Metro Weekly

Jordan Gavaris Jumps into the Deep End of ‘The Lake’

Jordan Gavaris talks about his hit Amazon show 'The Lake,' growing up in Canada, and the effect of coming out on his career.

Jordan Gavaris -- Photo: Anthony Giovanni
Jordan Gavaris — Photo: Anthony Giovanni

“I just spent the last two days hollowing out my kitchen pantry and replacing all of the drawer slides, drawers, and shelves,” says Jordan Gavaris.

“I built a couple of spice racks. I put them in myself, clamped them, drilled them. Did it all. I’m quite proud. So that’s what’s been on my agenda. That, and brunch. Cabinetry and brunch.”

Also on the handsome, 32-year-old actor’s agenda: Shooting more of The Lake, a charmed and charming Canadian comedy that bowed on Amazon Prime Video earlier this summer and was recently renewed for a second season.

Gavaris stars as Justin Lovejoy, a big-hearted gay man who, after years of living abroad in Australia, where a destructive relationship took an emotional toll, returns to the summer lake of his youth to bond with Billie (the remarkable Madison Shamoun), the now-teenage daughter he had in high school and with whose parents he has an open-adoption arrangement.

The show charts Justin and Billie’s relationship, as they circle each other, she far more wary than he, in an effort to find footing as birth-parent and child.

Clogging the emotional drain is a bitter feud between Justin and his step-sister Maisey-May (a stingingly sharp Julia Stiles), who has, unbeknownst to Justin, inherited the family lake cottage from their late father. The cottage becomes a prize in a brutal tug-of-war between the step-siblings, threatening to derail Justin’s emerging relationship with Billie.

The Lake is populated with sweetly funny, delightfully eccentric characters, and is framed by the vast, majestic beauty of North Bay, Ontario. It deals with LGBTQ topics organically and nonchalantly, without so much as blinking an eye. Among other things, these include a tween, gender-queer treasure named Opal, played to stunning perfection by Declan Whaley.

Gavaris rose to fame in Orphan Black, where for five seasons, he starred as fan-favorite Felix “Fee” Dawkins, foster brother to the main character Sarah Manning (She-Hulk‘s Tatiana Maslany), and a very different kind of queer man from Justin.

Among other things, Felix was a fashionista, whereas Justin pretty much lives in a loose tank-top, shorts, and flip-flops.

“I spent five years on Orphan Black playing a character that was in the most outrageous costume every day,” says Gavaris. “The pants got tighter. The wedge on the shoes got higher. The shirts got thinner. There was so much costuming and so much attention paid to clothing on Orphan Black that I was so truly happy to show up to work and just wear a t-shirt and shorts.”

Gavaris, who came out publicly in 2017, during Orphan Black‘s final season, has been in a relationship for nine years with fellow actor and screenwriter Devon Graye (Nope), whom he married in 2018.

“We met on Twitter,” says Gavaris. “We ended up chatting a little over Twitter. Then we started direct messaging, and just became, I think, intrigued by each other.” When Gavaris had to stop in L.A., before production on the second season of Orphan Black, he met Graye for coffee in Silver Lake.

“I was about to turn 24, and I’d really only seriously started dating in the last couple of years,” he recalls. “I sat down with him, and within 10 minutes, I was like, ‘Oh boy, we’re going to get married.’ I called my best friend after I left the coffee date, and was like, ‘Well I think I met my husband.’ We were exclusive a week later.”

The Lake is based on the real-life experiences of its creator Julian Doucet. When casting for the role of his onscreen alter-ego, Doucet wanted an actor who was “magnetic, talented, Canadian, and gay.” Gavaris ticked all the boxes — and then some.

“Jordan brings a special kind of alchemy to the show,” says Doucet. “Other than being incredibly talented, he’s just so emotionally available. He’s fearless in his vulnerability. He can be quite campy and then he can bring it right in. He can bring all of the shades.

“My writing — I do love cliche and I love to put it all in a blender,” the showrunner continues. “I go from high camp to Whit Stillman to Joe Orton to Oscar Wilde, and bring it back to John Waters. I like to go to all of the places, and Jordan can follow. He is that elastic.

