The l word reunion

Love. Lust. Laughter. Longing. Lesbians.

They were all elements (some much more prominent than others) that made up Showtime’s hit series The L Word. Created by Ilene Chaiken, Kathy Greenberg, and Michele Abbott, the show, which ran from 2004 to 2009, focused on L.A. power lesbians Bette (Jennifer Beals) and Tina (Laurel Holloman) and their supertight, occasionally incestuous friend group including Bette’s sister Kit (Pam Grier), Alice (Leisha Hailey), Shane (Katherine Moennig), Dana (Erin Daniels), Carmen (Sarah Shahi), and Max (Daniela Sea). “I just had this urge to write my story, to tell the gay story. It just hadn’t really been done,” explains Chaiken. Her idea was initially turned down by Showtime but received a warmer reception after the network’s male-focused LGBTQ series Queer as Folk took off. Recalls Chaiken, “I said, ‘Well, what about now? You know, you’re doing a show about gay boys — why do the boys always get to go first?’”

The L Word quickly established itself with bold story lines, including television’s first regular transgender character, Max. “It meant a lot to a lot of people, not just gay women,” says Chaiken. “I meet people still who say, ‘The L Word helped me to come out.’ I’m also learning that there’s a whole new generation of women that are discovering the show. My daughters are 21. They have friends who say that The L Word means so much to them. I like to think the legacy of the show is about representation and making us and our stories a part of the culture.” Beals even released a photo book of personal behind-the-scenes photos that fans can purchase at lwordbook.com.

EW reunited Chaiken with several cast members for an emotional, hilarious, exhilarating chat about karaoke parties, sex tapes, and the potential for a reboot.

What made you all want to be on The L Word?

Jennifer Beals (Bette): I wanted to be part of a show that could help bring representation to a young girl in the middle of Kansas who didn’t have a community, and I said to Ilene, “We’re going to help as many people as we can; it’s going to be amazing.” She was like, “Let’s just try to get it on the air—calm down. We’re not going to save the world right now. Let’s just tell some good stories.”

Leisha Hailey (Alice): Well, I needed a job. I found a way to get an audition and ended up testing for Shane, and that’s how I met Kate.

Katherine Moennig (Shane): I read for it in New York and they said, “One other girl is testing for Shane, and they’re also gonna be testing Jennys on the same day.” So I walked into the lobby of Showtime. Leisha had a prop, I saw her flaunt it out her back pocket. It was a comb. And I’m sitting there thinking, I flew all the way from New York, and I’m not gonna get this job because I didn’t bring a f—ing comb.

Hailey: I really thought I had the part because of my prop.

Erin Daniels (Dana): First I read for Bette, then I read for Alice. And then I read for Dana and I didn’t get it.

Moennig: What?

Daniels: They weren’t sure which way to go, and then Beth Klein, who was the head of casting, called me and was like, “Please come back in.”

Beals: And bring a comb. I’m kidding.

What do you all remember about shooting the pilot?

Ilene Chaiken: I remember the first scene we shot in the Planet and just how immediately improvisational the show was and how brilliant all of these women were. I remember shooting the scene in the Planet when Jenny walks by for the first time and Alice and Dana are arguing about getting waxed, like, Who gets their butt waxed?

Beals: I had Jesus hair.

Moennig: In the pilot, we had to shoot a party scene at Bette and Tina’s. It took days and days to shoot, and it was hot, smelly, and long. Then we get picked up for series and we have to reshoot the entire scene. [Jenny’s] boyfriend got recast.

Mia Kirshner (Jenny): Leisha and I lived together [while filming] the first season. We have so many stories. We had a house fire.

Hailey: My dog saved us. Kate moved in with us.

Kirshner: I had sex in Leisha’s shower.

Hailey: I came home from a run and I was like, “Hey—oh.” Then I turned back around.

Kirshner: Didn’t you say you heard—

Hailey: Your boyfriend ask for a washcloth.

Kirshner: Oh, God. I didn’t remember that.

Daniels: We all went to sing karaoke together once.

Sarah Shahi (Carmen): What did you sing?

Beals: Oh, I had to do “What a Feeling.” They poured water on me with a Perrier bottle. [Beals starred in the iconic 1983 film Flashdance.]

Daniels: Then the three of us got up and sang “Maniac.” We clearly got over our intimidation factor at that point.

The L Word never shied away from nudity or sex. Were you all nervous in the beginning?

