TV: I also know that you intentionally expanded characters like Svetlana (Ksenia Daniela Kharlamova) and Rose (Sophie Nélisse) to emphasize the importance of female allyship, especially in the lives of queer men. From a writing perspective, was there anything in particular you wanted to capture about these relationships?
JT: I wanted them to feel different in their own way. I just grounded them in the experience of what was happening in the show. I communicate with them in different ways and have had friends like these throughout my life. But a lot of the things Rose talks about happened to me. I was kidnapped many, many times as a child in movies and TV shows, five times I think.
TV: Really?
JT: Oh yeah. If you’re a child actor, you’re going to get kidnapped. Trust me, that’s what you’re here for. A lot of times it’s a custody battle gone bad or something, but you get kidnapped. (Laughter.)
I wrote Elena for Nadine (Bhabha). Elena was really a version of Nadine’s voice. She’s not Nadine, but I knew I wanted Nadine from the start. I’ve known her for a long time and I love her. She’s so funny. She’s so confident. I was like, “If I could bottle Nadine’s energy, Elena would be perfect.” »
It was just about treating them like everyone else, honestly, and taking them seriously, while obviously giving – you’re absolutely right – primacy to the relationship between queer men and their female allies in particular. And in a slightly more cynical or mechanical way of looking at it, when you’re adapting a book, there are so many inner dialogues or inner thoughts that you can’t express. You need someone to say things out loud, so you need to give them a friend to talk to. Someone has to say something at some point, with Shane in particular. So once Rose came, I was like, “Okay, there should be a valve almost like, ‘Okay, you can finally talk to someone.’ » »
Gn entert
