Wilson Cruz, GLAAD's Director of Entertainment Industry Partnerships, sat down with Jim Halterman this week to talk about his new role as Nurse Kenji Gomez-Rejon on the upcoming Fox drama Red Band Society, balancing his jobs and advising the young cast members he is working with. Read the full piece at xfinity, Red Band Society premieres September 17 on Fox.
"JH: Safe to assume Kenji is a gay character?
WC: Yes, at my insistence. This is GLAAD at work. We need more gay characters on TV. We need more LGBT characters of color on TV. I won’t spoil the other thing that we need more on TV of because that’s coming later, but there were certain things that I thought that we had a real opportunity. There were certain stories and topics that we could cover through Kenji and Margaret loved these ideas. We’re incorporating it into his history into the show.
JH: From the pilot it looks like we’re in the hospital most of the time. Are we in the hospital all the time?
WC: No. We’re going to be doing flashbacks about how people met. We’re going to see some of their family life. We’re going to see their relationship outside of the hospital, from what I’m understanding."