Kirshner: These girls said that my breasts were the ninth character.

Beals: Well, the ninth and the 10th.

Shahi: I will say this, in all seriousness: Doing love scenes with guys and girls, I much prefer doing them with girls because I feel like, as women, we naturally protected each other.

Beals: Do you guys remember that Rose [Troche, a co-executive producer on the show] made us a video?

Kirshner: Of lesbians having sex.

Beals: We had to watch a sex video because we had to do all these sex scenes. So we could watch the video and see what worked and didn’t work and analyze why it didn’t work. It didn’t work if people weren’t fully committed to it.

Shahi: I could have used that viewing. My first day I got introduced to Kate, and it’s like: “Kate, this is Sarah. Sarah, this is Kate. And so in this scene, Kate is going to be going down on you.” And it’s just like, Whoa!

The series became a hit quickly and has become an incredibly important show to the LGBTQ community. What were fan responses like?

Chaiken: It was so much fun and so thrilling when the show was on the air. To go to pretty much any city in the country and every Sunday night there was an L Word party in some bar. There was just a lot of love and excitement and celebration. Representation is so important, and we had never been represented. Of course, there were also a lot of people screaming about how “That’s not me! You didn’t get me! Where am I? Where is this story? Where is that story?” The burden of representation for every single lesbian experience got projected onto us.

Beals: I have to say, I received the most beautiful letters I’ve ever received on any show. Extraordinary letters where people would say, “This show gave me the courage to come out, and it’s been a great experience, and my family is accepting me and I’ve been accepted at work.”

Daniels: There were younger people that would have their parents watch so their parents could understand [them]. It’s one thing to be recognized for being on TV, right? But it’s another thing to be recognized for being on television for portraying something that means so much to so many people.

Daniela Sea (Max): It also changes policy. I mean, we see a huge revolution of what’s going on with queer rights and gay marriage, and all that stuff has happened since [The L Word aired], and I’m sure part of it’s normalized. I had a kid come up to me just two months ago from a very small town in Brazil, and somehow he got ahold of a copy of The L Word and he saw the character Max and he realized the whole context for his life. And now he’s in the States, living a trans life. He’s an actor, he’s pursuing theater, all this stuff.

One of the most wrenching story lines was in season 3 when Erin’s character, Dana, developed breast cancer and died. When did you learn this would happen?

Daniels: We would all meet with Ilene before each season started and she would take us to lunch. So she took me to lunch, and we were talking and she was like, “So your character gets breast cancer. And then she dies.” And I’m like, “What?!”

Beals: We were all devastated.

Moennig: That was dreadful.

Hailey: It was horrible. We cried a lot. Just knowing that day was coming was horrible.

Chaiken: I’ve often said in retrospect that it’s the one thing that I regret. I mean, it was a good story. I believe in the story. I think we told it with great sensitivity and verisimilitude, but the audience never forgave me for it. It’s just the one thing that I maybe would change if I could go back and change anything.

In the final-season premiere, we find out that Jenny will be dead by the end of the season. Mia, did you know this was going to happen?

Kirshner: I had no idea until the table read. I had such complicated feelings about Jenny. I was really surprised, I just started to cry. I was really, deeply upset, because she had become a part of me, even though she drove me crazy, that character, and she was so wrong most of the time and so rude.

Beals: So entertaining, though! I loooove Jenny.

Moennig: She’s America’s sweetheart! [Everyone laughs.]

Kirshner: But I was very, very upset because I had seven years of that character with these people who had become like my family.

Moennig: I just want to pretend that [season] 6 didn’t happen, and just cap it at five. The show wasn’t about that, so let’s cap that and end it at five, because the show wasn’t about a death. That wasn’t what this whole show was about.

Chaiken: I’m not sure that it was the best choice. I loved the stories we told, but to do a murder mystery maybe was off-topic for us. But it was a metaphor. Jenny brought us into this world. Jenny is going to take us out of this world. It never so much mattered to me, and I realized it matters to the fans. When you tell a story, you owe it to the fans, but to me, it was just a way to talk about this journey that we’ve all been on together and where we are now.

So many shows are being rebooted. Could The L Word return?

Chaiken: There’s certainly a chance. We talk about it all the time. When we went off the air in 2009, I think a lot of people thought, Okay, the baton is passed now, and there will be lots of shows that portray lesbian life. There’s really nothing. It feels like maybe it should come back.

