Jonathan Bailey on Bridgerton, playing G'raha Tia and how Fellow Travelers healed him | BAFTA

can't believe I'm playing a game with a dice anyway about my career number one that is a broad Church face um yeah I mean it was a good place to start cuz I look back on Broad Church really fondly and also realized just what an amazing opportunity it was to be in such a brilliantly conceived and detailed drama which included so many amazing actors I do have a specific broad Church memory uh with Vicki McClure being sat on the beach in West Bay it was a day off and obviously we were sort of we al

l living and breathing it because it's a beautiful like the Jurassic Coast was there and we were watching I think jod was in her red dress running along finding you know her son's dead body you know in character and we were there just sort of catching up having a coffee and and sharing a cigarette I think and we realized we were in the back of shot I think we got scared along but if anyone can spot that that was our first mistake of many it's just so interesting when you look back now I mean I c

an't believe I'm playing a game with a dice anyway about my career but when you look back there are through lines and one of those people for me is Kelly Henry who's been amazing at the time I'd finished doing a a TV series called Leonardo which was uh for CBBC which was real really really fun and and it was I think Sam who had worked on the scripts of Leonardo Who had who was connected somehow to Chris I think she had actually worked with Chris tribal before the 10 between the two of those proj

ects there were there was obviously times where you just sort of feel like you're losing your way or you lose your confidence and I remember at one particular Point auditioning for something with Kelly and I went I went in and you know I was auditioning for it and I just it I just said I just think I'm really struggling you know and she was someone who just said yeah I promise you Johnny just keep going it doesn't need to be this job that you get but just you know it's about just the work keep d

oing it but it was in such a generous way that wasn't sort of a platitude dud and you look back now and you go go she is one of the people that um has you know obviously given me incredible opportunities but also just sort of kept me honed in on the craft I guess time to roll again God it's such a heavy ball okay roll number two here we go here he is those mutton chops don't lie and I look at that and I think about Mark who is the amazing makeup designer of season one and the hair and the ex sor

t of the the sort of artistry and craft of his design it's hard not to feel completely sort of emotionally connected to talking about it I actually bizarrely got that from a self tape so to all those actors who would you know look at self tape you go it's never going to happen which of course I thought for this as well it did and so yeah so that sort of changed that narrative for me and the confidence in in self tapes but I was I I was on stage and I was um doing company having an amazing time r

etiring knackering time but with brilliant people directed by Mar Elliot there I got sent the script for bridon and I just thought the idea of shaelan coming into do a period drama for Netflix it just felt like it would be an extraordinary moment you know sort of like magnesium to a flame creative moment and it made sense um knowing what shandel land you know what they stand for really creating worlds in which everyone can see themselves in you know I i' had audition for The Duke um which was th

e reg Jean page part and at the end of it they were like I think you might be you know you might need to look at Anthony Bridgeton the Netflix effect is is wild you know I probably wouldn't be sat here rolling a dice if it wasn't for Anthony Bridgeton I look forward to yeah supporting the rest of the family um and the stories that go forward because there's one thing I know about you know beloved worlds is that you want to see them through and people invest there their love and their time and it

means so much to so many people so yeah me and Tony will be together for a while trying a new technique here this is the winky Prince can't say much about Fierro in Wicked I cannot wait to see it it's it's I mean the craftsmanship to be in something that is so palpably real and you know like the millions of tulips that they planted the the con the conception of what munchkin land looks like now um you know in the world that we live in and and how it can still be a fantasy place that people can

go and play and and you'd want to dive into as a fan of huge scale sort of Studio musicals but also films and the style of Leaning away from CGI and rendering but actually having literal sets to play in I think about China the Chocolate Factory and and what it was to see those sets growing up and to see the scratch and lick wall I just the idea of being able to dive into the chocolate with Augustus Gloop that was my fantasy again y oh hey this is uh grara catboy and this is a this is a character

that I voice in a series I'm sure many people have heard of Final Fantasy yeah little catboy and uh and the Crystal X Ark because he's sort of like s very open um adoring uh playful companion to the player and I was a gamer growing up again the work the brilliant like the writing is it's almost like Shakespearean this is like a line this is just you know just a line that gradia says we travel the lands cross the Seas and take to the skies upon the Eternal wind and it will be magnificent I mean

it's amazing yeah I'm I'm aware of how important this character is to so many people I was so determined to not step away from this character um that when I was doing company I had to record this in the day for about a week doing eight shows at night and my tongue inflamed so I think any diard fans out there there's a few sort of hours of uh playing where I sound a lith be that's because of that so I apologize here he is it's Tim Laughlin this is fellow Travelers it's a series that Chronicles a

