With His Latest Queer Turn, Gideon Glick Brings Leonard Bernstein's Boyfriend to Life in Maestro

“I’ve made a career playing gay men,” says Gideon Glick, who boasts a resume marked by the memorable queer Broadway characters he introduced in Spring Awakening, Significant Other and, less obviously, To Kill a Mockingbird. “But this is the first time I really played a person of flesh and blood," says Glick. "And I take that very seriously.”

The Tony-nominated Broadway favorite is seen playing Tommy Cothran, the real-life boyfriend of Leonard Bernstein in Bradley Cooper’s sensitive and stirring Maestro. The film, which has received four Golden Globe nominations including Best Picture (Drama), premieres on Netflix December 20. It’s the latest screen turn for Glick, who has built up an impressive film and TV resume in the four years since his run as Dill Harris in Mockingbird.

In COVID-time, he appeared in the buzzy Netflix films Pale Blue Eyes and White Noise, and showed versatility in memorable arcs on the series The Other Two (funny!), American Horror Story: NYC (creepy!) and nine deliciously kooky episodes of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel as mysterious magician Alfie Zielinski.

Now he's enjyoing his most high-profile turn. Although Lenny and Tommy’s love isn’t the film’s leading romance, as Maestro is centered on Bernstein’s relationship with wife Felicia Montealegre (Carey Mulligan), Glick’s presence is felt for a good chunk of the film, as Tommy becomes a side player in Bernstein’s family life after a sexy first meeting.

“It’s economical in what it shows,” Gideon tells Broadway.com. “You see little snapshots of their relationship.” He adds that Bernstein had a long romantic and professional relationship with Cothran, built on a “gift of gab” for topics like philosophy, poetry and music: “It was a meeting of the minds.” (Although not seen in the film, Cothran died of AIDS in 1987—Bernstein was reportedly a bedside visitor in his final months.)

Because he lived a private life, Glick found precious little information on Cothran. He has just two photos of his gay alter ego (one in a Speedo by the pool, naturally) and is grateful for a meeting with San Francisco Symphony music director Michael Tilson Thomas, a Bernstein protege who knew the couple and shared his memories.

As director, co-writer (with Josh Singer) and star, Broadway veteran Bradley Cooper worked on Maestro for six years. By the time cameras rolled in 2022, he was deeply immersed in Bernstein, and stayed in character on set. “He never broke voice,” Glick shares, adding that his actual interactions with Cooper as himself have been limited to the initial offer of the role over Zoom and the current press tour for the film’s release: “It was an incredible immersive experience.”

Despite this intense commitment, Glick says the on-set experience was one of freedom and ease. “Typically, there’s a lot of anxiety before you call ‘action,’ but he allowed for a loose and easy process, and I think it shows on screen.” Overall, he called the experience exhilarating: “This was a man coming into his own as an artist and a director.”

Glick is one of many Broadway performers seen on screen in Maestro. Matt Bomer (The Boys in the Band) plays another of Bernstein’s lovers, David Oppenheim, and Scott Ellis, Cooper’s director for 2014’s The Elephant Man, makes a rare return to acting as Harry Kraut, his business manager. And in smaller cameos, look for Michael Urie as Jerome Robbins, Mallory Portnoy as Betty Comden and Nick Blaemire as Adolph Green, in addition to Zachary Booth, James Cusati-Moyer, Jordan Dobson, Josh Hamilton, Greg Hildreth and some of Broadway’s best dancers in a spirited On the Town number filmed on stage at the St. James Theatre.

Next up for Glick is Étoile, a ballet-set period drama from Maisel creators Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino, expected to premiere on Amazon Prime Video in 2024. Not only does he have a leading role in the series (details unknown, but he says he’s been studying ballet and Pilates in preparation), Glick is also part of the writing team. Filming starts in February in Paris, before production moves to New York City.

“I feel super-duper lucky,” he says of his ever-expanding resume. “I’m pinching myself.”

Watch Maestro on Netflix.