Moennig: And wouldn’t it be interesting to see where we all wound up?

Beals: Bette has a walker, obviously.

Moennig: Shane’s on Metamucil.

Hailey: Our country is so polarized right now and the political landscape is such a mess. We need shows that are about community and acceptance.

Kirshner: And the power of friendships.

It’s been over ten years since The L Word debuted and changed all of our lives forever and was sometimes good and often bad and also introduced us to an ensemble of actresses who we will love forever, no matter what. I feel, still, vaguely abreast of the careers of every woman involved in that program. I’m not ashamed of it. It’s just who I am now.

Speaking of me and also you… you have a choice in life, right now: you can be sad or you can just let go of everything, just really settle in to a time in your life when you cared deeply about this program. Just forget about every bad event that’s happened since 2009 and focus on only the good events, and then go backwards and think real hard about when Shane and Alice ate pot brownies and everybody danced to Michael Jackson on the table, even Tina! Tina experienced actual joy, which was very rare for Tina.

Are you there? Are you in an “even Tina!” place?

Well, then go right to People Entertainment Live right now to witness Sarah Shahi, Mia Kirshner, Leisha Hailey, Erin Daniels, Daniela Sea, Kate Moennig and Jennifer Beals discuss love, friendship and laughter. There’s nothing new or major in this interview, but there are lots of clips, and Leisha is wearing a cute dress with Chuck Taylors and Mia Kirshner is dressed like Jenny and Ilene Chaiken’s hair is a wonder to behold, and the host kinda pronounces her name like “Shakin’.” Also, new photos!

L Word

L Word

L Word

L Word

Riese

Riese is the 40-year-old Co-Founder and CEO of Autostraddle.com as well as an award-winning writer, video-maker, LGBTQ+ Marketing consultant and aspiring cyber-performance artist who grew up in Michigan, lost her mind in New York and now lives in California. Her work has appeared in nine books including «The Bigger the Better The Tighter The Sweater: 21 Funny Women on Beauty, Body Image & Other Hazards Of Being Female,» magazines including Marie Claire and Curve, and all over the web including Nylon, Queerty, Nerve, Bitch, Emily Books and Jezebel. She had a very popular personal blog once upon a time, and then she recapped The L Word, and then she had the idea to make this place, and now here we all are! In 2016, she was nominated for a GLAAD Award for Outstanding Digital Journalism. Follow her on twitter and instagram.

Riese has written 3022 articles for us.

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[This story contains spoilers from the Jan. 12 episode of Showtime’s The L Word: Generation Q.]

Bette and Tina are back together again. Well, sorta.

Sunday’s episode of Showtime’s The L Word: Generation Q staged a reunion that was a decade in the making as Jennifer Beals and Laurel Holloman reunited onscreen, with the latter making a surprise guest appearance to reprise her role as Bette’s ex-wife, Tina Kennard. 

“It felt very surreal,” says Holloman, who retired from acting and has been thriving as a painter for much of the decade since the original series wrapped.

It has been more than a decade since audiences saw the fan favorite, on-again, off-again original L Word couple together. Bette and Tina’s often turbulent relationship ended with the couple in a good place as they were last seen raising their daughter, Angie, together, and heading for New York to legally tie the knot. However, Generation Q revealed that Bette and Tina had recently divorced and were co-parenting Angie. The freshman Showtime drama from original series creator Ilene Chaiken and showrunner Marja-Lewis Ryan revealed shortly afterward that Tina surprisingly left Bette and fell in love with someone else. “That was one thing we really had to work on to do very quickly — to fill in all the gaps,” Beals told The Hollywood Reporter in a joint interview with Holloman ahead of Sunday’s episode.

The divorce was a result of Holloman’s schedule. She was in Paris when Generation Q began production, and the former actress and Beals — who remain fiercely protective of the iconic couple — worked with Ryan and Chaiken to come up with the storyline. “It was a gift because I do co-parent,” Holloman tells THR.

Although Tina’s presence looms in Generation Q — Bette has been shown having calls with her ex — Sunday’s episode was the first time Holloman appeared onscreen during the new show. “I am constantly imagining her,” Beals says of scenes in which Tina has been involved but never seen or heard. “She’s in my DNA.”

