‘Fellow Travelers’: Jelani Alladin & Noah J. Ricketts Reflect on Marcus & Frankie’s Romance
Q&A
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Fellow Travelers told two complicated queer love stories that traversed the decades, starting in the Lavender Scare during 1950s McCarthyism and extending through the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s.
The Showtime limited series stars Matt Bomer as the closeted Senate staffer Hawkins “Hawk” Fuller (he’s now Golden Globe-nominated for his performance), Jonathan Bailey as the conservative political aid-turned rebellious Tim Laughlin, Jelani Alladin as journalist Marcus Hooks, and Noah J. Ricketts as performer and activist Frankie Hines. Where Hawk and Tim’s relationship was defined by Hawk’s fear of coming out at all, Marcus and Frankie’s relationship was more so defined by Marcus’ struggle to defy gender norms.
Marcus was masculine and mostly dated similarly masculine men. When he started to fall for Frankie, who performed in drag and expressed themselves in other more feminine ways, he was confused. This confusion stunted their relationship for years. In later decades, as the LGBTQ+ rights movement started to take form, their different beliefs on how to reach liberation sowed more conflict for the pair, but time eventually brought them together. Adding a new dynamic to their life together was the struggling college student, Jerome (Jude Wilson), whom the couple took under their wing.
The eight-episode season came to a close on Sunday, December 17, closing the final chapters on of these relationships. Here, Alladin and Ricketts reflect on what it was like to film Fellow Travelers.
Marcus’ caresses Frankie’s face in Fellow Travelers Episode 3 (Courtesy of SHOWTIME)
I’m a huge theater person, and I had no idea before preparing for this interview that you both were in Frozen. Were you in the same cast?
Jelani Alladin: Yes, we were! Noah was my understudy in the original Broadway production, and then he took over the role once I left. Both Kristoffs!
When you were first cast in Fellow Travelers, how was it for you to learn that you’d be co-starring in it together, given your theater history?
Noah J. Ricketts: Well, hilarious because the night before we had done our separate auditions and lived our separate lives, we talk and all that stuff, but I got a text from my agent at 12 at night that was like, “Hey, just so you know, you have a chemistry read tomorrow with Jelani.” And so I secretly was like, I’m not going to tell him that we’re going to be reading together on Zoom tomorrow. I’m just going to pop into frame. And sure enough he had the same idea.
So you both knew and both tried to “gotcha!” each other?
Alladin: We both knew and were like “I’m not telling him, I’m not texting him.” And then we got on the Zoom and Noah made a joke. He’s like, “You want some gravy with that, Jelani?,” which is an inside joke about how much I love gravy and sauce in my food. And we started breaking out laughing and [executive producer and showrunner] Ron Nyswaner and [executive producer] Dan Minahan were like, “Are we missing something? What’s going on here?” We’re like, we know each other so well. It’s ridiculous. So it was already a great way to start our working relationship as Marcus and Frankie.
Ricketts: I don’t think we needed much chemistry [testing]. I think we did our scene once. I think we actually did it one time, and then we just talked.
That’s so fun that it was kind of kismet like that. It’s like, how can you not cast the two of you together when you have that rapport already?
Alladin: And what’s interesting is that as we developed the relationship with Marcus and Frankie, we actually had to distance that rapport. We had to take it away to know that later on in the series, we’ll get there eventually, but at the start it was like, how much can we hold back before it really gets into these two must be together?
I love that. Marcus and Frankie have such a rich history together. Through the years they struggle with Frankie being proudly out and Marcus being afraid to be that open. Tell me how it was for you to navigate that dynamic together, especially with the addition of Jerome in the later decades.
Ricketts: I think it’s a beautiful exploration. This kind of hyper-masculine aesthetic that Marcus has and this kind of androgynous feminine experience that Frankie has, I think this kind of perspective is rarely seen on TV through a Black, queer experience. And so it was a lot of fun for us to navigate and figure out where the lines intersect and figure out our own journey through that. In doing so, we discovered a lot about their relationship to each other and their relationship to the world around them.
Chelsea Russell as Storme and Noah J. Ricketts as Frankie performing in Fellow Travelers Episode 2 (Courtesy of SHOWTIME)
Alladin: Usually it’s one or the other, right? What I love about Fellow Travelers is, you get to have both perspectives and you get to have them both have solid weight. For me, developing the relationship of Marcus and Frankie, it was important to reveal the nasty, the bitter, the difficulties as much as it was important to reveal the tenderness and love and compassion.
I think you have to really understand both sides of their argument in order to really understand why this relationship is important in terms of the audiences getting wider perspectives on the Black, queer experience. And so I had a delicious time with Noah. There was never a moment where I looked into Noah’s eyes and I didn’t see love. And for me, that was critical in getting me through this entire process. Noah was my rock, as Frankie becomes the rock for Marcus. It’s his way to a better living, and Noah provides that as an actor.
I’m so sorry to segue into something so risqué immediately after that gorgeous answer, but we have to talk about the sex scenes in this show.
