Posted in: Casting, Showtime, TV | Tagged: book adaptation, casting, Fellow Travelers, limited series, showtime, Thomas Mallon
Fellow Travelers: Showtime Casts 5 More for Matt Bomer Limited Series
Showtime's upcoming limited series, Fellow Travelers, has announced five new individuals added to the cast. The story, based on a novel of the same name by Thomas Mallon, has seen previous adaptations (such as an opera) and now it heads to the screen.
Included in the recent casting announcement is Will Brill, Chris Bauer, Erin Neufer, Matt Visser, and Christine Horne. Matt Bomer (The Normal Heart, The Boys in the Band) will also star in the limited series Fellow Travelers, which he will executive produce with Oscar nominee Ron Nyswaner (Philadelphia) and Robbie Rogers (All American, My Policeman). Daniel Minahan (Halston, American Crime Story: Versace) will executive produce and direct the first two episodes.
Based on the novel by Mallon, Fellow Travelers is an epic love story and political thriller chronicling the volatile romance of two very different men who meet in the shadow of McCarthy-era Washington. Bomer will play handsome, charismatic Hawkins Fuller, who maintains a financially rewarding, behind-the-scenes career in politics. Hawkins avoids emotional entanglements – until he meets Tim Laughlin, a young man brimming with idealism and religious faith. They begin a romance just as Joseph McCarthy and Roy Cohn declare war on "subversives and sexual deviants," initiating one of the darkest periods in 20th-century American history. Over the course of four decades, Hawk and Tim cross paths through 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.
Brill will star as Cohn, the Chief Legal Counsel on Joe McCarthy's Senate Committee. Bauer will star as McCarthy, the U.S. senator from Wisconsin. Neufer will recur as Mary Johnson, who is a speechwriter and connected to Tim and Hawk. Visser will star as David Schine, who serves as a consultant to McCarthy on the senate committee. And Horne will star as Jean Kerr, the right-hand of McCarthy and eventual wife.
"As a thrilling and deeply moving exploration of character and American life in the latter half of the past century, 'Fellow Travelers' shines an unprecedented light on stories that are as urgent today as ever," said Jana Winograde, President of Entertainment, Showtime Networks Inc. "The series delivers us directly into an insider world of Washington rife with national consequences while drawing out the intimate moments that are profoundly personal and often heartbreaking. We are beyond thrilled to have Ron, Matt, Robbie, and Daniel take us on this suspenseful and romantic journey."