Leo Sheng was 11 years old the first time he saw a trans man on screen. Like so many transmasculine people who are now in their twenties and thirties, Sheng was struck by Daniel Sea’s portrayal of Max Sweeney on The L Word, the first recurring transmasculine character on television. For better or for worse, Max informed Sheng’s initial understandings of transness.
In the years following the original L Word, Max’s storylines have been criticized for perpetuating harmful stereotypes about transmasculine people and transition, including the notion that taking testosterone induces immediate rage. When Sheng landed the role of Micah on the series reboot The L Word: Generation Q, he told Them he wanted his performance to be as authentic as possible, pulling sway from the series’ previous blunders of trans representation.
But as the series went on for two seasons, the question of Max still hung over audiences and Sheng. Last we knew, Max had been left pregnant and alone when the original L Word concluded. Sheng dreamed of a future when we would get to check in on Max, living happy, fulfilled, and surrounded by T4T joy. Then, last year, Sheng got the call from showrunner Marja-Lewis Ryan that his dream — and the dream of transmascs everywhere — was going to become a reality: Max was officially back.
Sea made his tender return as Max last night in the latest episode of the Showtime reboot’s third season. Now the gentle parent of four children, Max and his partner Reese (Armand Fields) welcome Micah and his girlfriend Maribel (Jillian Mercado) into their home on Halloween night to answer all of Micah’s questions about trans pregnancy and parenting.
In a conversation perhaps as heartfelt as Micah and Max’s onscreen introduction, Sheng and Sea spoke to Them about finding intergenerational trans community, creating trans representation on screen, and celebrating T4T friendship.
When Generation Q first premiered, I had a lot of conversations with my own trans community about how the show would have more trans representation. But there was also just the burning question: Will Max ever make an appearance? I’m really curious to hear how both of y’all reacted when that storyline was proposed.
Daniel Sea: Marja reached out to me, basically with the pitch of “Max means a lot to me and my generation, and I would just love to have him come back and to see him happy and thriving, and for it to be a reparative experience for him and also for you.” And I was immediately happy. I thought, This is a great thing I never thought would happen somehow. How about you, Leo?
Leo Sheng: Honestly, I think it was after season two wrapped or maybe before, or somewhere between season two and season three. I remember Marja asked me in one of the writers’ meetings if Micah could meet anybody from the original series that he hasn’t met yet, who would it be? And my answer was very quickly, “Max.” And I feel like it’s both obvious, and also not for the same reasons I think some people would assume.
Daniel wanted to see where Max is now, and what Max has found in his life, and the happiness and the joy, fulfillment, and community that I know I wanted and hoped he would find. And then [earlier this year,] I talked to Marja a little bit about Micah’s arc and she was like, “So, Max is coming back.” And I was like, “Wait, what?” confirming it. I was really excited. It was really hard to contain my excitement actually, just because I was so thrilled to hear that you were down to come back and join us. So it came about pretty organically, given the way the stories are unfolding, and particularly Micah’s journey this year.
Did you get a chance to talk with each other either before the decision got made to bring Max back, or even in the weeks following?
LS: I think [we spoke] before season two filmed. I reached out to Daniel after their interview with Autostraddle came out, and I just was really grateful for what they shared. And we struck up a little bit of e-correspondence over time. And I was again, just really excited and shocked that we were getting to communicate, given what Max meant to me when I was coming out, and the work Daniel put into it. So, I was really grateful that we were able to strike up a human communication and start a friendship before you joined filming.
DS: When Leo reached out to me, I was just really happy to hear from him, and I’ve enjoyed his acting since I saw him in my close friend Rhys [Ernst’s] film Adam, [but also] just his spirit and his kindness and his way of being and his integrity and what I’d seen online. Once we started our connection, I was excited that we could be becoming friends. And then, when the idea that we were going to actually get to act together came along, I felt like it was meant to be, and I was just really happy. It was a really joyous prospect and process.
Daniel, in the Autostraddle interview, you spoke about the power you had — or didn’t have — in terms of the original L Word in terms of being able to shape storylines, particularly around Max. I’m curious just to hear how both of you were consulted in terms of both episode four, bringing back Max in the context of meeting Micah, and in talking about trans pregnancy.
