Political Animals, which stars
Sigourney Weaver, features the first gay child to have grown up in
the White House.
The six episode miniseries premiered
last Sunday on cabler USA Network.
Political Animals comes from the
minds of creators Greg Berlanti and Laurence Mark.
In the show, Weaver portrays Elaine
Barrish, a former First Lady and governor of Illinois. After losing
the Democratic nomination for president and divorcing her
philandering husband, Elaine becomes the Secretary of State.
Douglas (played by James Wolk) and
Thomas (T.J.) Hammond (Sebastian Stan) are Elaine's twin sons.
Douglas is also Elaine's chief of staff and T.J. has the recognition
of being the first openly gay child to have grown up in the White
House.
Creator Berlanti (Brothers &
Sisters) said that he wanted to explore how growing up in
politics affects a family.
“I wanted to show how being in the
White House has affected this family,” he
said. “T.J. and Douglas are twins, they both grew up in the
White House, but I wanted to explore how their upbringing shaped them
in such different ways. Douglas goes on to work for his mother,
while T.J., who was forced out of the closet at a young age, has had
a much more difficult time dealing with his family's way of life.
And, yes, T.J. struggles with drug addition, something I think a lot
of people in the public eye, as well as young gay people, can relate
to. But, really, all of our characters have one kind of addiction or
another--whether it be power, sex, alcohol – they just take on
different forms. As for T.J.'s battle with drugs, we're at the
beginning of his story. And my hope for him is his character grows,
as I hope each of our characters do.”
In an upcoming episode, Vanessa
Redgrave guest stars as a lesbian Supreme Court justice. (A trailer
for the series is embedded in the right panel of this page. Visit
our video library for more videos.)