Fellow Travelers star Jonathan Bailey wins Changemaker at GAY TIMES Honours 2023
Jonathan Bailey has been named the recipient of this year’s GAY TIMES Honour for Changemaker. In 2020, the Olivier Award-winning actor was catapulted to worldwide superstardom as a result of his role in Netflix’s regency era dramedy Bridgerton, which has become one of the streamer’s most series in history.
Recently, Bailey has received widespread critical acclaim for his role as Tim Laughlin, a young man brimming with idealism and religious faith, in Showtime’s period drama Fellow Travelers.
Based on Thomas Mallon’s lauded novel of the same name, the eight-episode miniseries chronicles the toxic romance between Tim and State Department official Hawkins Fuller (Matt Bomer) in the shadow of McCarthy-era Washington.
His first major LGBTQIA+ project, Bailey said in his GAY TIMES cover story that “you can’t get more queer than Fellow Travelers” and added that “it’s the gayest show I could find.” “Someone asked me after Bridgerton, ‘What do you want to do next?’ and that is an amazing position to be in, having worked for so long to suddenly have real choice in what you do,” he explained. “I knew that I wanted to do a sweeping gay love story because I hadn’t seen it, especially one that’s detailed over eight hours.” As one of the world’s most high-profile LGBTQIA+ actors, Bailey is now using his platform to enact change via his new partnership with Just Like Us, the official LGBTQIA+ young person’s charity. “I’ve worked with Albert Kennedy Trust before, and there’s so many different charities that I look forward to working with,” he said. “Just Like Us really hit something that I felt was important.
