Looking pretty

Preview of HBO's new gay show, Looking

HBO’s gay new show, Looking, premieres Sunday, Jan 19. HBO

Have you ever sat down to watch HBO’s Girls and thought to yourself, “Hmm, this is good, but what it really needs is for everyone to be a gay dude?” Well you’re in luck! (Also, isn’t the whole point of Girls that it’s . . . about girls? Way to take a show and spin it into something entirely different, viewer.)

Looking, set to premiere on Jan 19 on HBO, is written and directed by Andrew Haigh, the man behind the feel-good movie Weekend. The preview clip isn’t exactly forthcoming — we see some dudes making out, Jonathan Groff looking pensively off into the distance, and possibly Russell Tovey peeking around there somewhere. It’s hard to tell. It’s a really short clip, but judge for yourself with the link above.

In an interview with Out, Groff talks about the steamy scenes he’s filmed, saying, “I have shot some sex scenes. The sex scenes in Weekend were beautiful and sexy — in addition to, and most importantly, feeling really authentic and real. So I hope that our sex scenes are sexy — and I think that they are — but I think even more than that what we’re trying to display is a reality of gay sex as opposed to the salaciousness of gay sex. We’re trying just to keep it real — which means humor. Some of our sex scenes are very emotional and very beautiful. Some of our sex scenes are awkward. We’re trying to get as close to reality as we possibly can. Hopefully, when people watch it, you’ll think, Oh, I’ve had that exact experience. I know what it feels like to be intimate with someone in that way.

“As far as the acting is concerned, I feel connected to it, because it’s coming from a sense of intimacy and a sense of character. Sometimes sex scenes in TV shows feel like they’re thrown in there, and I think ours are pretty character connected and character-driven.”

There’s a lot of buzz surrounding Looking, with many bloggers hailing it as the next Girls. It’s funny, because when you trace it back, Girls was the next Sex and the City (which was a harrowing biography following four drag queens), which then loosely inspired Queer as Folk two years later; it’s nice that we’ve come full circle in our television roots.

HBO’s Looking premieres Sunday, Jan 19.

Andrew was formerly the associate editor for Daily Xtra.

Read More About:
Culture, TV & Film, Toronto, Canada, Media, Arts

Keep Reading

Jimmy Heagarty

‘Big Brother 27’ star Jimmy Heagerty is making for great TV. It could be even better with more queer people

By very virtue of their sexuality, queer houseguests cannot have the same experience as their straight competitors

‘RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 10’ delivers a wildly entertaining finale—after a waste-of-time semifinals

It’s hard to figure out just what producers were thinking with this merge format
Andrea Gibson, left, and Megan Falley, the subjects of the film "Come See Me in the Good Light," pose for a portrait during the Sundance Film Festival on Saturday, Jan. 25, 2025, in Park City, Utah.

Andrea Gibson helped me see life in the good light

Gibson’s poetry about queerness and mortality taught thousands of people how to reject apathy and embrace life
Collage of greyscale photos of a sofa, chair, shelf and the lower bodies of two people, against a purple and pink background

We need queer gathering spaces more than ever

The 11-part series “Taking Space” explores where we go next as the lights of gay bars dim