Showtime Brings Gay Characters to it's Network

During Friday’s Television Critics Association conference in Los Angeles, Robert Greenblatt, President of Entertainment for Showtime announced the cable network was ordering two pilots to series, both with significant gay content.

The first announced was the tentatively titled thirty minute dark comedy Nurse Jackie, starring The Sopranos’ Edie Falco as an iconoclastic, opinionated, self-medicating nurse in New York City.

The show also features Haaz Sleiman playing Maurice, a gay Muslim who is one of Jackie’s co-workers and best friends. Regarding the role of Maurice, Greenblatt told AfterElton.com, “He’s a great character. He’s one of the six main characters … a fellow male nurse and is a really good friend of Edie’s character, Jackie.”

Greenblatt also announced that The United States of Tara, starring Toni Collette, had been ordered to series. Based on an idea by Steven Spielberg and written by Academy Award-winning writer Diablo Cody, the comedy features Collette as Tara, a suburban mother suffering from dissociative identity disorder (more commonly known as multiple personality disorder). Her various personalities include a rebellious teen girl, a biker, and others that impact in a variety of ways both her husband (John Corbett) as well as her children including out gay teen Marshall.

Greenblatt told AfterElton.com that Marshall will be played by fifteen-year-old Keir Gilchrist and is “an interesting character because the family is very open to [his being gay]. [He’s] just another character in the family and they are all very matter of fact about it.”