Catching Up With Kit Williamson Of Mad Men And EastSiders
If you’re a fan of AMC’s Mad Men, you should already be familiar with Ed Gifford. Ed, played by Kit Williamson, is the shy, bespeckled copywriter, whose awkward attempts to please Peggy reminded me, at least, of my relationship with my mother. (Anyone else? No? Okay.)
Kit has already achieved remarkable success for someone his age. In addition to portraying Ed on Mad Men, he’s also appeared on Broadway with Liev Schreiber, and starred in a variety of independent films. What makes Williamson particularly interesting is that, in addition to his mainstream success, he’s also a pioneer for LGBT content. Last year he wrote, directed, and produced the award-winning web series, EastSiders. Originally launched on YouTube, EastSiders was later purchased by Logo, and aired on their website.
This year Williamson has raised over a $150,000 through a successful Kickstarter campaign for a second season. Paste caught up with Kit to talk EastSiders, Mad Men and the role new media can play in broadening the depiction of LGBT characters.
Paste Magazine: What was the inspiration for EastSiders?
Kit Williamson: I really wanted to tell a story about gay characters with flaws. I wanted to tell a story about people in my neighborhood, people I could relate to. I wound up living in West Hollywood for a year before moving to Silver Lake. I’ve been here for a couple of years now, so it’s definitely my LA home, I guess.
Paste: How would you say your experience living in West Hollywood compares to your time now in Silver Lake?
Williamson: There was just a disconnect for me. It just never really felt like home. It was really nice and really convenient, and a lot of my friends live in West Hollywood, but it never really felt like my neighborhood.
Paste: But Silver Lake feels more like home?
Williamson: Oh, for sure! I feel like I could stay in Los Angeles when I moved to Silver Lake. It very much reminds me of New York. But with all of the things—the advantages of living in LA too, you know? Being able to go to Target and load up your car. But you can still walk to the Farmer’s Market, and walk to breakfast and walk to your friend’s house. So, after living all over LA, I don’t take that stuff for granted.
Paste: One attribute of EastSiders that I think is interesting is the depiction of sexuality. In more mainstream media, gay characters are frequently depicted as being really promiscuous.
Williamson: Which is interesting because—certainly the characters at the center of the EastSiders could be accused of being promiscuous. But you’re right. Before the events of the show, Cal [the protagonist] had only ever had sex with his partner of four years.
There’s a lot of diversity of gay men’s sexual histories. A lot of us still grew up in the shadow of the AIDS crisis. When I had my first kiss at sixteen, I convinced myself that I was at risk for HIV, from a kiss. I was a huge prude all through high school and most of college. I was afraid of intimacy. I was told as a kid that being with another man was dangerous and risky and scary. So, I waited. I wanted to represent that a little bit with Cal, as well.
Paste: And then once things start collapsing with Cal and Thom, they do become a little bit more promiscuous.
Williamson: But it comes from a place of hurt and need; holes in their relationship, and a disconnect between the two of them.
Paste: Right, absolutely. What inspired you to make this a web series as opposed to an independent feature?
Williamson: I think that there’s a really cool, wild west sort of mentality to making web content right now. You’re allowed to make your own rules and distribute your content how you see fit, and tell your story in the way that best suits it. So, some of our episodes are ten minutes. Some of our episodes are twenty minutes. They aren’t restricted to the exact same format every single episode. And that was really liberating for me—to be able to set the structure and to let the show dictate the structure.
I definitely knew I wanted to create a fully-realized character arc. I wanted to see Cal and Thom and their relationship evolve, and change over a course of a season. Allowing myself to have that goal informed the show and the structure. It’s been such a privilege as a writer and a filmmaker to be able to get to do something like that—to be able to block out these nine days in these character’s lives as opposed to making something so self-contained or a smaller story. A lot of shit goes down over the course of the first season. You’ve got a terminated pregnancy, you’ve got infidelity, you’ve got a relationship that goes through several different iterations of what a devolving relationship looks like.