Back in 1999, when My Best Friend’s Wedding star Rupert Everett was one of the few openly gay actors in Hollywood who could get work in major movies, he teased that he was planning on making “a gay James Bond style spy thriller” as one of his next projects. Of course, here we are sixteen years later, and that movie obviously never happened. No matter how much progress is made for LGBT visibility in media, in major Hollywood films, gay characters are still pretty much invisible (and before someone chimes in with “what about Brokeback Mountain?” I will remind you that was ten years ago now).
While we sadly never got our “gay Bond movie,” a new mini-series premiering on BBC Two might be the next best thing, or maybe even better. Out gay actor Ben Whishaw, no stranger to the spy genre after his turn as the new Q in Skyfall, is starring in the new five-part series London Spy, playing a young gay man who gets caught up in the world of espionage and international intrigue. Jim Broadbent and Dexter actress Charlotte Rampling also star, and the series is directed by by Jakob Verbruggen (The Fall.)
According to the official description from BBC Two:
London Spy is the story of a chance romance between two people from very different worlds, one from the headquarters of the Secret Intelligence Service, the other from a world of clubbing and youthful excess. Whishaw plays Danny – gregarious, hedonistic, romantic and adrift, who falls for the anti-social enigmatic and brilliant Alex, played by Kingsman’s Edward Holcroft. Just as the two of them realise that they’re perfect for each other, Alex is found dead. Danny, utterly ill-equipped to take on the complex and codified world of British espionage, must decide whether he’s prepared to fight for the truth.
The five-part London Spy premieres on BBC Two on November 9th. No word yet on when it will hit the airwaves in the States, but I imagine it won’t be too long before BBC America airs it. You can watch the trailer for London Spy above.
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IMAGE: BBC Two
