Being Gay is the Least Interesting Thing About Bryan Fuller

AE: Wikipedia says you’ve had a “meteoric career” in television. So I’m wondering if you should also be nominated for best Wikipedia writing?
BF: [Laughing] I don’t know who writes that stuff! But I saw that and I was like oh, my God! They have my birthday on there, and do they have my social security and my mother’s maiden name? And it was all so surreal. But I don’t know who writes that, but I love under career it was like, Fuller is openly gay, and that’s like the most interesting thing about my personal life.

AE: For the record, my research for this interview consisted of more than just Wikipedia. I read an interview you did four years ago with our sister site AfterEllen.com and another you did with ComicBookResource.com and I wasn’t surprised to see that you’d had your fair share of run ins with studio executives and that the issue frequently involved gay characters. The dad de-gayed on Dead Like Me. The lesbian kiss issue on Wonderfalls. Then there was the de-gayed character on Heroes. From where you sit, are things getting any better when it comes to gay visibility on television?
BF: Yeah, I think they are getting better. ABC is really, really supportive and embracing of gay characters on television, which is kind of funny. They’re fearless, which is great. And I think that’s one end of the spectrum, and then on the other end of the spectrum I would say is Fox, which is so conservative. Hopefully they have changed in the past three or four years, but on Wonderfalls I found it shocking and depressing and really so strange.

Fuller at this year's Comic Con

Photo credit: mjade

AE: You probably didn’t have time to watch much Olympics, but there was this Australian diver who is gay...
BF: Oh, yeah, I saw that and I thought that was so sh*tty. I’m glad they apologized, but it’s a little too little and a little too late. They should have acknowledged this man and his boyfriend and it was really unfortunate. I’m glad they got called out in the media because they deserved to be called out. But that was unfortunate.

AE: You wrote for Star Trek and are well-known as a sci fi geek. As a sci fan, have you noticed the lack of gay characters on science fiction programs and if so, do you find it frustrating?
BF: You know, it is frustrating. When I first started Star Trek, there was a script that was going around that had gay characters in it and I read it and it was sort of very cliché and I’m sure I’ll get rapped in the mouth for this from some folks, but I was relieved that they didn’t do it because I just thought it wasn’t done in a clever way. It was kind of a mincing stereotype – not mincing, but you know – there was no dimension to the character, just sort of "oh, that character is gay."

And … with Pushing Daisies and having made a couple of attempts at doing a gay character and then thinking okay, it would be great to have this gay character in the coroner because it would be a unique gay perspective. Fleshing that out in an episode kind of got put on the back burner because of other concerns and then we had an episode where we introduce Ned’s brothers and one of them is gay and we had a scene where they are talking to Olive and one of them is really obsessed with Olive and she is like, “How do you know that you’re not going to leave the room and then the other one is going to come back in and play some kind of trick on me?” And the other one says, “Well, because I’m gay.”

That was a scene that we had to cut because it didn’t have anything to do with the plot of the storyline and so I share the frustrations. But I also understand when you’re telling a story and you only have 48 pages to tell a story that … some of that stuff goes by the wayside. And I’m always like, “God damn it!” I want to make room for this, but I know that if you just put it in there to put it in there, then it’s going to be . . . like if you can’t service it, then do it when you can service it so it doesn’t feel like it is an empty gesture.

AE: Like with the coroner?
BF: I feel really bad because I want to tell that story and I feel like it is my duty and obligation as a gay man working in television to represent that voice and I feel like I was successful at doing that and it was wonderful to a certain extent with Todd Holland [on Wonderfalls], who is also gay and co-created the show with me. So it’s one of those things where I feel like I can’t sling stones as much as I would want to because I’ve been on the other side and feel the frustration. I’m frustrated with myself and I’m frustrated with other people who don’t do it, but I’m certainly living in a glass house in that regard, if that makes any sense.

AE: I’m sorry, but with what you’ve done you are not living in any glass house. The granddaddy of the “no gays in sci-fi” is, of course, Star Trek. I recently asked Star Trek writers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci if the new Trek movie would finally go where the franchise hasn’t gone in over forty years. I was told they had discussed it and “hopefully” it’ll make it into the next movie. You wrote for Star Trek. What do you think accounts for such a progressive show’s total lack of failure in this regard?
BF: Well, my goal when Pushing Daisies is done is to do a Star Trek series. I would love to go back and I’ve talked to my friends and co-workers at Heroes, some of the writers on that show and I was like, “Okay when Heroes is done and Daisies is done, we’re all going to get back together and we’re going to do a Star Trek series.”

I ran into Brain Burk who is one of the producers on the new Star Trek movie and Lost and he’s in that J.J. Abrams camp, and I was just like, “If you guys are ever venturing into television, please come see me because I have an idea for a Star Trek series.” And I really want to go back to that world. I really want to go back to the spirit of the original series, which was much more fun. I think Next Generation and Deep Space Nine and Voyager – I’ll stop there – were all really good series and, but they didn’t have that sense of fun that the original series had.

AE: You are serious? This isn’t just a pie in the sky thing?
BF: I would love to do it. Star Trek was so important to me growing up and also so pivotal and why I became a writer. When I was working at this health care trade association and writings spec scripts for Star Trek, my desk was littered with Star Trek figures. Every time I saw a Jem’Hadar, I would buy it so I could collect a Jem’Hadar army. And it’s a great universe with a lot of hope. It’s a great metaphor to explore the human condition and it’s just fun. And I think it can be fun again in the way the original series was and I was so encouraged that they were going back to the style of the original series.

I told my agent if anybody starts talking about a Star Trek series, throw my name into the hat. It’s something that I would love to do.