay characters in the leads at that time. We also felt that there were sort of big generational shifts that had happened and were happening. It was sort of an in-between generation—things weren’t life and death, nor were they super easy in terms of understanding your place in the world as a queer person.
Sarah Condon (executive producer of Looking): There’s this preference for doing a specific gay show [on HBO]. And I think when that situation happened, it was the right time to do something for young gay people. Showtime’s edition of Queer as Folk had existed, but it was more fluid, more shallow. I think HBO is looking for something a little more intimate and emotional.
Lannan: The studios are quite cultural in many ways. The inexpensive design is such that screens and videos sometimes require a lot of money and a lot of drivers. But HBO is one of the few special shows that has managed to break that grip, take risks and spend money on things that are perhaps a little more culturally existent, or a little riskier.
Condon: I’m a longtime HBO executive. I’ve directed comedy series for them and done Sex in the City, Curb Your Enthusiasm and The Comeback. I’m also running Bored to Death. I think maybe it’s partly because of my history with Sex and the City that HBO came up with me for this.
While HBO and Lannan were preparing a pilot for a 30-minute TV series based on Lannan’s Lorimer speech, Andrew Haigh’s movie Weekend was released. Today, the film is identified as one of the seminal queer films of the past few decades, even though at the time it was just a small indie film that premiered at SXSW.
Andrew Haigh (director and executive producer of Looking): They came to me out of nowhere. At the time, I was living in Norwich, a small town in the UK. HBO reached out to me and said, “Could you be interested in reading this pilot?I had only done Weekend, which is a very small thing. And suddenly, I found myself on a sumptuous plane bound for Los Angeles. You know what I mean? It’s fantastic.
Lannan: Andrew and I were pretty green and naïve. We were inspired that this was happening. Did they let us shoot a pilot? That’s crazy. It was fun, because in a way, it didn’t matter. It was just a weird adventure that, somehow, all of this happened. Most of the time, it was like, “We don’t know what we’re doing. “Go ahead and see what happens.
With Haigh hired as director, casting director Carmen Cuba joined the work at Looking. Cuba specializes in finding new and underrepresented talent, from Larry Clark’s Bully to Netflix’s Stranger Things, and has worked with some of the most respected filmmakers of the era. from Steven Soderbergh to Luca Guadagnino.
Carmen Cuba (Looking Casting Director): We didn’t have a date with a guy [in terms of casting]. We were aware of that [casting a gay boy]. It came about [during the process], I think, because Andrew had directed Weekend, and it was a movie for a lot of other guys, gay and straight, but especially for gay men. I think the verbal exchange flowed quite freely with each other. People were in the room with Andrew. La people were just open about it.
Haigh: I don’t remember there being any effort to pick bigger names. And so is it: who were those biggest names?We didn’t want all the actors to be queer in real life, but we looked for some of them to be.
Cuba: Especially in TV, you meet a lot of people… Pedro Pascal was someone we met [for a role on Looking] and from that, I put him on Narcos. The thing with Pedro, it was like he was testing on a million things. So many of these things, as you know in casting, it’s just like scheduling. Does scheduling work? Does the group? Because in this, we were really casting a group.
The first episode of Looking introduces a friend group composed of three gay men—the neurotic video game designer Patrick, the freewheeling artist’s assistant Agustin and the aspiring restaurateur Dom—and one straight woman, Doris. As the first season progresses, we’re introduced to Patrick’s love interests—Kevin, his charismatic boss, and Richie, a charming barber he meets on the train.
Raul Castillo (Richie): I’ve probably worried about watching longer [among the actors], actually. I directed the short film that Michael Lannan wrote and directed. It’s as if those 3 friends are walking around Williamsburg, Brooklyn, exchanging romantic stories — necessarily the prototypes of the 3 characters who were the protagonists of the series.
I auditioned for Augustine and Richie and, in fact, at first I declined. They weren’t interested in me. I think Michael met some resistance, so I figured they wouldn’t cast me. So I went ahead and said yes to this off-Broadway play. I was doing a play here in New York and then Michael got in touch with me. He asked me, “Can you record yourself? One said, “Do it on your iPhone. “
Condom: We asked a lot of guys to sign up on their own and it was interesting. I think because of the nature of the show, because the scenes are kind of intimate, and also because most of the other people filmed themselves in their own rooms, in Weird Way, it allowed us to see, Oh, that’s it. It’s going to look like this.