love story and really queer sort of Liberation over 30 years and four decades and it was just fascinating really you know how how lucky to experience jobs that actually offer cathares to who you actually are and your own identity to be able to go and educate and investigate um previous queer experiences and especially a moment in history the lavender scare which was uh under President Eisenhower where there was an order issued to basically flush out gay people from government under the guise of

them being a threat to society or being susceptible to coercion um and linking that with the Communist threat and you know these moments and pockets of quite Sinister oppression uh have conveniently been sort of left uh off the menu in curriculums and in in common sort of conversation um so it's been amazing to shine a light on that actually that dressing that dressing room behind the scenes of CK has got I've got a lot to thank for because it was a similar sort of thing just before going on sta

ge I had a zoom and we talked about it for an hour with Dan minahan who is an amazing director and then read Around yeah the 50s and the experience of of queer life in DC but really I'd been working towards playing this character for 35 years you know the fact that we live in the Western World now where there's you know it's arguably the best places to be gay in the world in terms of acceptance you know you still grow up in a feeling that you're um that you're you know there's something about yo

u that's inherently not right and things weren't talked about at home or at school uh through no fault of family but so you know there's so much that you can pour into this character and I think having a gay cast and a pro predominantly you know queer cre team as well really allowed something like fellow travelers to take flight in a way that I know I would have loved if I hadn't been in it to to witness Ron niana this was his singular world that he had conceived and so the idea of working with

that sort of utter sort of to be able to dive into someone else's Vision but also to be given enough space to and Trust to be able to bring your version of it is um is just like joyful it's funny because the second series of Bridgeton came out whilst I was doing a play and it was you know it's an intense um personal experience as well as you know ultimately long term it's it really exciting but I felt a bit sort of shaken in my own life um and someone just said look this is it could be the best

thing just to go and dive into something and it was and I'm learning like what the creative process is and how art can heal and I think this story has that ability for the viewer as well because whatever happens now you know it just being a gay person a gay gay man whether you're in this industry or not it's a political everything's political really and you have all the people who came before you um to thank for that all the gay gay men and women and the opportunities that are available now are

because of that and there's something in this story as well that was included which wasn't in the book which is the black queer story and the colorism between Marcus and Frankie played by galani Aladdin and noj rickets and I saw that story line and I was just like this is is going to be brilliant and obviously now the next thing we want to see is we want to see the black queerness front and center and I'm going to be so excited to be able to go and support that we should do crashing shouldn't we

blondes have more fun this is crashing with Phoebe W bridge and I remember always secretly wanting to peroxide my hair I think I had said to Phoebe I was like I think I need to peroxide my hair but also get a perm yeah the only reference I could come up with was Justin Timber Lake in the double den I think frosted tips must have been in the script and I latly got a perm for Bridgeton series 2o anyway so there we go um dreams come true to work with Damen Maloney Lise Ford Adrian scarra Juliet I

mean and Amit sha and Phoebe we've filmed it in six weeks and all I can just say and describe it was like being on the brink of an orgasm and the brink of Hysteria for 6 weeks which was actually sounds quite tiring but it was really fun when you play certain characters it does affect how you feel in your own life and and playing Sam I felt absolutely wild and had some nights out where I just felt incredibly twinkly people come and talk about crashing almost more than anything I've ever done um a

nd it's almost secretly a good limus I think if someone loves crashing I'm like Good Egg much like the opening episode of Series 2 of uh fleb back which I think is one of the like some of the best writing for TV ever written um in the way that she can put characters together around a table in a fixed environment and twist and turn and surprise every step of the way but I remember filming that being sat next to Amit and Louise Ford and just sort of it was I felt like a volcano it was just suppres

sing the laughs for a whole day and eating onion barges probably about 92 and I remember putting on my trainers and running home which was about seven seven miles so yeah slightly insane but that was the amount of energy that was like generated in doing something that's that sort of naughty and playful and [ __ ] funny so yeah so that must be surely one of my faves and uh yeah sometimes I wonder what the characters will be up to now is there a role that you haven't played yet but you would love

to like try I I love the idea of playing a real person so like to follow someone and study a real life person and to see about how you can like sculpt a character and for it to be an important story I think to find it there's a Sweet Spot somewhere I think also like the parents children Dynamic is really interesting I don't have children myself but I don't want to wish my life away but I am quite excited about playing like yeah paternal yeah RS maybe let's see who knows you know entertainment dr

ama um theater art is really important um and to be a part of it is just incredibly lucky But ultimately incredibly joyful my career has taught me so far as to be okay you know to to be enthusiastic about saying that because I think I would have been really embarrassed to say that about 10 years ago so yeah that's where I'm [Music] at