Sometimes Looking Got a Little Too Real

A decade ago, in a very different San Francisco and a very different television landscape, Patrick Murray and his friends first stumbled onto HBO — literally, the pilot starts with Jonathan Groff ineptly cruising in a public park. Looking was a low-key, intentionally under-glamorous depiction of the lives of a few gay male friends played by Groff, future White Lotus employee Murray Bartlett, and Frankie J. Alvarez, as well as their token straight-woman-friend Doris (Lauren Weedman) and Patrick’s pair of love interests, played by Raúl Castillo and Russell Tovey. Created by Michael Lannan with the close involvement of director Andrew Haigh (of All of Us Strangers), Looking intentionally tacked away from the soap-operatics of gay dramas like the American Queer As Folk while still wrestling with the hot topics of gay life during the second Obama administration: PrEP, Grindr, marriage equality. In its two-season run plus a wrap-up film, the show was never a ratings smash — its time slot, right next to Girls, may have led some audiences to expect satire where Looking bent toward sweet earnestness — though it became the subject of furious discussion on social media, perhaps also a novel dynamic at the time. Looking lives on as a cult favorite, discovered and revisited by new fans online, and it remains a beloved project for its cast and crew.

Watch the Looking reunion, including Groff, Alvarez, Weedman, Lannan, and executive producer John Hoffman, with Castillo calling in over Zoom and special guest appearances by Tovey and Bartlett, in full below. Or read on for an edited transcript of the conversation.

Michael, you’d written a pilot that was originally set in New York, right? How did Looking get to HBO? 
Michael Lannan: It was a very long process. I was living in New York, and I started writing a pilot about experiences I had and people I knew. Over many years it evolved, and through a chance encounter with a friend, it got to an HBO executive, and they liked the characters and brought me in for a meeting. Most meetings are like, “Oh, let’s find something to work on together,” and you never do. But from the start, we all had a sense of the opportunity ahead of us. We had all the same references. It was a few years after The L Word had ended, so it had been a few years since there were any shows on the air with queer characters in the lead. HBO, I heard later, had been looking for that, so they read my work at the right moment. I remember we talked about the British Queer As Folk as a touchstone, we talked about Tales of the City as a touchstone, and, weirdly, we talked about how Barack Obama’s election had sort of ushered in a different era of talking about queer issues and queer people, and this was a few years after that — I know, topical. It felt like there was a new era dawning and just an opportunity to do something that wasn’t on TV at the moment.

At what point did you settle on San Francisco as the setting?
M.L.: So there’s this show called Girls that came out while I was developing this. [Laughter] HBO more or less said, “We can’t have two shows with young people in New York.” We had a round of discussions about what it would be. I pushed hard for L.A., but a bunch of people were like, “No, you can’t do a queer show in L.A. because it’ll just end up being about the business.” So they sent me to San Francisco. I was like, “San Francisco? So on the nose.” [Laughs] And then I was in San Francisco for a weekend, and I walked around, and I was like, Okay, yeah, I kind of see it. 

What was it like auditioning for the show?
Lauren Weedman: I don’t remember reading the script. Sorry! I remember we got to improv. It was the director, Andrew Haigh, in the room, and then there was Ptolemy [Slocum], who wound up being an actor in the show as well. He read Murray’s role. I was able to be myself in it, and that was so fricking fun. The idea that it was going to be a gay show that had one female who was gonna be a part of the show in a big way — my manager said, “They want somebody like Margaret Cho, so if you get on the show, you have to make yourself really beloved.” And I was like, “Okay, I’ll work on it.” [Laughs] 

Frankie J. Alvarez: I was doing a play out at the Actors’ Theater of Louisville, and I was playing a Civil War soldier coming home, so I had a huge beard. I sent in the tape for Richie originally, and I guess the fit wasn’t right for that role, but they moved me onto the Agustín track. And then we had a chemistry read in New York where it was three guys reading for Jonathan’s part, three reading for Agustín, and three reading for Dom, and they were mixing and matching us. The three of us had instant chemistry. We really felt it that day.

Jonathan Groff: I auditioned in L.A. I had seen Weekend, and I was a puddle after that movie was over. I was so blown away and had never seen a gay movie or show that felt so relatable. And then when I heard the director of that was directing this pilot, I got really excited. It was the scene with Richie when he’s hitting on Patrick on the train in the pilot. I remember blushing for real, because until that moment in that room, I had never actually played “gay” in that way before, and it was such a confronting, scary, exciting experience. I was like, Whoa. I felt actually hot.

F.A.: That’s because you weren’t playing, you were revealing.