“He also knows how to be a lead,” he adds. “He sets a tone for the set that is incredibly inclusive and warm. I cannot say enough good things about him. Only that he should eat a little bit more bread. He’s a wonderful baker, but he does not allow himself — especially when he is in a swimsuit — to eat as much as he should, but that’s actor stuff. So, you know…”

Gavaris is similarly gracious about his co-stars, especially Shamoun, whom he calls “extraordinary.”

“She’s so good at what she does,” he says. “She doesn’t blink when asked to jump and pull the moon down from the sky. She’ll figure out a way to do it and she’ll make it look easy. I just loved her immediately.

“I lucked out when it came to everybody,” he adds, calling out The Lake‘s full, vibrant ensemble. “Everyone elevates everyone. I wouldn’t be half as good or be able to do Justin half as well without the people that wound up being cast.”

Jordan Gavaris -- Photo: Anthony Giovanni
Jordan Gavaris – Photo: Anthony Giovanni

METRO WEEKLY: Heading into this interview, the industry website Deadline.com announced amazing news about The Lake. So, I’ll start with congratulations on Season Two!

JORDAN GAVARIS: Thank you very much. It’s kind of a miracle to get a television show green-lit. It’s even more of a miracle to be given a second season. So I’m really happy. And I know Julian is, too. It’s really exciting.

MW: When I spoke to the show’s creator, Julian Doucet, for this piece, it hadn’t been decided yet. Where were you when you got the news that the show had been renewed?

GAVARIS: Well, of course, everybody got the news internally a few days before the actual release on Deadline. I was in my kitchen, baking. If I’m not baking, I’m cabinet building. If I’m not cabinet building, I’m painting something. Not in an artistic sense. I mean painting a wall. I am not a visual artist — unless you include arranging in visual artistry. I like to arrange things.

But I was in the kitchen, and my husband was on the couch. And it was really exciting. There’d been whispers that Amazon Prime Video was really happy and that the show had been tracking steadily. But it’s always different when you get the official “yes.” Getting a television series green-lit is really hard work — a lot of them fall apart in development. So the idea that it’s green-lit, and then the idea that you get another opportunity — and another chunk of money to go make more of it — feels miraculous.

MW: To be honest, I stumbled upon The Lake completely by chance. Amazon Prime was pushing on my home page. I got curious and watched the first episode. And — I’m not kidding you — I was immediately hooked. Watching the show was like watching a flower slowly come into full bloom.

All of the characters evolve in powerful, meaningful ways. Your character, Justin, starts off as who we think of as a stereotypical gay man, sweet but seemingly shallow, self-absorbed. But by the end of the series, he’s a completely changed man. What was it like playing his journey?

GAVARIS: I say this in total earnest: It was an honor. I loved him from the moment that I read the pilot script. He was me, and he also wasn’t me. There were facets of me that wound up in Justin, and obviously, parts of my own experience that informed who he was and his worldview. He moves through the world kind of like a hummingbird on steroids.

There was something so special to me about the arc of his journey to becoming an adult. It’s something a lot of people in their late twenties or early thirties can relate to. We’ve prolonged adolescence in society to where we don’t really become adults until that age.

Obviously, I don’t know anything about raising a child. I don’t know anything about being a parent. I don’t know anything about being a stable father figure to someone. In my own life, I didn’t have to worry about becoming anything or pretending to be something that I wasn’t. I am a childless 32-year-old. And for all intents and purposes, that’s who Justin is and was. And his journey was to become an adult. And when we find Billie and Justin in the pilot, Billie’s the adult, Justin’s the child.

So his journey is something far more universal and far more relatable, I think, to most audience members than an identity crisis or the process of self-acceptance as a queer man. He doesn’t need to accept himself. He knows exactly who he is. The process is really just about his growing up.

Jordan Gavaris -- Photo: Anthony Giovanni
Jordan Gavaris – Photo: Anthony Giovanni

MW: You’re basically playing a version of a real person — Julian notes that much of Justin’s story is based on his own life experience. As an actor, do you feel pressure to create a persona distinct from him? Or do you try to incorporate authentic traces of him into your portrayal?

GAVARIS: I never felt pressure to do an impression of him, even knowing that, of course, the character is semi-autobiographical. But I did intuitively pick up facets of Julian, and they ended up in Justin. I can only say intuitively — it’s not like Julian sat me down and walked me through how he makes breakfast, or talks to someone, or walks across a room.