Murray Bartlett (Dom): I was at a point where I’d been like, ‘Am I doing what I should be doing? Maybe I shouldn’t be an actor anymore.’ I’d been living in New York for many years and I’d had some good opportunities and everything, but I was just feeling like things weren’t going the way that I hoped they would. I was feeling frustrated.
My partner at the time was shooting a film with this filmmaker in Egypt (he’s Egyptian) and he was going through there for a while, the revolution, the Arab Spring. And I made the decision to get away from it all and go with Him and be informed in Arabic. Apparently I was a tourist because I was whiter than everyone else, so I grew my mustache to check if I had compatibility because a lot of other people had mustaches and beards and all that. Actually, it wasn’t like that. work. But he had a mustache when the audition for Looking was done. I did my first taped audition in Cairo with a moustache, which I’m sure played a big role in getting me the role of Dom.
Frankie J. Alvarez (Augustine): I had been out of Juilliard for a couple of years and was jumping from regional theater to regional theater and other plays. For some reason, they saw my tape and thought, “Maybe this guy would be a smart match for Augustine. I come out of the darkness, and all of a sudden, I have my first role in front of the camera where I speak. It’s like I point to the papers, I point to the contract, and then I take off my clothes and make out with O-T Fagbenle [who played Augustine’s boyfriend, Frank] and ask him to move in with me, you know?[Laughs]
Russell Tovey (Kevin): At one point I was talking to Andrew about Weekend and then Looking came up. I’ve been away [since] the beginning of my career and I’m very proud of it. But I hadn’t played many homosexual roles, and I was determined to play a homosexual role that I actually wanted to play, I guess.
Andrew had come to see me at a play at the Royal Court. I don’t know how I’d missed it, but we were on email talking about the film Weekend. I think one of the characters in it’s called “Russell”—so if that is me or not, I don’t know.
For the lead role of Patrick, the production turned to Jonathan Groff, the Tony-nominated Broadway star of Spring Awakening, who had recently made the leap to television with a breakout role in Ryan Murphy’s hit musical series Glee.
Haigh: I actually quite liked Glee. I thought it was a good show, but I wasn’t sure he was going to be right. Then he came in, and I’m like, “Yeah, you’re great for this.”
Condon: Jonathan had all those qualities of vulnerability and also an incredible ability, which to me is very similar in some tactics to Sarah Jessica Parker, to do comedy and drama in combination; Few actors can do it so well. . He is one of those people.
Jonathan Groff (Patrick): I came out later; I did it publicly when I was 23, I did it to my parents the same year as well. I was absent but, for the most part, I wasn’t completely satisfied. For me. I came out of the closet because it was more painful to be in it than to come out at the time, but I didn’t feel like I owned who I was until I experienced the Gaze.
I don’t forget auditioning for the exhibit and feeling warmth on my skin during the audition. It was the scene with Patrick and Richie on the train, doing this flirtatious scene, and I don’t forget that my skin was warm, and it was scary and exciting. I felt raw and exposed in a way I had never felt before. So there was a genuine vulnerability to that, which made me nervous and excited.
Cuba: Jonathan Groff was out, but he hadn’t played a gay character before. And more than anyone, he was the most experienced on the show, even Andrew. So he definitely must have understood more than any of us, the fact that playing the role is one thing but he was then going to be in press talking about it. It’s a different thing you’re agreeing to, I assume.
Most of Looking’s leads identified as gay men, with three notable exceptions: Frankie J. Alvarez, Raul Castillo, and Lauren Weedman, who played Doris, Dom’s best friend.
Castillo: The fact that it’s on HBO and on such a visual platform made [some straight actors] think, especially since we’re talking about 10 years ago. I think that’s why they had a hard time choosing the role of Richie. There was a little bit of nervousness about what it might do, how it might have a negative effect on your career.
