Transparent Still - H 2014
Beth DubberPrepare to see Jeffrey Tambor‘s Transparent character Maura, a transgender woman, fall in love when the Golden Globe-winning Amazon drama returns for a second season.
“Yes, she’s going to (have a relationship) in season two. For sure, it’s time. She’s got to have some love,” series creator and writer Jill Soloway told The Hollywood Reporter while attending the Banff World Media Festival. Soloway said the first season of Transparent had all characters asking “will you still love me if …”
The upcoming second season, now in production, finishes that sentence. “It’s ‘will you still love me if I’m happy, if I really start to make choices and take a stand for myself and what I want,’ and I think they really start to take risks with becoming themselves and hoping that their family can come along for the ride,” she explained.
Soloway also talked during a Banff master class about Caitlyn Jenner, whose binge-viewing of Transparent may have played a role in her own transition from Olympian Bruce Jenner to life as a woman. “I got a call from Caitlyn Jenner to say ‘I just want to thank you so much for writing this show. I watched it. I watched the whole series three times. It really helped me,’ ” she said.
Soloway also talked about her sudden attachment with the Kardashian family as Caitlyn Jenner’s high-profile journey transforms the conversation about transgendered people. “I always wanted to be a Kardashian. I can’t believe me and the Kardashians both have trans parents. That’s so crazy,” she told Banff delegates.
Soloway recounted how the idea for Transparent came to her as her parent, formerly known as her father, revealed he wanted to come out as a transgender women in 2011, at age 75. She professed bewilderment at her own possible role in motivating Caitlyn Jenner, also a parent, to come out.
“To know the patriarch of the most famous family on the planet might have been impacted and able to come out and affect a whole planet full of people who may be afraid to come out and tell their story, it’s mind-boggling,” she said. Soloway also talked about experiencing a sense of loss as her father completed his transgender journey.
“It’s a very delicate question, because Kris Kardashian recently came out and said something like ‘where’s my husband,’ or (showed) anger over losing her husband,” she explained. Soloway insisted trans people would say they’re still the same person, just truer to themselves.
“The trans people I know would say, ‘I’m still here. I didn’t go anywhere. It’s still me,’ “she said.”But certainly there was a moment when I recognized that I wanted to know where my dad had gone, where he was if I wanted to see him, and how I could ever see him again. It kind of makes me emotional.”
The Banff World Media Festival continues in the Canadian Rockies until Wednesday.
