"Brothers & Sisters" won a well-deserved GLAAD Award over the weekend for outstanding drama series. How could it not? In Kevin Walker, it has one of the most complex and authentic gay characters ever to appear on prime-time network television.
The show's creator, Jon Robin Baitz, accepted the award along with Matthew Rhys who plays Kevin. They were joined on the stage at the Kodak Theatre by fellow cast members Patricia Wettig, Dave Annable, Rachel Griffiths, and Ron Rifkin, among others.
I caught up with Baitz earlier that day in West Hollywood where he appeared on a panel at the Q-MeCon Queer Media and Entertainment Conference.
During a panel discussion at the conference, Baitz admitted that 'I'm a narcisist and [Kevin] is sort of me a little bit. We were really lucky with Matthew Rhys. He's just completely comfortable and and very smart. He's not a pretty boy and I think that helps in a way. It was a role that was hard to cast. We did the pilot with someone else [Jonathan LaPaglia] who was straight and he said, 'Am I going to have to kiss boys?' He seemd riddled with terror that someone was going to jump out and kiss him. And he's a really nice guy!"
As far as the also straight Rhys' attitude about kissing boys, Baitz said: "He's got this boozy, Welsh freedom about him and loves kissing anybody. Can't get enough of it."
Baitz said the from the beginning, there was never any static from ABC about Kevin kissing boys: "Nobody said no or anything, there was never a word about any of it."
Then here is something very intriguing. Baitz said that Kevin is "not the only gay person in the family."
THAT got me real curious so I cornered Baitz after the panel.
What did you mean? Please elaborate? Are you talking about Sen. MacAllister's [Rob Lowe] gay brother?
Baitz: "There are other things to look forward to in addition to Rob Lowe's brother. I think by the season finale, you'll understand that, where it's going."
Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.
"I looked at myself and all the mistakes I made and the fight for wanting and craving intimacy and at times not being able to cope with it, pushing away the person you love and being on the other side of that and wanting to explore it - and also a certain element of gay homophobia that exists in the culture and within Kevin. I think it's great to have a character who has a lot to learn. That's somebody that audiences are interested in watching. Learning is so fundamental to human experience."
So I remark that it wouldn't have been very interesting then to have had Kevin and Scotty live happily ever after from the start.
Baitz. "No. But, you haven't seen the last of Scotty."
Is Baitz surprised at the loyal (and perhaps rabid on the part of people like me) following "Brothers & Sisters" has?
Baitz: "No, I'm not surprised. I knew that there would be. I knw that they would relate to these people because they love each other so much and they're so commited to this idea of a family and people are really hungry for that."
I ask him how bringing Lowe onto the show mid-season came about: "I wanted to broaden it romantically a little bit and Rob and I were friends and I knew that he would be a great addition to it - and so did he, from the beginning."
And what about the casting of Sally Field, who replaced Betty Buckley as Nora Walker after the pilot was shot with Buckley and LaPaglia.
Baitz: "We had a little Sally Field fan club and I'm really interested in having older characters be interesting and important and not have a show that's entirely reflective of a youth culture. She's fantastic. I love her."

"Brothers & Sisters" airs at 10 p.m. on Sunday nights on ABC...