I’ve played gay characters in my career. I have a lot of queer [and] gay friends. I never had any reservations about it. In reality, there are few romantic lead roles for Latino actors, Latinx actors. In fact, there are, especially 10 years ago. So, for me it was really exciting to play a character with a very ethnic expression, who was a complex, three-dimensional character.
Alvarez: It’s not the first gay role I’ve played and it’s vital to my community. I’m from Miami, of Cuban descent, Latin American, so I come from an environment that’s not only patriarchal, but also incredibly macho. .
Lauren Weedman (Doris): That’s my world, too. I’m just surrounded by gay men: they’re all my most productive friends, all my first boyfriends. When other people said to me, “Oh, you’re very smart betting on this character,” I’d say, “Well, that’s essentially me. It wasn’t hard at all to do.
At first, Looking stood out from the homosexual who preceded it. His raw, solid aesthetic contrasted sharply with the soft, shiny surfaces of American Queer like Folk and Sex and the City, two to which he would inevitably be compared.
Condon: It was very specific from the get-go, making sure you get the fog and the clouds [of San Francisco]. There’s a lot of blue colors in the show, and also kind of a faded, almost like ‘70s look that’s a little bit of a hearkening back to Tales of the City.
Danny Glicker (costume designer): I actually sought to combat the concept that homosexuals are a sales platform, that homosexuals are used to sell something. So I wanted the concept to be: You’re going to see an exhibit about homosexuals. Other people and some of the clothes they wear are clothes you don’t necessarily want. I think that was really vital because before that, the picture was that the homosexual character was fashionable, [had] closets worthy of disappearing, a new jacket for everyone. and every episode, and that’s not how other people live.
Filming for the first season began in September 2013. Transplanted to San Francisco, the cast and crew immediately found themselves bonding.
Condon: I think part of the explanation for why we all lived in San Francisco, away from our families, was that it felt like we were at summer camp. We were told to come all a week in advance. We did all kinds of karaoke, went to the Castro Theater, went hiking, and all kinds of fun stuff.
Groff: I’m not forgetting that Murray, Frankie and I arrived in San Francisco pre-production in March of 2013; I mean, it’s been 10 years. I don’t forget the month. I don’t forget that Murray would cook us dinner, and Frankie and I would walk by, smoking weed and smelling jasmine on the lawn of the sublease Murray had obtained. I don’t forget that Frankie was freaking out, because he was a Juilliard graduate. And he was a brilliant actor, but he’d never done anything on screen before, so we were talking about it. I mean, right away, we knew we had to have that plausible friendship for the screen to work. We started dating and never stopped.
Glicker: In the beginning, I was buying food with each actor. It would be a total day, so it would be that moment of closeness, but it was about observing. We were in the neighborhoods where those characters would live. And we’d be buying groceries at the outlets where they were buying groceries, and we’d be watching all the people and being able to breathe that air, get everything. I think those were the times when the baseline was established. .
Many facets of gay life were in a state of flux in the early 2010s, from the near legalization of same-sex marriage to the growing popularity of the location-based LGBTQ dating app Grindr.
Haigh: It really was happening in the moment. The world was changing. How do you deal with that change, and how do you navigate who you are within that time of change? We absolutely wanted to talk about those things.
Bartlett: It’s an amazing experience because we were all transplanted to San Francisco and living that life. So, the story arcs were [created by] Andrew and Michael, but I think a lot of the details come from, the sprees that we were having there.
Castillo: Danny [Glicker] told me that at the time, a lot of gay men, who didn’t practice the same courtship rituals as teenagers because they were locked up, lived that time in adolescence and then into adulthood. He gave me the greatest gift. For an actor, this glimpse of my character led me to perceive much of the inner life.
Groff: How do you express it with the clothes, the era and the problems you were talking about in the exhibition?They wanted it to look, when we look back, 10 years later, 20 years later, 50 years later, like San Francisco at that time.
Even like Tonight, which is the bar that Richie works at in the pilot episode, that bar closed while we were filming, and the final episode shows a direct mirror image of what’s happening in San Francisco.
