Interview with "Brothers & Sisters" creator Jon Robin Baitz

Jon Robin Baitz was already a star playwright in the New York theater when he came to Hollywood to create the ABC Sunday night hit Brothers & Sisters. But Hollywood is a different world, and a few months into the show’s second season Baitz was – for all intents and purposes — off his own show, out of LA, and out of his ABC contract.

AfterElton spoke with the openly gay writer as part of our upcoming investigative article on gay characters in primetime. And the groundbreaking gay character of Kevin Walker — one of the titular Brothers of Brothers & Sisters — was the focus of the conversation.

In this, Baitz’s first interview since acknowledging in The Huffington Post blog entries that he was “ousted” from Brothers & Sisters — Baitz talks about how Kevin Walker, played by Welsh actor Matthew Rhys, succeeded in becoming that rare thing in television: an artistically satisfying gay character that made it to air with a romantic life intact. Baitz also reveals his thoughts on the writers’ strike, love in his 40’s, and explains what “ousted” really means.

Baitz (center) accepting a GLAAD Media Award
flanked by Brothers & Sisters cast.

AfterElton.com: I read your beautiful blog post on The Huffington Post about leaving LA. And I’m wondering do you think you’ll ever get to a point where you’re really grateful you achieved the impossible lottery win of getting a hit show on the air?
Jon Robin Baitz: I’m [completely] grateful. More proud than grateful. I feel more that I learned how to do this — almost, as you said impossible thing — which requires the cooperation, patience and help of many other people. But more than that, requires your own almost mono-maniacal drive.

AE: Which is difficult to keep up.
JRB: It is difficult to keep up. I think I did so for a long time. I have a lot of perspective on it. Mostly it’s about what one can do. And wanting to do more of it.

AE: What one can do in terms of…?
JRB: What one can create. Where perhaps one’s own interests, orientation, worldview are gonna be a better fit. The irony is that in terms of the approach to sexuality [specifically the sexuality of the Kevin Walker character], it was an area where ABC was entirely cooperative. The only caveat being a slight hesitancy when it came to rolling out the story of Ron Rifkin, Saul.

Baitz with actor Ron Rifkin

AE: And you’ve said that you felt that was an ageist thing more than a…
JRB: Definitely. And I don’t think it had much to do with his sexuality. I think it actually had more to do with the fact that that network knows its audience. You know the canary in the coalmine of American culture has to be network television. And I think, of course, it is an ageist culture. Which is a fascinating and absurd problem in a culture, really. Because this sort of unconscious suicide pact that one has with what’s to come…

AE: Which is amplified in LA…
JRB: Utterly magnified. Completely.

AE: I’m wondering if part of ABC’s acceptance [of the gay sexuality on the show] came from what you were bringing to it? When Kevin first kissed Scotty, and the way that whole first relationship developed, AfterElton wrote a long article on it because it was seen as groundbreaking. And in fact it was.
JRB: To my amazement though. I mean I was the last to know this was getting groundbreaking.

AE: I’m wondering if that was part of the reason why this character was so successful? That you didn’t think of it as something that remarkable?
JRB: It wouldn’t have occurred to me. At any theater in New York you know you’d be hard pressed to find a character that isn’t gay. [laughs]