“Darling, it’s Palm Springs! This place is so gay even the trees are named Joshua.” So Nathan Lane cracks in the pilot of Mid-Century Modern, a new Hulu series from Will Grace creators Max Mutchnick and David Kohan about a trio of gay gentlemen of a certain age who move in together in Southern California’s mecca of modernism. The result is laugh-out-loud funny—and fans of Lane’s storied career in theater and film will be thrilled to see him returning to the sitcom roots he established with roles on The Nanny and Modern Family.
Vogue spoke to Lane about working with executive producer Ryan Murphy, leading with gratitude, his red-carpet uniform, and his thoughts on the fate of his iconic Sex and the City character, Bobby Fine.
Vogue: What initially drew you to the character of Bunny Schneiderman?
Nathan Lane: Two words: Ryan Murphy. I was doing the miniseries Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, and he called me and said he had dinner with Max Mutchnick and talked about this show. He read the script and thought it was hilarious, and they had written this character with me in mind, and he wanted to send it to me to read. The elevator pitch for this show was the gay Golden Girls, and in spite of that, I read it, and it was as hilarious as he had described. Do you hear that? That noise?
I don’t!
Oh, it’s gone now. I’m sure the Trump administration was listening in.
They have to.
Anyway, I thought it was a great setup for a potential series, and then I Zoomed with Max and David Kohan, and it was love at first sight.
Were you a viewer of The Golden Girls?
People were obsessive about that show to a disturbing degree, and obviously it’s meant a lot to the gay community. I admired all those women, they were wonderfully funny, terrific actresses. But books have been written analyzing The Golden Girls, and I don’t have quite that kind of obsession with it. It was a great show and done beautifully. And other than the fact that our show is about a group of friends living together and I move into a house where I’m living with my mother [played by Linda Lavin], I think it moves on along its own path after that.
It’s so refreshing to watch a show with queer characters who aren’t all 20-somethings. Why do you think we don’t see more of that?
You’d have to ask the studio heads and television executives. Max and David had this idea that they were working on for a couple of years, but I think it happened because of Ryan Murphy. He’s powerful enough to say, “Let’s make up this pilot.” It’s really a very smart, funny script, but I think the reason it happened is because of him. We made a very good pilot, and Hulu was excited by it, but it doesn’t hurt to have Ryan Murphy in your corner. The whole process happened very quickly, from pilot to series. Everyone kept saying to me, “Oh, it’ll be a long time. They’ll take a long time to decide about this,” and it all happened very fast, which was exciting.
Is there anything you feel you’ve learned at this point in your career that you wish you’d known earlier? Is there less anxiety, maybe?
Oh, there’s always anxiety. [Laughs.] No matter how old or successful you get, it’s always like, What’s the next job? I’m certainly at an age where I just feel very appreciative and grateful to be still working and viable in the marketplace and to do a variety of things, whether it’s playing Dominick Dunne [in Monsters] or something like this or stuff in the theater. That kind of variety and range is what you hope for, and I would say gratitude is the first thing that comes to mind.
This being Vogue, I have to ask: Do you have an all-time favorite look you’ve worn to an award show or other big event?
Well, all I ever would wear to an award show is a tuxedo, like every other gentleman, right? You know, unless you’re Billy Porter. Tuxedos are helpful. It’s sort of a uniform, but a nice one. I’m not really that fashion conscious, so I don’t know if I have a favorite outfit.
Last question, which you are under no obligation to answer: We know from And Just Like That… that your original Sex and the City character, Bobby Fine, is sadly no longer with us. Do you have any theories as to how he died?
To be honest, I only heard about it from Julie Halston. She mentioned that she was going to do the series, and then she told me I was dead! [Laughs.] Is it not mentioned in her scenes? She just says I died? I guess COVID would make sense. I’ll say COVID or Julie murdered me.
This conversation has been edited and condensed.