But in getting to know Julian, inevitably parts of him wound up in Justin. I didn’t think about it. It wasn’t conscious. But it definitely happened, to the extent that friends of Julian’s, when they would watch screeners for the show, would often say things like, “Oh my God, did you tell Jordan to do that? Did you sit him down, and did you tell him to…?” Julian would be like, “No, I don’t know how or why that happened. It just did.” It’d be mannerisms or little Julianisms that wound up in Justin, which was really cool, and kind of magical.

MW: One thing I liked about Justin — and I hope this doesn’t sound creepy — but watching the character, I felt an instant affinity for him. Like, I thought, this is a person I would want as a close friend.

GAVARIS: Oh, that’s not creepy. That’s lovely. I mean, listen, a huge chunk of that was Julian and the writers being able to communicate to me who this person was. First of all, Justin’s last name is Lovejoy. So I sort of knew I was going to be leading with my heart, which is something that I do as an actor anyway.

Justin’s a lot of things, and he has a lot of growing to do, but he’s decent. And that’s another thing that was really exciting to me — putting a complicated but good-natured queer person on screen at the center of a universe. I just couldn’t believe that I was lucky enough to do that.

MW: I was struck by how sweetly the show embraces LGBTQ personas, including Riley and Opal, without forcing in any moments of toxicity just for the sake of drama. It embraces queerness with pleasure, as just an organic part of life.

GAVARIS: That’s something that appealed to me when I read the pilot because I had a similar thought. So many queer stories center around trauma. When Justin’s at the Gas-N-Go flirting with Riley [in the pilot], my first thought was like, “Oh boy, here we go, there’s going to be some homophobic recoil in this [encounter].” And there wasn’t, and there isn’t.

I suppose someone could watch the show and call foul and say, “Well, that’s not how the world really is.” I think our response to that was always like, “Yeah, we know, but it’s how the world could be.” We deserve stories that aren’t entirely centered around trauma. Because, truthfully, the world is a little traumatic, and being in queer society is not always easy, especially if you don’t live in a big city or a blue state.

So how great is it that we get to put a universe on screen that demonstrates what things could be like? That not everything has to have an undercurrent of toxicity or homophobia? That was really, really appealing to me.

I love that there’s not really ever a discussion in the show about Justin and Riley, or gay love on the lake, or being gay in general. And certainly, nobody bats an eye about Opal’s gender nonconformity. Also, I just have to kind of shout out Declan Whaley, who plays that character. Declan is fantastic, just a wonderful treat, and somehow understood this person in an almost otherworldly and ethereal way.

But, as I said before, it’s not a story about self-acceptance or identity. It’s a different kind of story. It’s a love story between a dad and a daughter. It’s a love story between Justin and Riley. It’s a lot of things, but it’s not toxic.

MW: I feel this is one of those shows that’s still flying under the radar within the LGBTQ community. And I’m hoping people will watch it and give it a chance. It takes a few episodes to fully click in though.

GAVARIS: Well, this is the thing: I think a lot of people watch the first five minutes and are like, “What is this?” Because it’s a little frenetic. You phrased it before as like watching a flower bloom, which I think conjures a lovely image, because the show does start off in a different place than where it ends. It’s kind of a surprise. There’s an unpacking.

There was a television critic that watched the first three episodes and gave us a very tepid review. It was, one might even say, a little icy. And then went and watched the rest of the show for some reason. I don’t know what possessed him to sit down and continue watching it. But he finished it. And then, totally without ego, with so much humility, he wrote a second review, and had a completely different take on the series and loved it. I’ve never seen a journalist do that before. He was like, “Oh, I was so wrong. This show’s great.”

But it does take a second. It takes a second to work your way into the world and realize that the show has a lot more depth and heart than maybe the first five minutes might make it seem. It’s not just a wackadoodle comedy. There’s some really important storytelling happening in the show, at least for me anyways.

MW: There are some really lovely detours as well. I thought the “horror episode” was terrific.

GAVARIS: Oh, wasn’t that great?

MW: It’s just a brilliant mid-season moment. And it still ties itself back to Justin and Billie’s gradual bonding. Amazon is trumpeting The Lake as their first Canadian series. These days all Americans want to be Canadians.

