It’s called intersectionality, b-!’ That’s a big reason why I wanted to do this show. “Ruthie has a line in the first episode that I absolutely adore: ‘Hey, you can be trans and toxic. Having watched “a little bit” of the American version while in college, Keitel said it was the prospect of playing a “multidimensional, complicated” trans woman that immediately appealed to her.
Keitel was the first series regular to be cast last summer. Though he didn’t set out to create a show where everyone on both sides of the camera “has to be queer,” Dunn said he believes it is vital “to encourage authentic queer storytelling by casting and hiring real, actual queer people with these real lived experiences that they can contribute.”
“It’s hard for people from outside the community to be able to tell whether or not this is going to be offensive or if it’s going to be authentic, and I think the benefit of having an all-queer writers’ room or cast is that we are approaching this from a perspective of love and wanting to tell stories with authenticity, not just to be obnoxious or provocative.” “It’s rare for queer characters to be able to show that authentic, flawed, messy side, because I think there’s a fear of offending people by showing that side,” he said. “There are not a lot of trans women on television, especially not in roles that allow them to consistently make mistakes and allow them to be a sexual being.” Devin Way and Jesse James Keitel in "Queer as Folk." PeacockĪs a result of “the harm that Hollywood has done to queer characters in the past,” Dunn said, “there’s been an urge to correct that by creating role models and saintly like depictions of queer characters.”
“What I think is really cool about our show is, there are stories that I don’t think have ever been told on TV before,” Keitel said. Keitel, who is best known for playing one of network TV’s first nonbinary characters on ABC’s “Big Sky,” said LGBTQ audiences “are tired of not seeing themselves reflected” and “expect more from the representation” they do see. Ryan O'Connell, Johnny Sibilly, Devin Way, Jesse James Keitel and Fin Argus attend Peacock's "Queer As Folk" World Premiere last week in Los Angeles. “We need to re-examine what the word ‘queer’ means now, because I think it has evolved and changed a lot in terms of the way that we look at it” since the early 2000s, he told NBC News. After taking a bullet for Mingus (Fin Argus), an aspiring teen drag performer raised by a supportive single mother (Juliette Lewis), and losing a close friend in the shooting, Brodie decides to move back in with his former fiancé, Noah (Johnny Sibilly), a successful lawyer who is not as put together as he seems.įor Dunn, who grew up secretly watching the American adaptation as a young adult in Canada, reimagining “Queer as Folk” - with Davies attached as an executive producer - meant there was an inherent responsibility to not only honor the original source material but to also carve out space for members of the LGBTQ community who have been historically overlooked on television. Brodie is also the soon-to-be biological father of twins, having donated his sperm to his trans best friend, Ruthie (Jesse James Keitel), and her nonbinary partner, Shar (CG). The eight-episode season begins with the fateful homecoming of Brodie (Devin Way), a charming, hot-tempered young gay man who decides to visit his adoptive mother, Brenda (Kim Cattrall), and disabled brother, Julian (Ryan O’Connell), after dropping out of medical school. “It was something where everyone was affected and unified by this horrible tragedy in such a way that it felt like a story about a community rebuilding could be the premise for a show.” “There’s no community that is more fractured, more sprawling, and that has so much division, but I told Russell that the last time I remembered the queer community really coming together was after the Pulse nightclub shooting,” Dunn, 33, said in an interview provided to the press. The tragedy, which is reminiscent of the 2016 Pulse nightclub massacre in Orlando, Florida, was the basis of the initial pitch that convinced Davies to give Dunn the rights to the prestigious property around five years ago. Created by Stephen Dunn, the new “Queer as Folk,” which premiered Thursday, follows a diverse group of friends whose lives are upended in the aftermath of a mass shooting at Babylon, a fictional gay bar in New Orleans.