Tovey: I lived in Castro on Diamond Street. You’d walk past Harvey Milk’s photo shop. I’d stop by my café and feel like I’d be part of an old homosexual narrative. It’s magical.
Bartlett: There are so many layers of LGBTQ history out there. You can feel it in San Francisco. It’s quite extraordinary. And it’s a combination of things: there’s a kind of fireplace there and you feel freedom, but you also feel a lot of ghosts. There is a kind of lingering melancholy about some of the things that have happened there, specifically because of the AIDS epidemic.
Groff temporarily developed a chemistry with Castillo, one of his on-screen love interests. While Richie de Castillo was first destined to be a supporting character, the team later made the resolution to accompany him in the main cast.
Castillo: I don’t forget the state on the platform between takes with Jonathan [for our first scene together]. I don’t forget our chemistry and we get along, and I didn’t need to spoil that, but I was still looking to open up to him and be fair to him. I told him the story of how I met my current wife, who was my girlfriend at the time. When she and I first met, there was an undeniable chemistry between us. Like the moment we crossed paths, it was like there was this attraction. We were the only two other people in a room full of other people. I wanted to tell Jonathan this story because I was telling it to Patrick and Richie.
I revealed it to him directly and he didn’t blink. He understood, he listened, and yes, it was funny, because it was almost like coming out of the closet.
Groff: I knew that very well because I asked our director or our costume designer. I already had the information. It’s not a surprise. “This guy is cute. Is he gay? [Laughs]
The series was groundbreaking in terms of the portrayal of homosexual sexuality in a prime-time television series on a prestigious network. The plots focused on intimate, rarely embarrassing facets of gay men’s sexuality, from douching to simulating buttocks.
Condon: I mean, it sounds silly, in a way, but they were brave decisions. I had to have that verbal exchange with Jonathan. “Are you up for it? There were a lot of verbal exchanges like that. And Jonathan was very amused, as was the entire cast.
Tovey: Intimacy, in and of itself, is probably harder to feel or perceive than just animal sex. Meeting a hard cock somewhere is much sexier than just watching it.
Haigh: I sought intimacy rather than a particular sex for the sake of a particular sex. Watch porn if you need to see a particular sex.
Lannan: The enema [script] was definitely something we’d never noticed before on TV. John Hoffman, one of our writers, defended this idea. It’s still unspoken, isn’t it?In homosexual sex? Preparation for the background is not commented on or shown, especially at this time.
I think rarely was that vulnerability a burden to other people. Especially at the time of its release, I think it might have been too much for other people to see. Even homosexuals would possibly feel too close to home. , somehow. Even now I look at it infrequently and think, “Ooh, we’ve actually spent a lot of time on this very intimate thing. “
There were a lot of buzz in the run-up to the series’ premiere. HBO has given its total to Looking.
Haigh: We all came down to L.A. and there were billboards everywhere. There’s that big tower on Sunset in West Hollywood, and there was just a massive poster of Looking. I was like, “Oh, my God.”
Groff: I remember the premiere was at The Castro, and I remember feeling like I was in a fairy tale. The Castro, the audience is lit as fuck, and it’s a lot of gays. They are there to celebrate, which is just such a special, unique energy at a premiere of any sort.
Michael Lombardo and Richard Plepler were running HBO at the time. I went to that premiere and Michael was there and he said, “This is the first gay-only showing we’ve ever had on our network. ” It was like, “Oh my God, we’re in this. We’re a part of this. ” moment in history. It was like more than just a television screen. He was very serious when he said that.
Despite all the hype and press attention, the series ultimately got off to what Variety called “a slow start,” with an audience of only 338,000 (with the encore, it earned an audience of 606,000). The first few episodes were also mixed. An initial review that called the series temporarily “boring” has become a component of Looking’s narrative, a label that has become difficult to live with. Beyond that, the gay network itself is highly critical of the screen, projecting other expectations onto a screen that, at the time, could be said to be the only one speaking on behalf of the network.
Condon: Andrew had absolutely planned that, and I hadn’t, for the gay audience to be very critical of their own material, of whatever was done for them.
