HBO’s Looking is groundbreaking for its frank, realistic and nuanced portrayal of the lives and loves of gay men living in San Francisco. Stars and producers from the show gave fans insight into what it’s like to be a part of it on Wednesday, at a special screening and onstage conversation gathered at the Paley Center for Media in Beverly Hills.

Not surprisingly, the show often touches on hot-button gay topics such as HIV, monogamy and PrEP (Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis), though executive producer (and frequent episode director) Andrew Haigh made it clear the people in the show come before the discussion points. “There are all kinds of things we want to talk about, but it always has to come from a character basis,” he told the event’s moderator, Jim Halterman, West Coast editor of TV Fanatic. “We don’t want it to be an issue-led show… it’s a character-based show.”

Six of the actors playing those characters were in attendance, including the show’s three stars Jonathan Groff (Patrick), Frankie J. Alvarez (Agustin) and Murray Bartlett (Dom). Lauren Weedman, who plays Dom’s best friend Doris, was also present, as was Raúl Castillo, the portrayer of Patrick’s on-again, off-again lover Richie. Rounding out the bill were Daniel Franzese, who plays Agustin’s Season 2 HIV-positive boyfriend Eddie, and Looking’s creator, Michael Lannan.

The discussion featured much back and forth about characters arcs and relationships, with the actors frequently crediting their writers for giving them strong material and the writer-director unit of Lannan and Haigh frequently crediting the actors for making their jobs easier. This is typical at cast-and-crew panels – what made the Paley Center’s Looking panel unique was how much credit all parties also gave to Looking’s costume director, Danny Glicker, for his role in shaping the show.

All the actors agreed that not only does costume designer Danny Glicker’s meticulous layering of details (which includes buying their clothes from local San Francisco vendors and designers) enhance the look and flavor of the show, but has actually helped define their characters. Alvarez’ character, Agustin, for instance has a tattoo that in Season 2, following his breakup with the character of Frank, appears on his body with a line on it. Alvarez said that Glicker helped him determine that the tattoo was gotten while Augustin was with Frank, at a time when he believed they would be together forever. When his relationship with Frank ended, Agustin tattooed a line through the tattoo to symbolize moving on.

“It’s just another detail that brings you into character,” said Alvarez. “Sometimes something that small triggers something. There’s a personal connection there and it’s a testament to the specificity Danny brings that it produces something universal we all can relate to whether gay or straight.

“The show would be very different without Danny’s guidance,” Alvarez concluded.

What the characters wear is an extension of a deeper element of the show’s brand: where they reside. “One of our goals was to make a show that could only be in San Francisco,” said Lannan, and indeed that famously gay city is as vital a character in the series as any of the people. And yet, for all the beautifully captured San Francisco moments, Haigh confessed that the look and feel of the show developed “from the pilot” and that “I don’t think about it too much… The way I direct, I don’t like rehearsing to much anyway. We just go for it and roll the cameras. It’s just the way I like to shoot things. For me it’s just about trying to create something that feels tender and authentic and real.”

It’s a formula that has paid off. Looking’s ratings, while not huge, have steadily grown since its 2014 debut to encompass about 2 million viewers a week. Haigh said that number could skew even higher because Looking is a show that “people like to watch in groups, so there are often actually 6 to 10 people in the room with the television.”

Plus, added Lannan, “People tell me all the time that a half-hour of the show each week isn’t enough, so they’ll wait to build up episodes and watch them together to get as much show as they want.”

“HBO always realized this wouldn’t be a ratings blockbuster and have been supportive of that,” said Haigh. “They don’t base all their decisions on ratings.”

Though ratings are certainly a part of the puzzle, it’s obviously also important to HBO to have programming that registers on the scale of cultural relevance. There are enormous swaths of America that will never watch Looking, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a show urgently of its time, and one that in its own way is further shattering the walls around what is possible to do on television.

“The fact that we are the gay show on TV right now and there are elements to this story that are really groundbreaking and important to people,” said Franzese. “That weighs a lot on HBO’s programming choices as well.”

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