Diversity Rules Magazine

5 Diversity Rules Magazine February 2019 posted on YouTube to help get everyone up to speed before we drop the new season on Valentine's Day. JRK: Are you planning subsequent seasons of the show? JT: Planning? No. Do I have ideas? Yes. It all de- pends on the reception. To date, History has been my most widely watched production, with over 250,000 views for the season two finale on YouTube. But it's not all about views, the festival accolades (over 50 se- lections and awards), the flow of fan letters and com- ments about how much the show moved them, the new channel subscriptions (over 1,000 new subscribers in a single month)--they all drove season 3 into existence. Based on the overwhelming love of season one, I made season two. Based on the huge growth after season two, I made sea- son three. So let's see if season three begets a season four. JRK: Without giving away any details, what surprises are in store for Season 3 that you can titillate curiosity a bit? JT: Well again we take the basic structure of the show and go in a completely new direction. Now all the main characters have boyfriends...to start. e flash- backs go WAY back to the 1980s and 1990s to explore Jamie's youth and relationship with his family as the formative experiences that are surfacing in the pres- ent day storyline. at storyline includes a big fam- ily fight, opening a relationship, moving in together, a friend in a bad relationship, betrayal, a weekend get- away, a college town trip, a cat funeral and more! We really went big. Also, History fans get a TON of fun new characters and some old friends pop in and out to say hello. JRK: Tell us about the characters, and are they based on real-life persons/experience? Jamie Ford, especially in season one, is based off of myself. He's a 30-something gay lawyer in NYC. He struggles with compartmentalization of his "real" life, his "sex" life and his "relationship" life. He is always poised to "jump to 11" in defense of his friends and doesn't tolerate any bullshit. He's fiercely loyal, but probably a bit too quick to step into other peoples' business. His best friend, Will Rosen (Will Cohen) is the heart of the show, a sweet Jewish guy in finance who is your "down for whatever" companion. He hasn't been out as long as the others so he sometimes struggles with internalized homophobia, but he's loyal to a fault and desperate to find love. Matthew (Jacob Seidman) is the oddball. He is in love with his cat (Food), en- joys saying the word "tilapia" whenever he can, and is happiest if he confuses the fuck out of whoever he is talking to. Will remains perplexed by Matthew's existence but Jamie finds him hilarious. But mo- reso, Matthew is deeply insightful and uniquely blunt and serves as Ja- mie's therapist. As for the rest of the return- ing characters, Bianca (Samanthia Nixon) is Jamie's best girlfriend from years ago, Ted (Trent Stone) is the older wise gay who is dating local drag queen Darien (Erik Schneider). New characters include Ja- mie's boyfriend, a horny Brit, Mark (James Evans), Will's boyfriend, lifestyle gay Kevin (Matthew Kuya- wa), Matthew's boyfriend, socially inept Elliot (Corry J. Ethridge), gym hunk Brandon (Haulston Mann), Jamie's therapist (Claire Kennedy), Jamie's past nem- esis Warren (JJ Bozeman), new nemesis Ray (Alexan- der Spears), Jamie's mother Molly (Kathy Biehl), sister Julie (Jillian Sawyer), father James (Peter Walsh) and brother Mack (Nicholas J. Pollina). And as for the flashbacks, we've got Young Jamie (Aaron Drill) and Young Molly (Alexandra Rey), plus many many more and a few surprises. It's a huge cast of extremely tal- ented New York actors. JRK: You utilize flashback scenes a lot in "History." Can you tell us what the purpose is and how they tie into the storyline? is season the flashbacks are meant to tell us what "love" is for Jamie. In exploring Jamie's past, History - Con't on page 6

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