DS: I felt like Marja made it very clear that this would be a different experience than I’d had in the past. Basically because we’re at a different place as a culture in terms of how we tell stories. It was important for me to know that I would feel good about what was written there in the script, and I felt like my feedback was considered, and that we did get to talk about it and make some small adjustments and things like that.
And mostly, I felt like Leo and I were both on the same page that we really — and I don’t want to speak for you, Leo — but I would just say I think we were in agreement that it was an important moment to show an intergenerational queer and trans affection between two transmasculine people that felt authentic. If we could flesh that out, that would be an amazing opportunity that we haven’t seen before.
LS: Yeah, I would say from season one, it’s been a pretty collaborative experience with the writers in general, asking to get to know us, and really wanting to model these characters after our personality so that it feels more natural. So, for the last three years we’ve been in communication and have meetings every season about what their goals are, and what do we think, and do we have any ideas, or questions, or any sort of input that we’d like to offer up.
[With Max’s reintroduction,] I would agree it was incredibly collaborative, and we went over a lot of just even small nuances around the way transmasc folks might have inside jokes, or just that there’s just a sense of community among trans people in general that doesn’t necessarily exist with trans people and cis people. Early on, when I was just hearing about Micah’s arc for parenthood, I know plenty of queer and trans folks who have created families through various means. I know transmasc folks who have had babies, carrying them. And so this is something I’m really familiar with, and it’s something I think about for myself and my future and what I want personally as Leo, not Micah. It was a really exciting chance to explore this in a way that maybe hasn’t been explored in other avenues of mainstream media. We saw that with Max on TV at that time and how conversations have changed since then.
DS: It seemed like everybody really had an affection for Max and that each person wanted to see him happy. It was making people happy to see him happy and to see this connection between two iconic characters.
That’s something I really just loved about episode four: seeing that T4T joy is so rare on screen. So I’m wondering what your hope is for the audience reception of both bringing Max back on in this way.
LS: My biggest hope is just that people appreciate the episode. That’s my hope with most episodes. You can’t control if people like them or not, but I really hope that people can see the love and care that went into crafting this interaction, this friendship, this beautiful reintroduction to Max. I’m also very aware of — I think probably more so than maybe some other folks — of the transphobic responses, which I’ve seen. So, I’m aware of that. Again, I can’t make anyone like it, and I wouldn’t want anyone to like it if they don’t, actually.
But this episode means so much to me. I was just writing little things — I can post it later – but I don’t even know how to describe how special this was for me as an actor, and as a person. I was 12 when I first came across Max, and so this is a dream come true in a way. And so, I’m just still processing it and I feel very protective of it.
DS: Well thanks, Leo. That’s nice. That’s really wonderful to hear. It’s very humbling to hear. The only reason Max was such a singular story — being the first recurring transmasculine character in TV, and also one of the first trans characters — it was all the gatekeeping that existed then. It’s not that there weren’t talented people out there, or no stories to tell.
It is a unique thing to be in the position I’m in where I’m now encountering people who are young adults who actually encountered me as Max in their youth, and that it was the first time that they got to see themselves reflected. And then as we know, the storyline was also written in a way that did also cause simultaneously some harm for people — at least that’s what people tell me. And then also, a little bit for me playing it. So I feel equally protective of Leo, and [the tenderness between Micah and Max.]
There’s a line when Leo (Micah) and Max are talking in the kitchen and Max says to Leo something like, “I’m so excited that I get to watch you be your own kind of man.” It’s saying that hopefully we’ve evolved, and that for Micah it might be easier. There’ll be more opportunities, and less of these kinds of transphobic experiences that both I, as an actor, went through and that the character Max went through. It brings me joy to see Leo thriving as an actor, but also to see his character having this kind of arc that’s so life-affirming and holds so much possibility. There’s a lot of precious feeling there that goes beyond just TV making.
I would call that trans and queer possibility — what we have to offer. It’s not just like, “Oh, let me tell you my authentic story of what it is to be trans,” but we are offering actual different possibilities of ways of being. And when we are at our best, it’s like that. It’s mutual aid, it’s care, it’s kindness, encouragement, non-competitive ways [of relating to each other], all this kind of stuff.
LS: Mm-hmm.
DS: Yeah.
This interview has been condensed and edited.
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