Ricketts: [Laughs]
Alladin: [Laughs] It’s intrinsic to the show, so we must.
I’m assuming you had an intimacy coordinator for this. Were they queer?
Ricketts: I’m not sure how she identified, to be honest with you, but we did have really fruitful conversations about how we wanted to approach all of the sex in the series. I think what’s really interesting is, our dynamic and our sexual relationship is so different from Hawk and Tim’s sexual relationship.
And if you notice, Frankie and Marcus, every time they engage in sexual activity, it comes out of a beautiful expression of art, whether it be reading a poem or whether it be singing a song that then they’re even more attracted to each other and engage in this gentle caress of loving embrace and sex. And so we really had serious conversations, and a lot of them about how we wanted to approach that and what we wanted the audience to take away from each scene.
And so what was the consensus there? What was the top-of-mind feeling that you wanted to come from these scenes together?
Ricketts: That it was a power play. That it was more than just men having sex to engage in the rough and tumble of it. That it was a power play between characters. That whether it be a masculine-feminine dynamic or a top-bottom dynamic, that each of them was negotiating power within the sexual experience.
Frankie and Marcus before they join the ‘White Night’ riots that erupted in San Francisco in 1979, as seen in Fellow Travelers Episode 7 (Ben Mark Holzberg/SHOWTIME)
Alladin: And we had a chance to show new love developing for the first time. What I mean by that is that Marcus says he likes to, quoting the show, “I’m a man who likes to f**k other men.” And so he is learning how to love this other man in front of him who presents himself with much more feminine qualities than he’s ever had before. So it’s a way to teach audiences or reveal to audiences — I hate the word teach because our job is not to teach, our job is to reveal. We reveal to audiences how to learn to love something that’s new, that’s precarious, that you’ve never tried before, and so Marcus is constantly trying to undo his old habits and develop stronger, better, new ones.
Frankie challenges that every step of the way. And I think for me, the intimacy, the sex mirrors that. It escalates over time, because as Marcus gets more comfortable with this relationship, we get to see more of what their sex life is like. It’s more of a tease, honestly. I think we wanted to develop a stronger tension that builds to a climax when finally these tease two characters make love to each other.
I love this relationship that they share. It feels so special and unique to see all of these queer couples through the decades on this show. Could you share some stories about a favorite scene you two filmed together, and then a favorite scene that you shared with Matt and Jonathan. Why do they stand out to you?
Ricketts: I think one of my favorite scenes that I filmed with Jelani was one of our first actually, which was the poem scene, because it was kind of our first introductions to the characters and figuring out how they work together. And if you watch that scene back, I love that they have such an interesting relationship where they’re just trying to figure each other out the entire time. Where Marcus is looking at Frankie and he’s like, what is this creature that I’m attracted to and why? And Frankie is looking at Marcus thinking, who is this educated journalist, kind of moody guy, and why is he like this? And so that was my favorite scene, the poem scene that leads to their first onscreen kiss. I think it’s a beautiful depiction of love.
Alladin: My favorite scene to shoot with Noah — and my whole favorite day to shoot with Noah, because we actually shot two scenes in one day — were the park bench scenes in Episode 5. In the first scene, you see [Marcus’] wall go way up, and he essentially has this breakup with somebody that he loves. And the contrast of the second scene is, the walls have now all come down and he’s actually allowing himself to be charming, to be open to the possibility of Frankie with the Red Nails.
That scene really, for me, was a turning point in their relationship that I hold to my heart tenderly. It was our audition scene as well. To bring that to life was incredible. To finally see these two people seeing eye to eye and being like, we don’t know where it goes from here, but I definitely respect you. I hold you in my heart, and I will do my best to protect all that you are and celebrate all that you are. And I just love that last part of our scene.
Alladin and Ricketts in their Fellow Travelers Episode 5 bench scene (Ben Mark Holzberg/SHOWTIME)
Ricketts: My favorite with Jonathan is when I work with Jonathan and I take the Fire Island invitation [in the 1978 timeline]. I loved that day because we spent so much time as couples, and just being on set with Jonathan, he is such a lovely, light spirit that when we came together, it was like two girls giggling in church. We couldn’t stop laughing and kibitzing the entire time. So it wasn’t so much the scene as it was the experience with Jonathan on set that day that I had found to be so incredibly lovely.
Alladin: My favorite scene with Matt and Johnny, it’s actually of a weird one because it’s in Episode 8, the last episode where Marcus sneaks into the event to take Hawk’s badge away from him. There’s this moment that Marcus is kind of cold to Hawk because he’s like, after all this, we got you. We duped you.
In that moment, Hawk is confessing his love to Tim, and it’s the three of us playing these older men. It’s my favorite memory of just having that moment of like, we got you, dude. We duped you. We had one over you, and then all of us walking off together to then do the protest at the end of the episode. It was really one of my favorite memories. That was all shot in one night.
Fellow Travelers, Available Now, Paramount+ With Showtime
