Mr Loverman star Lennie James has shared why honouring his gay character's journey in a truthful way was important to him.
James stars as Barrington in the new BBC drama, which centres on two closeted lovers over the course of their 60-year long relationship and Barry's desperation to end his marriage to wife Carmel (Sharon D Clarke).
During an exclusive interview with Digital Spy the Fear the Walking Dead star said: "It was really important to be truthful to a man who was unable to be outwardly truthful to himself.
"I didn't want there to be a situation where people were going, 'I don't understand, what's the big deal? Nowadays you can be who you want to be'.
"We needed to be specific and truthful to why it was like it was for Barry and Morris and Carmel and that generation."
James continued: "In their lifetime, loving the way they love could cost them legally, by the state, their life.
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"It was not just illegal. It was punishable by death and they carry that with them. That is their truth. That is their journey. That is what they have to live with and that is what they have to deal with.
"And for Barry, so much of the difficulty in him coming out was what he felt about himself as opposed to what it was that other people felt about him."
When talking about how they shaped that intimate relationship for the show, both James and Morris actor Ariyon Bakare praised their intimacy co-ordinator, Robbie Taylor Hunt.
"Sometimes when people speak about intimacy coaches, they slightly deride them and don't quite understand the necessity of them, but [Robbie] was fantastic in moving us through the stages of intimacy," James said.
He added: "Back in the day, for some intimate moments, they just gave people a glass of whiskey or a glass of brandy and said, 'Get on with it'.
"Those days are long gone and for quite good reason, and stepping through it, almost doing it like it's stunt training or choreography, just makes a huge difference."
Bakare added that their on-screen connection was also down to the trust he and James built with each other.
"Robbie was an amazing intimacy coach," said Bakare. "He really allowed us to explore the trust between us."
"Lennie and myself just, we fell into that balance quite quickly," he continued, sharing how they were aware of the stakes from day one.
"We were so aware of the characters we were playing. We were so aware of what we needed to achieve that it was easy to find the love for it. I found it very easy to fall in love with him. It was really easy to find the reason, what parts of him would be the qualities that I would fall in love with.
"So you use those as actors, you take those things, you go, 'OK, now make that into the person in front of you'.
"You project those feelings onto that person. So when I was looking at him in rehearsals, I constantly kept projecting the ideas of what I would want to fall in love with."
Mr Loverman, based on the novel by Bernardine Evaristo, airs tonight on BBC One at 9pm and is available to stream now on BBC iPlayer.
TV writer, Digital Spy Janet completed her Masters degree in Magazine Journalism in 2013 and has continued to grow professionally within the industry ever since. For six years she honed her analytical reviewing skills at the Good Housekeeping institute eventually becoming Acting Head of Food testing. She also freelanced in the field of film and TV journalism from 2013-2020, when she interviewed A-List stars such as Samuel L Jackson, Colin Firth and Scarlett Johansson. In 2021 she joined Digital Spy as TV writer where she gets to delve into more of what she loves, watching copious amounts of telly all in the name of work. Since taking on the role she has conducted red carpet interviews with the cast of Bridgerton, covered the BAFTAs and been interviewed by BBC Radio and London Live. In her spare time she also moonlights as a published author, the book Gothic Angel.
