Interview with "Brothers & Sisters" creator Jon Robin Baitz

From left to right: Luke MacFarlane, Rhys, and Jason Lewis

I’m telling you, there’s a list of actors that we’d go out to to play guest star boyfriends — and it would come back: doesn’t want to play gay, doesn’t want to play gay. I’m not going to name them.

What else went right was also the sophistication of the executives at ABC/Disney. Steve McPherson [Entertainment President at ABC, also interviewed in our upcoming article], though voraciously heterosexual from all appearances, seems to be entirely comfortable with the direction of the culture, of our sexual evolution.

AE: So no constraints were put on you of any kind regarding the sexuality of the [Kevin Walker] character?
JRB: Absolutely not.

AE: Is there something you’re particularly proud of, because you feel like it pushed the envelope in terms of Kevin’s sexual and romantic life? In terms of visibility?
JRB: I think that those places where Kevin was forced to confront his own internalized homophobia were the places where it was most interesting and most real to me. The places where his fear of commitment would get in the way. The places where maybe he had met the love of his life in Scotty, and couldn’t possibly deal with it at that stage of his life.

From B&S episode 105: Kevin reacts badly when Scotty kisses him in public.

AE: Do you feel like at some point since leaving the network, you may just feel like a free man — and feel a little giddy about it?
JRB: I have mixed feelings. I feel ambivalent. I look forward to making more television. I would not describe my state as giddy.

AE: Well I mean — at some point that you may feel that you got out with all your limbs intact?
JRB: Well, I definitely do feel that. I have very complicated feelings with all of it. But I definitely feel that. And I’m not one to live in regret, or to dwell. I’m really enthusiastically at the moment imagining new shows.

AE: That’s a sense of freedom.
JRB: Yes. There’s no giddiness about it though. Look, I left behind a creation. I left behind something that was very expensive personally to make. And so I have very strong feelings about it being as good as it is. In no small measure — as much credit as I give to others it’s not very often — I mean maybe this is the first time that I’ll say that I did cast that show.

Those actors for the most part committed to doing it because I either had relationships with them or they knew my work in the theater. And they’ve all been on the record as saying that. So you know, it’s bittersweet.

I am perhaps not well suited to the rigors of network television. I think I’ve discussed this with my friend Aaron Sorkin [creator of the West Wing]. You know I think maybe the world of it is changing. I don’t know, maybe there’s something about being a real playwright and doing that, that it’s a difficult fit. But I am looking forward to doing it again.

AE: I was wondering if you’d say something about the writers’ strike. I somehow get the sense that the people at the top, the corporations, think that this may work for them in some way? [Note: This interview was conducted before the strike ended.]
JBR: Well, you know I’ve written about that endlessly. They were able to write off some very expensive deals. I mean, I don’t want to tell you how much they don’t have to pay me. …

This — like all sad wars — was a comedy of errors where everybody underestimated the rage and intractability of the other side. And I think that the [writers’] guild sort of marched into it a little bit blithely. The studios couldn’t believe it was happening. The CEOs, perhaps hip to the fact that the business is changing, didn’t want to give up what they had left of it. And the last vestiges of an old culture that believed that writers were quote “schmucks with Underwoods” [a typewriter from the ‘40’s] — which is what Jack Warner said about writers. That culture still lives on at the highest level of the studios.