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Outfest 2014: Jonathan Groff reveals during “Looking” panel that he’s not so different from TV character

It was nice to see during an Outfest panel on Saturday that the cast of HBO’s Looking seem to be thick as thieves and had a very charmed experience shooting the show’s first season in San Francisco.

Let’s hope this carries over onto season 2 even if Jonathan Groff jokes that he’s already a diva.

There are some obvious differences between the actors and the characters they play. Murray Bartlett, for example, is Australian but onscreen alter-ego is not. Frankie J. Alvarez is straight but his character of Augustin most certainly is not.

Then there is Groff who plays a gay video-game developer named Patrick.

‘The character felt close to me than anything I had ever worked on before,’ Groff said during a panel discussion about the show.

So what do he and Patrick have in common besides the fact that they are both gay?

Says Groff: ‘The struggle trying to figure out where he fits in the gay community and I have felt that myself. What does it mean to be gay? How gay am I? Does my voice sound gay?’

Groff may be a Tony Award nominee for the musical Spring Awakening and sings in Frozen – the highest grossing animated movie of all time – but that’s one are where he wants he and Patrick to not be alike.

‘I love to sing but I’m so excited that I don’t sing on the the show,’ he said. ‘I feel Patrick would be a horrendous singer.’

Groff, Bartlett, Alvarez were joined on the panel by the hilarious Lauren Weedman (she’s as funny off screen as her character of Doris is on the show) as well as director Andrew Haigh and creator Michael Lannan.

Bartlett and Weedman, who in the show are roommates and best friends, appear to enjoy the same easy chemistry in real life as they do on screen.

”The relationship between a gay man and a female best friend, it was a relationship I guess I was familiar with,’ Bartlett said.

Added Weedman: ‘It was a very comfortable environment for all of us I think – we were immediately besties.’

The show has been renewed for a second season of 10 episodes – two more than the eight produced during the first season which premiered last January.

The cast made clear that they have no idea what is in store for their characters during the San Francisco-based show’s upcoming season since they have not yet begun filming or even received scripts.

But Groff knows one thing for sure: ‘I think Patrick has a lot to learn.’

FILE UNDER: Television

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