Tina’s return came as Bette found herself in hot water, having pushed the husband of a woman with whom she had an affair down the stairs in a bid to protect Angie (Jordan Hull). Bette, who is running for mayor of Los Angeles, finds herself swarmed by the press and begins to consider dropping out of the race. Tina, as she has always done for Bette since the beginning of The L Word, arrives at her door to talk some sense into her ex. “It was a great time for me to land on the porch,” Holloman says with a laugh. Adds Beals: “Everybody was just a mess because it was so emotional to have Tina back. It was like, OK, we are finally family now.”

In an exclusive joint interview with THR, Beals and Holloman dig into what it was like to reunite on set, if Tina will play a bigger role in the future of the series and the complexities of casting queer stars to play queer roles.

What was it like filming this episode? 

Holloman: I have another career and it’s been eight or nine years since I have even acted at all. I felt like if I was going to go back and act again, Jennifer is the best safety net in the world. It felt very surreal. It was like getting back on the bike again and then knowing that you’ve got this partner with you that is going to catch you if you fall. There is something about the character that is so in both of our DNA that there is always some truthful moment going on.

Beals: It was this odd feeling as if no time had passed and as if we were dreaming.

Holloman: It felt very surreal. 

Beals: It’s wonderful to have a scene partner where you can just look across at them and nothing has to be spoken, but you’ve lived this history together. Even though it’s an imaginary history, it’s a history that feels real. Having Laurel back as a scene partner was truly a dream. We went through so many different things [with the original series] that were so intense, so joyful and so painful. So, to just be in the same scene with another person with whom you’ve lived through so much was just a joy as an actor.

Holloman: It’s rare to have that many years with someone and explore so many dynamics of a marriage and a breakup and children and family. It’s pretty loaded.

Beals: That was one thing we really had to work on to do very quickly — to fill in all the gaps — because when we left off everything was happy and wonderful; going off to New York to be married and then we come back it’s like, OK now we are divorced and co-parenting. 

How much of a role, if any, did you both have in deciding Bette and Tina would be divorced?

Beals: Laurel has a very vibrant, powerful career as a painter. So, it’s not as if she could come back in every episode; she has things that are meaningful that she is working on. It was clear early on because of Laurel’s schedule. To presume that somebody could even be a regular with that schedule is not possible. Then it became about figuring out what the story was if the person can come in for a limited amount of time. Talking to Ilene and Marja, the storyline of co-parenting and complexities of co-parenting after divorce is interesting, so we dove in with that.

Holloman: It was a gift because I do co-parent. I have been divorced from my partner since my children were 2 and 5. And I have a 15-year-old daughter, who was in my belly during the second season of the original show. It was a little complex in that Tina is the one away and she’s going for her career, which we haven’t quite seen. I was struggling with a certain sort of abandonment, but I thought, ‘Well, what’s the difference between a child going to boarding school at 14?’ So I felt like she went at a time where it didn’t look to her so much as abandonment, but it also makes a huge statement on how much she trusts Bette as a co-parent and I thought that was an interesting dynamic.

What was it like on set when you both reunited? 

Beals: It felt giddy because all of us were together. Kate [Moennig, who reprises her role as Shane McCutcheon] and Leisha [Hailey, Alice Pieszecki], were there. Even though Leisha exits the scene before Tina arrives, we were all there together so it was just really fun catching up.

Holloman: It felt surreal and deja-vu-y. At one point, Alice walked out and I felt like we had just done a scene like that like it were yesterday.

Beals: The table read for this episode was like no table read I have ever been at. People could not stop crying. There is the scene with Angie and Tina, and Leisha and I were sitting next to each other and we were crying so hard. I ran out of Kleenex and had to use her hoodie. Everybody was just a mess because it was so emotional to have Tina back. It was like, OK, we are finally family now. The family is together now.

Holloman: I couldn’t look over at them because I could see them crying out of the corner of my right eye. I was trying to stay focused on Jordan. I thought I was going to start crying, too. 

What do you hope fans old and new take away from Bette and Tina’s reunion?

Beals: I hope that it’s this delicious reunion, and that they understand that these two people still love each other very much and there are all kinds of complex things that have happened, but that there is a love there and there is a respect there and that they hold on for the ride.

The ending of the episode is very ambiguous. Will viewers see more of Tina?

Beals: There must be more Tina! It’s too important of a storyline. I, as a producer, will take as much of Laurel’s free time as I possibly can to be able to tell that story, because it’s crucial.

Holloman: It is. It’s an interesting story. I’m a bit of a hopeless romantic, so I hope they find a way to be together. But everything has to be earned. We have to find out a little bit more about who Tina is and what she’s been doing and what’s going on. 

