Matt Bomer is ‘bonded for life’ with Jonathan Bailey after Fellow Travelers foot fetish scene

Matt Bomer says he is “bonded for life” with Jonathan Bailey after filming their foot fetish scene in Fellow Travelers.

There are just some things in life which bring friends closer together, and it turns out that toe-sucking is one of them. 

In a new interview, Bomer said that the sex scene — in which Bailey’s character Tim sucks on the toes of Bomer’s character Hawk — brought their connection to the next level. 

“We are bonded for life, for sure, as friends after having gone through this together,” he said to People. “So it’s a very sacred friendship for me. I love Jonathan.”

The outlet also asked if Bomer would return the favour to Bailey, and suck his toes in a future scene. He joked: “That wasn’t in the script! We did what was in the script.”

Showtime’s adaptation of Thomas Mallon’s 2007 novel Fellow Travelers is an epic voyage across LGBTQ+ US history spanning four decades, from the 1950s to 1980s. Considered one of the darkest periods to exist as a queer person in the US, the story traces the LGBTQ+ rights movement from McCarthy-era “persecution of homosexuals” through to the AIDS epidemic.

However, the beating heart of this eight-episode political thriller is the tension-filled forbidden love between Catholic college graduate Tim Laughlin (Bailey) and State Department political upstart Hawkins Fuller (Bomer).

The series creator Ron Nyswaner previously told PinkNews about the immediate chemistry between Bomer and Bailey, and the importance of casting LGBTQ+ actors in the show.

Their volatile romance — packed with steamy sex and an ever-changing power dynamic — is relentlessly threatened by the turbulent political climate.

Nyswaner said: “When Matt and Johnny did a chemistry read, Johnny was in London and Matt was in the United States, so they were continents apart on Zoom pretending to be sitting on a park bench next to each other. 

“It was just obvious that we had to see these two people play these roles, [it was] self-evident.”

The creator continued: “They really, really, really liked each other. Matt and Jonny really [had] the spark between them as friends and there was a warmth between them they then used in their relationship as actors.”