J.G.: Yeah, exactly! I kind of left on a high from that audition. It felt a little scary to … It’s one thing to be out, but then it’s another thing to, like, douche on-camera. [Laughs] And it’s like, “Wow, I guess if I do this show, it’s really like G-A-Y across my forehead.” At that time, there was this notion that if you were gay and you played gay, that was all that you were going to be able to do. But I felt it so deeply that I ended up not caring as much about that and wanting to play the role.

F.A.: That reminds me of a story. When you came out to your parents, you told your mom, “I’m never gonna be the grand marshal at the Gay Pride Parade.”

J.G.: And then we were in the Pride Parade together! I came out in 2009, and by 2013, we were at the front of the parade!

Raúl, what were your auditions like?
Raúl Castillo: They put me through the ringer at the audition, like sliced ham! I got cast very last minute. I did this short film, Lorimer, with Michael that was a sort of prototype for what later became Looking, playing the Richie character in that. I was really fond of the story and of the script and of the characters, but I thought that HBO really didn’t want me. I had committed to a play that I was doing Off–Off Broadway, thinking I was not going to be cast in the pilot.

M.L.: Basically, Raúl and I made this short in a random apartment in Brooklyn for no money. It was an incredible experience, and it was so clear that he had something special. The casting process came, and I don’t know, it’s a hectic process, it’s confusing, there’s a lot of voices in the room. Obviously, I wanted Raúl in the show. Raúl, if I didn’t advocate for you enough in the first round, I’m sorry! It just was one of those magical things where nobody was feeling right, and Andrew did turn to me at one point very late, and he was like, “It’s Raúl.” So it came back around in a way that it needed to.

John and Michael, once you had the pilot, how did you talk about what you wanted to explore as you were building out this first season? You were at an interesting moment in gay history. 
John Hoffman: I wasn’t around for the pilot of the show. I was meeting with Sarah Condon, who was also a producer on this, and she said, “You know, there’s these guys who I love, and they’re involved in making this pilot.” So I got to see the pilot, and I was like, Oh my God. I fell in love with it so hard. I was like a pathetic dog trying to scratch at the door and get involved. That whole first season was magic. Michael and Andrew were so open and kind and generous. And then I made Jonathan douche! I wanted everyone to get naked more! I was the one in the room going, “Guys, we need more people watching, so everybody has to be naked a lot more and having more sex!”

L.W.: If you’ve got an ass, get a fork! We’re eating!

M.L.: Well, when I was rewatching it recently, I was like, “Man, there’s a lot of desire and kissing and sex!” I was like, “Oh my God, we did that!”

J.H.: Everywhere I could! Although, I later became friends with Shirley MacLaine, who’s now 90-something. I got her to watch Looking, and she said, “That is quite a show. I really enjoyed it. One note — too much kissing.” [Laughs]

L.W.: No kissing, just fucking. Is that the show’s point?

F.A.: Straight to the bottom-ing!

In an oral history about the show, one of the things that came up, alongside John being the one who really wanted douching onscreen, was how much the characters started to mold around the actors. I think one of you said, “We didn’t want to tell too much to Michael and Andrew because it might just appear onscreen.” Did you feel the sense of these characters becoming expressions of yourselves?
J.G.: To me, almost to an embarrassing point. I was figuring it out as I went along and offering up vulnerable truths. I remember being in a diner with Andrew, and he was like, “Tell me about your last breakup” and then writing down in the notes for the fight for me and Kevin at the end of the season, where we’re moving in with each other. And then I got to act that out! And the boyfriend who it was kind of about was like, “Wow, okay, so … did you tell them about it?” It was a great gift. For the actors to offer up tidbits and whatever, and then to have the writers and the directors make it artfully a part of the story, it was incredible. It was like actual therapy.

One of the things Looking explores in that Doris and Dom friendship is the straight woman/gay man bond and the tensions as they figure out how to grow within it. I’m curious, writing it and also playing it, what it was like to see that relationship.
M.L.: That was a really important element of the show from the beginning because some of my closest relationships have been with the women in my life. It’s a very special type of relationship.

L.W.: Did they want it that much in the show at the beginning? I remember there was a series-regular part, and I got called back, and was like, “Oh my God! It’s not only this amazing part that feels so right, it’s a good job on top of it! How wonderful!” And then my manager calls and says, “There’s good news and bad news. The good news is you got it; the bad news is they demoted it and now you’re just gonna be recurring.”

M.L.: I love how all the tough questions are coming out a decade later! I actually think that was probably more about casting and budget and the politics of the studio than anything.

L.W.: Say no more! I get it. Hollywood.

J.H.: I will say that even writing it, from the model of that relationship, that’s obviously something that could easily fall into the land of trope or something very stereotypical. And it was all due to our desire, in the writers’ room, to get something more interesting.

M.L.: Dom and Doris were the comic relief sometimes. They lightened the mood. Even now when I rewatch it, it’s always such a welcome shift for me. God, it’s a breath of fresh air out of the gay drama! Don’t you think so too, Jonathan?

