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By H. Alan Scott
Senior Editor
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When Will & Grace premiered on NBC in 1998, it was groundbreaking because of the sheer lack of queer representation on network TV. Since then, numerous sitcoms have increased LGBTQ+ visibility on TV, but rarely gay characters of an older generation. To fill that void, those same Will & Grace creators, Max Mutchnick and David Kohan, developed Hulu's Mid-Century Modern to show that while a multi-camera sitcom with three gay male leads is rare, the stories they are telling are universal.
"I don't know that you're going to find a comedy that the third line is, 'You look like a reluctant bottom,'" Mutchnick tells Newsweek. "It tells you what you're watching. At the same time, you get the essence of what that friendship is."
It's that candid language among friends that is at the center of Mid-Century Modern. The type of frankness that not only defines those long-lasting friendships but somehow elevates that relationship. From mundane moments over breakfast or the escapades of dating later in life, to losing a beloved family member (like this cast did when Linda Lavin suddenly passed), it's unfiltered openness that exists only where people choose to feel like family.
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Led by Nathan Lane's Bunny Schneiderman, Mid-Century Modern finds undergarment tycoon Bunny inviting his two best friends—Jerry (played by Matt Bomer) and Arthur (played by Nathan Lee Graham)—to move in with him and his mother, Sybil (played by Lavin). It is after the passing of one of their mutual friends that Bunny opens up his Palm Springs home.
"He's a very wealthy, successful businessman, but he's never had the great love of his life," Lane says. "He's lonely, he's concerned about getting older and being alone. I think he realizes that the real love of his life are these two close friends. That's the most meaningful thing to him. It's this chosen family."
"It was remarkable to watch that chemistry," Kohan says of Lane, Bomer and Graham. "The only other time I think we've seen this is when we did Will & Grace."
Now, if you're thinking this show about "older" friends moving in together sounds a lot like a gay version of The Golden Girls, you wouldn't be the first.
"We get it, we understand it, but that's not what the show is. The only thing about Golden [Girls], it made it easy to explain to people really quickly," Mutchnick says.
And even though the main characters show a range of what it's like for 40- to 60-something-year-old gay men, Lane is quick to point out, "I'm the only true golden girl on this show."
Mutchnick and Kohan acknowledge they got lucky with Lane. From the very beginning, they had him in mind for Bunny. "If you don't think that we thought of that man when we put the words down on paper—'Then why'd you name me Bunny,'" says Mutchnick, imitating Lane's character. But rounding out the rest of the cast wasn't as clear.
"We did not write the pilot with Matt Bomer in mind. That character was completely a different person," says Mutchnick about Bomer's Jerry, a former Mormon who lost his family after he came out of the closet. It was later that Ryan Murphy, who also produces the sitcom, suggested Bomer. "I think Matt's one of the great multi-cam performers."
"To me, Jerry is somebody who, though he is a little bit of a space case and intellectually challenged at times, it's because his heart is so wide open that it sometimes supersedes his intellect or his ability to make rational decisions," Bomer says of his character. "He does have a sense of pathos. I like to say with Jerry, if he looked too much under the hood, he would just have a complete meltdown and spiral into oblivion."
To play Arthur, a freshly out-of-work fashion writer, Mutchnick and Kohan turned to Nathan Lee Graham after a particularly memorable audition.
"Nathan Lee Graham steps off the elevator at ABC in New York, and we were dealing with some pretty high-end actors, and they were all pretty nervous to be reading with Nathan Lane," says Mutchnick. "And Nathan Lee Graham walks [off] the elevator and just says, 'Where is she?'" After the audition, "Lane says, 'Well, it has to be him.' I said, 'Why is that?' And he said, 'Because that's the only one I'm afraid of.' And what a compliment to everybody."
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"I do understand who Arthur is from so many different angles," says Graham. "I like to think of him as being joyfully irritated."
Rounding out the cast is veteran actress of stage and screen Lavin, whose sudden death from complications of lung cancer midway through the show's production hit the cast and crew hard.
"Her impact on the show was enormous," says Lane, with Graham adding, "I feel like she's the spiritual showrunner of our show, and she's still around. Her spirit is still here. She was such a broad, and I mean that in the best possible way."
"That is the type of experience that could fracture a show, that could end a show," says Mutchnick, adding that Murphy told them to tackle her passing in real time. "I said, 'We'll do this at the end of the season.' And he said, 'No, I think you both need to write about this right now.' And he did a real favor for us, because we process[ed] something that was very heavy and very difficult, and it brought us together as creative teams."
Both Lavin's passing and the devastating wildfires in Los Angeles impacted production in unexpected ways. But for Mutchnick and Kohan, it only reinforced their sense of creative urgency.
"People lost homes in our writing room. It doesn't get heavier. I mean, Linda, [and] then that those fires took place. It was a very, very heavy experience. But we did what you're supposed to do with life, I think, to bring humor to really touch lives," says Mutchnick.
And it's that use of humor, despite life's unexpected moments, that really shows why Mid-Century Modern is so unique. It's easy to think of it as just a gay sitcom, but when you experience life through these characters, you begin to see that it is, in fact, a traditional family sitcom in the most untraditional of ways. You see this through mourning the loss of a parent, as Bunny and his sister Mindy (played by Pamela Adlon) experience; or reconnecting with a daughter, as Jerry does; or even finding one's self-worth despite a late-in-life job loss, like Arthur.
"You're not writing about an idea, you're not writing about an identity, you're writing about people," says Kohan. "The starting point is never, what would a gay person think about this situation? It's not straight specific or gay specific."
That said, there is one aspect of these three characters that is unique to this show, and incredibly rare on television, not to mention in comedy, and that's how it depicts the impact of AIDS on an entire generation of queer people. In the pilot episode, Graham's Arthur says, "We made it through the nightmare of the '80s," highlighting lasting trauma of that era on a community ravaged by the virus.
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"I wanted to make up for some of the lost opportunities that took place when we made Will & Grace," says Mutchnick. "We did not speak to AIDS on Will & Grace, I don't think ever. And I knew that if we got a chance to write this world again, that we needed to talk about this because it's so character-defining. And specifically with these guys."
"When it hit very hard in the early '80s, I was supposed to be having sex and exploring myself," Graham says. "I was afraid to even kiss anyone back in those days. And so, in doing this show, for Nathan Lee Graham personally, it's kind of fun to explore a character that's had more sex than I have." [laughs]
He's quick to add that, "I can still have it. I can still seek it."
One thing they all agree on is that now, because of politically divisive times, a show like this is the perfect distraction.
"I think people need to laugh," Lane says. "There's such joy and such heart there that people are going to be able to relate to it on so many different levels, and it's going to be the perfect escape," Graham adds.
But, as Bomer points out, even in difficult times, sometimes the most groundbreaking thing you can do is rely on family.
"These characters are just gay men trying to live their lives. Their hang-up isn't with their own identity. They're not conflicted in that way. It's just about these three guys trying to live the best lives they can together and with the found family that they've come across."
And at the end of the day, Mid-Century Modern is for everyone. Mutchnick says, "I hope they remember that sitcoms are comfort food. That's what I hope."
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