Bartlett: When it’s one of the few things that represents a queer perspective, then everyone needs it to be everything. And it never was, and I think it would have been a mistake if it had.
Haigh: There were a lot of gay leaders on the show and a lot of other gay people in the writers’ room. It’s a heavy burden of representation, which can sometimes be felt. It’s pretty heavy.
Tovey: That discourse about it at the time, especially from the queer blogosphere, was quite negative and damaging. That definitely came back in part of the first season, but by that point, that stance had been cemented in other people’s response. filming in San Francisco, and there were other people saying, “What are you filming?” Oh, we’re filming Looking. ” They said, “Oh yeah, I’m not going to watch that. ” “Why?” They said, “Oh, we’ve heard it’s boring. ” I said, “But did you check it out? ” They said, ‘No. ‘ It’s in your city and it’s about you.
Lannan: I will say that the discourse definitely got to HBO a little bit. We felt some things trickling back to us through them.
Alvarez: I think in many ways it’s advertised as a gay Sex and the City movie, but it’s not what it is. And I think other people were looking for a certain camping spot; that’s not Andrew’s style.
Haigh: In one of our first meetings, HBO said, “This is not the gay edition of Girls. That’s not what we’re looking for. We’re looking for it to be its own show. But it has to become that at some point. Everyone I expected it to be like that.
Weedman: I was comparing Looking to Golden Bachelor. Because, just like Looking, everybody’s got very strong reviews about it: all the older girls have [reviews]. No one’s ever had an exhibition like this [made about them] and that’s why we all have criticism because we need this and we need [that]. That’s a smart sign. It simply means that it is vital and that other people need it. It’s vital, which is very rare.
Despite its initial combined reception and relative underperformance, the series made stars of the main cast, at most Jonathan Groff.
Groff: Between the first and second seasons in New York, I was asked to be the grand marshal of the Gay Pride Parade, because of the TV show and because I’m a New Yorker and I’d done a lot of theater. afraid to do so. I said yes, because my head and center were telling me I wanted to do it, but there was a large part of me that felt incredibly fearful, incredibly insecure, and incredibly scared. I did it anyway, and it was also a ring of fire. Moment. Participating in the Pride parade, being the center of attention, greeting other people, and being so visibly outside – it’s just a constant experience of being, in a wonderful way, kicked out of my convenience zone.
Alvarez: He’s coming out of that breakup and he’s meeting someone new and he’s experiencing all those emotions of being in public and what his symbol means to other people. And then you’re running around with all that other stuff, and you’re also just a guy looking to love other men.
Groff: I remember, oh my God, talking about douching [in a scene on the show], and I had never really douched before, as myself. Frankie Alvarez came with me. What we did in the show, where we go to the Walgreens? We actually did [that] in the West Village in real life, where he walked with me to get a fucking anal douche, and also a dildo to experiment with. He was in the gay sex shop with me, doing that in real life.
Alvarez: It was a moment of vulnerability, where I wanted to go in to buy, but I didn’t need to be alone. He may have called several of his gay friends, but he called me. And it was a testament to our friendship that he trusted me, that even though I was straight, he understood that he had a supportive friend at the time. I was Doris.
As the series progressed, the team drew inspiration from its actors, borrowed elements from their private lives, and employed them in scripts.
Groff: I sat in a restaurant in San Francisco with Andrew and told him about my most recent breakup while he was writing the big, final episode of season two and the fight between Kevin and Patrick; literally, I told him and wrote things. What I said, what we said to each other, so that it would be compatible with that. Everyone told their own story all the time. It was incredible.
Bartlett: We had to be a little careful when talking about Andrew and Michael because they had just put things on the show. A lot of the stories we told while we were together, some editing of them ended up on the show.
One of the new characters appearing in Looking in season two is Eddie, an HIV-positive social worker bear who becomes Augustine’s lover. The character played by Daniel Franzese, best known for the role of Damian in the original film Mean Girls. Cuba discovered him as a teenager and cast him in Larry Clark’s Bully in 2001.
