Jonathan Bailey is set to star in the Showtime Limited Series Fellow Travelers alongside Matt Bomer and Allison Williams. The new gig is in addition to his return to Bridgerton as Anthony Bridgerton for Season 3.
Bailey will portray the character of Tim Laughlin, a young Fordham University graduate, earnest about his political and religious convictions and filled with optimism about the post-WWII future.
Fellow Travelers is a 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.
The 8-episode limited series—based on the Thomas Mallon novel of the same name— is created by Oscar nominee Ron Nyswaner. Bomer and Nyswaner executive produce with Robbie Rogers. Daniel Minahan will executive produce and direct the first two episodes.
The co-production between Fremantle and Showtime will begin production later this month in Toronto.