Looking: A modern-gay experience

Andrew Haigh tells Sarah Hughes about his ground-breaking series about contemporary gay life

In 2011 Andrew Haigh made a film that changed his life. Previously the editor-turned-director had been part of a great shoal of up-and-coming writer-directors, dreaming of their big break.

His first feature film, 2009's Greek Pete - a mockumentary about a London rent boy - received mixed reviews and little attention outside the festival circuit. But then came Weekend, a subtle, tender and funny story about two men in an unnamed British city whose one-night stand blossoms into something more. The low-budget romance was a sleeper hit, winning him acclaim in Britain and the United States.

HBO came calling on the back of it, asking him if he'd like to help writer Michael Lannan turn his eight-minute 2011 short film Lorimer, which tracked the lives and loves of three gay men in Brooklyn, into an eight-episode television series. The result, Looking, starts on SoHo tonight. It sees the action transferred to San Francisco and, like Weekend, it has a low-key, naturalistic feel. "It's so important to me that it feels like real life not a TV show," says Haigh, adding that HBO "definitely saw Weekend as a very big touchstone".

"They wanted something that felt grounded in the reality of contemporary lives."

Something, in other words, different from more obviously dramatic series about gay life from years gone by, such as the much-loved adaptations of Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City, also set in San Francisco, Russell T. Davies's game-changing Queer as Folk and its more gaudy US remake.

"I love Tales of the City, both the books and the show, but we didn't feel any pressure despite filming in the same place," Haigh says. "It was such a different time and that's true of Queer as Folk as well. The British version of Queer as Folk is so good, but times change.

"Gay people can now get married. When Queer as Folk started [in 1999] that didn't seem possible. Since then the gay community moved into the mainstream and with that comes a new set of challenges and stories."

Looking is already being compared with its fellow HBO series, Girls, thanks to their shared focus on middle-class metropolitan angst. "I understand [the comparisons]," says Haigh, admirably managing to quell any hint of frustration. "People will say what they say and Girls is a great show but it's very different and not just because our characters are older."

The spotlight, indeed, is on 30- to 40-somethings rather than 20-somethings: a decision driven partly by the writers' own ages ("I'm 40, Michael's in his late 30s") and partly by a desire to avoid telling another gay coming-out tale. "So many gay stories focus on that but what I found really interesting is that in your early 20s you think that at 35 or 40 your life will be sorted, and it just isn't. People's lives often don't turn out as they expect."

Who: Andrew Haigh, director
What: Looking
When and where: Starts on SoHo tonight at 9pm

- TimeOut / Independent