Cuba: Full circle moments for me are very exciting. Because you become really invested in this person, and then you watch their journey and sometimes you’re not in touch forever. [Franzese] wasn’t even out when I met him [for Bully], even though he was at a gay bar. He was so young, and I was just scouting gay bars in Florida. So I had a real tenderness for him and I knew he was great. He came in, auditioned, killed it.
Daniel Franzese (Eddie): I’m able to deal with the worry of being liked enough to play the lead role on an HBO show, deal with the worry of being naked, deal with the worry of doing sex scenes, deal with the worry of not just coming out. But maybe other people think I’m HIV positive because I’m playing with an HIV-positive character. And literally enter into my homosexuality in a way where I can be unequivocally proud of not only myself, but any and all editions of LGBTQ. rainbows, all in one person. By betting on Eddie, I taught Daniel how to behave in life.
Álvarez: Representation is for that very reason. You see yourself reflected there and it shows you the perspective of what your life can be.
Franzese: There’s a scene where I meet Russell Tovey for the first time and we’re going to watch a rugby match. I’m like, “Hey, what’s your problem? Hey, what’s wrong with you?And I’m like, “Man, how sassy is this guy to flirt with this literally attractive guy, who I think might be out of Eddie’s league, but he doesn’t think he has a league. “And the way he responded caused Russell, in real life, to flirt with me in a way that made me say, “This is kind of crazy. I’ve got some strength here.
I tried to pass as far as they let me pass because you just have to see it. It just wants to normalize. There are other types of bodies, other types of people who fall in love. I discovered this groundbreaking because, to this day, I can’t even think of any other homosexual display where a bigger guy has sex.
Midway through the series, Lauren Weedman’s life was turned upside down by two devastating events: the end of her marriage and the sudden death of her friend, Silicon Valley actor Christopher Evan Welch. At that time, they filmed the seventh episode of the second season. , which is necessarily a road movie about Doris returning home to Modesto for her father’s funeral, accompanied by Patrick and Dom.
Weedman: The one thing I remember was, before we did the scene where I go see my dad’s dead body, the three of us were sitting in this real funeral home and we’re just talking about different times in our lives we’d seen a dead body and what that’s like. I had just seen my friend Christopher’s body and Jonathan had been through Cory Monteith’s [death]. We were telling all these stories that were just very intense.
And then I remember after we shot the scene, that Murray came to my trailer and just walked in, and we both just cried and cried and cried. And that’s pretty rare, that actors aren’t just on the phone, working out their next job, figuring out how they’re going to renovate their house, how they’re going to spend their money—they’re not jerking off their ego in some way or some kind of “building their empire.” That wasn’t going on—these were just sensitive boys.
The show’s soundtrack is remarkably extensive. And while the musical variety, from ’90s dance diva CeCe Peniston to indie cult hero Arthur Russell, came primarily from Haigh, Lannan and the writers’ room, the show’s most memorable needle drop was an idea that emerged from Groff and Tovey. While watching British singer Jessie Ware perform in San Francisco, the two actors discovered her ballad “Say You Love Me” and decided to include it in the show, for a second season scene where Patrick and Kevin dance. in slow motion at a homosexual prom. .
Groff: We asked them, begged them, encouraged them to play, “Say You Love Me” while we danced. They’re like, “Well, we’ll play it for you now, but who knows with the rights and whatever, if we’re going to end up using this song.” That’s what they played that day and then they ended up using it in the show.
Jessie Ware (singer-songwriter): It was magical to see how that happened. They were moved by the song, not the executives, not the industry. It was two actors and two friends who came here to enjoy a moment. I think it’s glorious what happened with What’s Your Pleasure?And this! Feel! Ok![the albums that made Ware a gay icon] though, I think I had a queer audience at vital moments like being on Looking, in that incredibly beautiful, poignant, poignant component of the show.
Despite a more enthusiastic critical reception for the second season, the ratings take a dip, following a time slot change. HBO soon decides to cancel the series.
Condon: Look, I think HBO knew it was an express audience, so it wasn’t going to be as big as Sex and the City or anything like that. I don’t think they had those kinds of expectations. But I believe yes. I probably expected it to be similar to Girls. It’s going to be independent and with a little bit of choice and whatever, but I think they hoped, like we do, to have as much crossover audience as possible. And I guess it wasn’t like that. as much as they wanted.
