Rimming, Representation, Queer Art: Russell Tovey Opens Up About Doc on Painter David Robilliard

From the riveting rimming scene in the original "Queer as Folk" to vintage Francis Bacon interviews, "Looking" star Russell Tovey has a keen appreciation for LGBTQ+ representation in art; now, as the presenter in "Life is Excellent," a new documentary about gay British painter David Robilliard, Tovey has a chance to bring some overlooked history to the public.

Robilliard, who was also a poet, rose to prominence in the London art scene in the 1980s. Like so many others, he was claimed by the AIDS epidemic, dying of the disease in 1988.

In the doc, W Magazine noted, "Tovey talks to Robilliard's surviving friends, lovers, and frenemies, visits his hangouts, and explores his work, while notables like Bimini Bon Boulash, Princess Julia, and Harry Trevaldwyn appear to recite Robilliard's poetry."

Tovey, a busy actor who has portrayed gay roles in everything from the aforementioned "Looking" to "American Horror Story" and is set to star in the second season of Ryan Murphy's "Feud" as Truman Capote's lover, spoke in a recent interview about the doc. The wide-ranging chat touched on themes of art, generational AIDS trauma, and LGBTQ+ representation, with Tovey recalling that as a gay teen he was "equally fascinated and terrified" when he perused a book about Tom of Finland's work.

"Queer art has always sort of been othered," Tovey – who co-hosts a podcast about art with Robert Diament – reckoned, before exploring the connection between cultural trauma and artistic expression.

The "Being Human" star recalled how, "when I started realizing I was gay at 15 or 16, I was terrified of HIV/AIDS."

"For me, it was like every time you went to bed with someone, death walked into the room with you. It's a generational trauma that we've all had," Tovey explained. "The art that I was looking at around that time were things like 'Angels in America' and artists like Robert Mapplethorpe and Keith Haring."

"The more that you uncover artists like that the more that little doors open and they introduce you to other artists," Tovey went on to add.

Also important to Tovey in his youth were cinematic and televised depictions of LGBTQ+ people. Tovey specifically mentioned the gay coming-of-age romantic drama "Beautiful Thing" and the original UK version of "Queer as Folk." Describing watching "Beautful Thing" on TV after bedtime, Tovey recollected how he "put it back on mute and I was like, 'That's me. That's who I am.' It made such a difference."

Perhaps not unlike that book of Tom of Finland art, the original "Queer as Folk" was simultaneously illuminating and petrifying for the then-teenaged Tovey.

"I remember the first episode, there was a rimming scene," the out actor said. "I was like, 'What the fuck is going on?' I had no idea what that was. It was terrifying, but so 'wow!'"

"The show felt like a light shining," Tovey related, before adding that his response to it was, "I'm going to look at that light. I'm going to head towards there because that seems like a safe ground and it's going to explain all the things that are going on in me."

More recently, Tovey said, he saw "Passages" – the Franz Rogowski and Ben Whishaw drama about a self-centered film director risking his marriage to another man to pursue a sexual affair with a woman, which Tovey pronounced "brilliant!" – and "Looking" creator Andrew Haigh's supernaturally tinged romance "All of Us Strangers," starring Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal, which the actor admired as "fucking powerful."

Television and film are two of the more popular art forms, but painting and poetry – both of which Robilliard practiced – are also powerful mediums of artistic expression. ("Recently, I'm watching every interview that Francis Bacon's ever given," Tovey said, referencing the famous, and openly gay, British painter who came to prominence in the 1940s.) The actor talked about how, lately. "there's been a real boom in queer artists being commercially successful, which has never really been the case before."

"These artists haven't come out of nowhere," he added, though there are "gaps" in the cultural knowledge of queer art history.

"So I've always been inspired to make sure that the gaps are filled," Tovey said. "These artists, and there are lots of them, their stories were cut short, but it doesn't have to remain that way."