J.G.: 100 percent.

J.H.: It just feels like everyone had a chance to be their most vulnerable self, and in that space, you find real authenticity. It calls for it. Everyone had to call upon that. You felt it all around you. That is the most bonding thing about it, that everyone was in the same pool of being unafraid to be sort of wildly vulnerable.

L.W.: And no assholes! Like, usually there’s one person who fucks everything up, right?

There’s an enveloping sense of the friendship between the men in the series. There’s a moment at the end of the first season that has a Golden Girls reference. How did you land on that as a moment?
M.L.: I believe it came from Andrew Haigh and his partner, Andy. When we were shooting, Andrew would go home and Andy would have The Golden Girls on. I’m pretty sure one day Andrew came in with it and was like, “I think Golden Girls might be the ending moment,” because he would fall asleep to Golden Girls after long shoot days. That’s a really special thing about television — you get to watch people be friends. That was always part of the goal of the show, to celebrate friendship, because that’s been such a defining part of my life. Watching them watch The Golden Girls made me think, They’re friends and they remind us how to be friends.

There was so much discourse about exactly what Looking was depicting. Is it Girls but with gay men? Or was it Sex and the City? What was it like to suddenly have this show out in the world and have people talking about it and picking it apart?
M.L.: We knew there were gonna be opinions about it, I think because we’re gay viewers and we have opinions. HBO also told us, “People always gun for our shows when they come out,” because they were on top. I also think it was an era of lots of internet opinionating. So people had thoughts! [Laughs] I feel sort of strange about it now because, in a way, none of it ever mattered?

L.W.: I remember we were at the Paley Center and people were getting up and going, “I don’t see myself represented!” I thought it was beautiful, because it mattered! There’s one little morsel out there of some show that maybe you have a chance to see yourself, and people are like, “I want to be seen on this!” Of course, I’m not the writer. Much worse to be the writer. [Laughs] The reaction — it felt like it really mattered.

M.L.: Also, I think it was a reaction to the American Queer As Folk in a way. We wanted to do anti-melodrama, we wanted to do intimacy, we wanted to have characters who paid the rent. We knew it was gonna pull against expectations in some ways. I don’t know if that landed with some folks who had different expectations. Also, the rollout was weird. It didn’t project queerness in the marketing. It was sort of like “people!” It was very vague. I think the way you roll out a show is very much how it’s received in some ways.

J.G.: I was shocked to see our gentleness attacked in such an aggressive way by what people were typing. It made me, what you were saying, Lauren, feel like, Wow, I guess this is way more meaningful than I ever anticipated. That people are actually upset and angry and furious and bored, or whatever it was they were feeling that they felt they had to kind of shout it from the rooftops. It’s a testament to the point of view of Michael and Andrew that they held fast to what they wanted to do. They heard criticism and they applied it, but they didn’t change what the core of the show was. And I think that’s why we’re here, because you had such a specific point of view. It’s such a lesson in digging in and connecting to your truth, and not letting negative noise affect that. But it was so hard for you guys! I remember it was coming from every angle.

Do you have memories of favorite places you got to film in San Francisco? Especially in that moment in time, because that city has changed so much.
M.L.: We filmed Patrick and Richie dancing at the Stud, and they kiss at the exact spot where I had my first kiss. It was crazy and beautiful. When that happened, I was like, “Wow, this really is a simulation.”

J.G.: That’s the one that came to my mind, too, because I remember you being there, and I remember us dancing. It was so hot, by the way. Super-hot.

M.L.: Temperature-wise?

J.G.: No, sexual tension! [Laughs] It was in this cool gay bar in San Francisco, and I remember you saying to the director of that episode, “Please push the camera in,” because it was a faraway shot. It was like your heart and your soul knew that we gotta go in on this. I remember feeling that and feeling you and really feeling like, “Oh, wow, I’m inside of somebody’s brain and heart right now, and I’m with this guy.” It felt like an artistic, transcendent moment. It was such a special thing to be inside of your memory of your first kiss. You were channeling something. The storytelling thing was happening.

L.W: The wrapping up of the film, after Andrew came in and we wanted to make sure we were shooting when the sun would come up. They wanted to get the little orphans, is that what it’s called?

F.A.: Orphan Annies.

LW: Orphan Annies. We shot it, we came outside, and I think we circled up or something to have a moment. And it was quiet in San Francisco in the Castro. This is super-dramatic, but I remember I felt like the voices of all the boys who came to San Francisco to save themselves and to be here, you could feel the history of the city and in the Castro. And I remember walking home, and I was really, like, so full of “Look at my life! This is a part of it! This matters! Boys came here to save themselves who died here, and we’re part of this little bit of this history!”