How Jonathan Bailey and Matt Bomer Bonded Over a Glass of Milk

It’s a story that gives whole new meaning to the phrase, “Got milk?”

After all, all it took was a glass of the dairy beverage to forever alter the lives of Matt Bomer and Jonathan Bailey‘s characters in their new show Fellow Travelers. And much like their characters Hawk and Tim, the two actors first met IRL over a glass—though they swapped in coffee.

“It all started on Cumberland Avenue,” Jonathan began to E! News in an exclusive interview, with Matt chiming in to finish, “At Goldstruck Coffee in Toronto.”

And as the Bridgerton actor quipped back, “We struck gold, with our Cumberland.”

Indeed, it did feel like a stroke of fate for the two actors as they embarked on a journey to tell the love story of Hawk and Tim—political staffers in the Showtime limited series. The show follows the two across the decades, beginning in 1950s Washington D.C., at the height of McCarthyism and ending during the AIDS crisis of the 1980s. 

“It was literally the first time we had met in person; we had had a chemistry test on Zoom,” Jonathan recalled. “We sat down, and it felt a sort of biblical moment actually, looking back. But at the time, it was just a really nice get to know you. And of course, when you’re faced with this extraordinary task of telling these two characters’ love story, that’s so sort of complicated and nuanced, we just agreed that we’d support each other.”