[HBO’s former president of programming] Mike Lombardo had a genuine affection for the show. He said, “I don’t need to cancel it, but the ratings are hard for me to justify to continue. “But I think because Andrew is a great filmmaker and he was so transparent, that was a big part of what was lovely about the show, it felt natural [to make a movie].
Haigh: I walked into the writing room and said, “I need to end this song with a pretty unknown Housemartins song. I can’t tell you why I like that song [“I’ll Be Your Shelter (Just Like A Shelter)].
If you pay attention to the lyrics of the song, it’s more of a song about socialism, there’s something about being there for others. It’s all in the lyrics of this song. It’s uplifting but a little sad, and we move away from a photo of Castro. It’s like time passes and everything changes, but there is actually something special about Castro.
Weedman: The last scene of the movie Looking was shot in this café in Castro and they wanted to shoot it so that the last scene would be the sun rising over Castro. So we had to wait to shoot the scene until 4:30 in the morning or something. We’ve done the last scene and Andrew comes in and says, “That’s it. The search is over, we’re done.
We all went out and the sun rose over the Castro, and I had this moment where I felt like I literally didn’t hear the voices of all the kids who came to the Castro, but I thought, “This is important. “We were part of this story of those kids who were looking to save their lives being here, who lost their lives in the ’80s. . . It’s all I’ve touched on that topic in hitale for all gay and queer people. The world. It just affected me a lot. Murray and I were very, very disappointed by this, like, “Wow, man. In fact, we play anything for a second. “
Bartlett: I think we felt, making Looking there, that there was a sort of responsibility to try and do justice to that city and to tap into that history and that kind of joy and pain and all the things that have allowed us to be freer and have some of the rights that we have now. A lot of that stuff came from struggles and amazing stuff that happened in that city. You couldn’t help feeling that there. It was a privilege.
As a result of Looking, the cast and crew found themselves permanently upset. The experience of making the series affected everything from their career decisions to their lives.
Groff: It made me come out of my skin in a way that I don’t know if I would have done otherwise. And in each and every series I went in after that, in each and every practice session room I went in. After that, I didn’t feel insecure about my sexuality. Seeing and experiencing being on that set with all those other people was very liberating and life-changing.
Franzese: No matter the situation, you have the right to be comfortable with yourself, and honestly, the exhibition helped me get comfortable. I can’t express how crazy it is to go from my first movie [Bully] where I felt I was nervous on set because I was being bullied for being gay, and then to be in this [project] where it’s not only okay to be weird, but also cool.
Weedman: Everyone involved in this task was so wonderful that there wasn’t a single in the band, which, seen on TV, is rare.
Bartlett: It’s my kind of compass in terms of what I look for at work. It’s not that I don’t need complicated things, it’s true. But I want to have a wonderful experience with other people who also need to have a wonderful experience, who are the fundamental guy.
Cuba: I’m sure you’ve noticed by now that most of us have had our lives changed, even our friendships. I look back and the other people I met and worked with in this exhibition are now my closest people. We are in our lives together.
Condon: We’ve had an annual meeting.
Bartlett: Raul got married last year and a lot of us were able to go. It was a kind of hunting meeting. It was like, “Oh my God, this is our 10-year reunion. And it was about Raul’s wedding, but it was also an organization of old friends getting together and a lot of us from the Looking days.
Castillo: Jonathan [my wife and I] got married this summer, so we’ve come full circle.
Groff: That woman he talked about [during the filming of the pilot] ended up being his wife.
Ten years later, many of the actors who starred in Looking have gone on to become real stars. Jonathan Groff has appeared in generational projects on the level and screen, from Hamilton to Mindhunter to Frozen. Russell Tovey has appeared on shows such as Quantico, American Horror Story: NYC and the upcoming Feud: Capote Vs. O. T. Fagbenle, who played a minor role in the first season as Augustine’s boyfriend, went on to do shows such as The Handmaid’s Tale and appeared in the blockbuster Black Widow. Of course, Murray Bartlett remains a staple of prestige television, with The Last of Us and The White Lotus, for which he won an Emmy.