Would there be a chance for Tina, Bette, Alice and Shane to all reunite in a scene?

Beals: It’s tricky to get everybody together, the way the show is set up right now, but we do our best to make those things happen. There are a lot of things happening to make sure that all the storylines are honored — and we don’t have the set up of The Planet anymore. And, by virtue of it being Los Angeles, where everybody has to drive to get to everybody else’s house, it’s a bit more challenging. It’s not like people pop in on each other in L.A.

Looking back, how do you feel about Bette and Tina’s relationship during the show’s original run? 

Holloman: It’s tricky because if you look at season five, there was this growth in Tina where she started to find herself. Ilene and I talked about what a late developer she was. In relationships, everybody is learning lessons all the time, and maybe it was a pattern where she got lost again. I also think that when you have a child and you are immersed in raising that child at different times, different parents can get burned out. There must have been something there where she felt confident enough that she had put in so much time and then it kept coming up for her that there was something missing for her. Being divorced for two years is not long. You’re still raw; you’re still a little lost. So I think in order to play Tina where she was now, I had to grab onto her feeling that she found something that she really needed and it was validating — between the job and the new partner. But it could still be part of her trying to find herself after a divorce. 

Beals: From Bette’s point of view, to have the divorce and then have Kitt’s death follow shortly after, it’s a one-two punch that she’s really trying to get through, which makes the co-parenting even more challenging in some ways. 

Why do you think it is important to show a LGBTQ couple going through divorce to audiences?

Holloman: There was a storyline a little bit before that we were really fighting. And Jen and I were like, “We wouldn’t be doing this.” It’s good to have a reflection that’s positive co-parenting. The most important thing when you are co-parenting is the security and safety of your child.

Beals: What then becomes interesting is that it can look different from different points of view. So both parents think they are doing that, but invariably there will be a conflict and that conflict is interesting and is important, as a viewer, to be able to watch that conflict and see how it may reflect your own or how you may decide you want to do things differently.  

Given the industry’s push for authenticity when it comes to casting with gay actors playing gay roles, what would the original series have looked like if it were made for the first time today?  

Beals: It’s tricky in the casting process because somebody comes in the room, and unless they are completely out, you can’t ask them if they’re gay. You would have to have somebody come in and declare who they were, and you don’t know where somebody is on their journey.

Holloman: I think it takes away from the process of being an actor.

Beals: You want people to have representation and you want them to be able to fully tell their own stories. Like Kate, for example. When we were doing the original L Word, she wasn’t out and it would have been inappropriate for anyone in the casting room to ask. Because it’s not up to them to force her on her journey, on their calendar. That’s her journey that she needs to take. I hope decades down the line that it won’t matter, that everybody can play everybody. But I do think that it’s important to have representation. It’s trying to figure out how you do that in the casting room; I am not sure how you do it and it’s something we struggled with for sure.  

What do you think of the current TV landscape and the strides that have been made with LGBTQ stories? Which shows do you think are doing it right and what hurdles do you think are left?

Holloman: I just finished watching The Affair and the son [Trevor Solloway, played by Jadon Sand] is out and gay and his boyfriend comes to the house and sleeps over. There’s just like an openness, and I want to see more of that. I want children to see that there are so many different ways that you can be and be open and be out and it’s not a negative storyline, it’s a positive storyline. Not the bullying storyline. Just moving through your dreams, your desires, your relationships. That was just the first show that came to mind, but there are more. The thing that I wasn’t seeing, and I think Jennifer would agree, is stories about lesbian women. I didn’t feel like there was another L Word, I didn’t see anything like that.

Beals: It’s important to have all kinds of representations of what love looks like. It’s important for every generation to know that they can express their love in many ways and that it’s not punitive.  

What kind of impact do you hope the revival will have on the LGBTQ community and today’s generation?

Beals: We’re in a different time. I want people to be able to see themselves reflected, whether it is imperfectly or perfectly; that there is some sort of mirror there. My hope is that, if given a second season, we get to go further with those stories.

Holloman: In the episode, I think there’s a chance to also show characters and how they are parenting with their daughter and their daughter’s first love. Going back to what Jennifer said about everybody seeing representation of themselves, from parent to child. This is a part of the story I am very interested in. 

The L Word: Generation Q airs Sundays on Showtime at 10 p.m. ET/PT.

Interview edited for length and clarity.