Alvarez: When Murray won the Emmy, which is very important to all of us, the Looking text chain exploded.
Weedman: Sometimes I look at everybody. For a while, I even think I might silence other people for a while, even though I love them very much. Because I’ve noticed that they all go from one side to the other. These guys, because they’re so cute and they’re so talented. And I didn’t do the same. I find work, but I don’t get the same kind of work. I mean, I just can’t find it. I’m content with my destiny. And it’s starting to slow down a little bit. But hey, at first it was very difficult. Everyone deserves it, but I even cringe: “How come I don’t have it?I don’t get it. “
Tovey: This exhibition has catapulted you to stardom. So far she’ll be as tall as Jennifer Aniston.
Franzese: Being a big homosexual, I’m forced to limit myself all the time when it comes to this kind of thing. I’ve been in this business for about twenty years, [and] I still have to navigate the area of being someone else. I’m still a working-class actor. I still haven’t received everyone’s full invitation to join the Hollywood club that doesn’t care where its next assignment will come from.
Alvarez: I’ve had good luck since Looking, but there are times when I feel like I’ve let Andrew down. Did I disappoint Carmen? The perspective you saw in me, didn’t I achieve?
Cuba: I know how hard it is to stay in the game and how lucky you are. The concept of something like Looking coming back is highly unlikely. So we’re all just. . . I didn’t have anything like Watch Again either.
Looking has experienced a fulfilled afterlife in the age of streaming. During the pandemic, young audiences seemed to take notice of the show and posted on social media about Looking and its characters. And while Andrew Haigh’s reputation as one of independent cinema’s marvelous auteurs continues to be bolstered through films like the blockbuster All of Us Strangers, Looking continues to find new audiences as part of the director’s work.
Lannan: I love it when new memes show up every now and then. I’m so pleased that it still resonates and people still want to meme about it. That’s the greatest compliment.
Condon: I think there’s been a little bit more done in the streaming universe, just in terms of how audiences consume things today.
Groff: Even though the exhibit didn’t have the good luck we all wanted, it still affected people, it added us, and it turns out it’s the art that remains. I mean, I’m in Merrily We Roll Along, right? Now. Forty-two years ago, it was a flop on Broadway, and it’s such an ordinary showing. People, myself included, can still revel in it for the brilliants. even if it’s not celebrated at the moment [it could be a moment later].
Weedman: I had an Uber driver from a country where you can’t be gay. He said, “I was pretending that those [Looking guys] were my friends and that ArrayArray mattered. “
Cuba: For me, it was just a matter of camaraderie, male camaraderie in particular. It wasn’t so much about the male homosexual identity but about that love and companionship that, for me, we had never noticed before. Because I also have two children and I thought: Oh, this is a dream. This organization of friends is what I dream of for my children.
Franzese: From day one, I’ve been thinking, “Can we get together for a Christmas movie or something?I’m in a position to do that. “
Alvarez: We’ve opened the door to a more nuanced LGBT narrative. The challenge is that we haven’t managed to get through that door. We’ve taken it to the opening for exhibitions like Heartstopper that were going to take control and push the boundaries. So the hope is now, maybe there’s room for us to come back. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to return to Dolores Park and now it’s Augustine’s 40th birthday?
Condon: I think there’s something appealing about those characters aging and where are they now?We’ll see if we can convince Andrew and Casey [Bloys, HBO CEO]. I’ll try to do it.
Tovey: Let’s do The Comeback – Lisa Kudrow did [season two] 10 years later, so why can’t Looking come back?
Castillo: A lot of exhibits come and go. They have massive audiences, and other people surround them the next day. But I feel like with Looking it’s like the audience has grown and grown and grown and grown.
Groff: I mean, at the end of the day, not enough people saw it and we stopped broadcasting it; That’s just the story of what happened with the program. But the fact that it only lasted two seasons and a movie, and that 10 years later, we’re still talking about it, there’s something about the longevity of the show and the other people who are still, a decade later, talking about it. The effect it had on them. It’s helping to heal the wounds of rejection.
Originally at GQ