GAVARIS: That’s very generous.

MW: Well, we especially felt that way during Trump years, I think. Our music critic, Sean, is Canadian. I would joke, “Come on, Sean, marry me so I can have citizenship and move there.” Although he’s from Calgary. I’ve seen the temperatures. I’m like, there’s no fucking way.

GAVARIS: I was about to say, I know that to Americans that Canada’s a little exotic. But it’s cold. Really cold. You’ve got to work up to it. The blood has to thicken.

MW: Honestly, I just want to see a moose.

GAVARIS: We’ll get you a moose. We’ll find you a moose.

MW: What was your childhood like growing up there?

GAVARIS: Oh, man, it was quintessentially nineties. I was born in 1989 and I have two older sisters. One is five years older and one is ten years older. So I think by virtue of having two siblings that were really experiencing the nineties as pre-teens and teens, I got a dose of that in a way that other kids born in in the same year as me maybe wouldn’t have. They might be more traditionally millennial or something. We didn’t have the internet until I was 11 or 12, so I do remember a time before the internet. I remember using encyclopedias to do school projects. I say that as if it’s an accomplishment.

We have about an acre and a half of land, and back when I was a kid, there was nothing around. It was this little suburban cul-de-sac in the middle of cornfields. I’m trying to think of something cinematic that would conjure an image. It was a little Children of the Corn. I mean, it was beautiful though.

We’re right close to the Niagara Escarpment. Right on the border of Brampton and Caledon. And Caledon is just a little piece of heaven in Canada. I mean, God, there are days it looks like England, there are days it looks like Virginia, and then there are other days where it looks so uniquely like itself. It’s just stunning up here. And my parents have about an acre and a half of property and a lovely home and it was a lot of like Victoria Day firework celebrations, big family dinners — because my dad is Greek and my aunt and her husband and my two cousins lived very close to us, so they were over a lot. I don’t know how to describe it other than quaint and kind of suburban.

My childhood always felt a little bit like a Nancy Myers film. Something always going on in the kitchen. My dad’s kind of a funny, theatrical personality. Loves to make an entrance, really big, broad personality, big stories. And my mom, she looks kind of like Mia Farrow. She’s tall, very Nordic. She’s quite refined, but also super salt of the earth.

MW: What was your coming out like?

GAVARIS: I came out when I was 19 to friends and family. I kind of came out to myself before that. I think I knew in high school after a couple of awkward spin-the-bottle kisses. I remember at 17 thinking, “I know this is a thing. I know who I am. I know that I’m gay and I know I’m going to have to deal with this at some point, but I’m just not ready to deal with it right now.” So I didn’t say anything.

Then my second year of university, I got a little depressed — and I’m not a depressed person. I’m actually quite a happy person. So this was really quite anomalous for me. And I think my family noticed because I was always the gregarious voice in the room. So to watch me fall into myself and kind of sink a little, they knew something was wrong.

Even though I was depressed, I was emotionally running up to the plate and getting ready to really tell my parents and the rest of my family who I was, because I wanted to start dating. I was also going to school in the city and was exposed to things that I hadn’t been exposed to before. I was working myself up to the reveal, so to speak.

I wish I could say, “This was the precipitator…” or “This was the reason why at 19.” But I think I just finally reached a point where I was ready. It was becoming more complicated and more difficult to hide than it was to just tell people who I was.

Jordan Gavaris -- Photo: Anthony Giovanni
Jordan Gavaris – Photo: Anthony Giovanni

MW: How did they take the news?

GAVARIS: Great! I wish I had a really good story here, but my parents were great. There was never a question. The nervousness was not so much about whether or not they would love me or accept me. I never feared that I was going to lose their love by coming out. And in saying that, by the way, I really know how fortunate I am. I know that is not the case for a good number of people who read this magazine. I was very lucky.

So I knew I wasn’t going to lose love. But — and maybe this is something that no one ever talks about with coming out — I was embarrassed. I was embarrassed to have to tell my parents that I’d had romantic and sexual feelings for men. And I was like, “Oh my God! What teenager wants to talk to their parents about who they’re fantasizing about or who they want to make out with or who they want to sleep with?” No teenager wants to talk about that with their parents. It was mortifying. So I think it was actually initiating that conversation for me that was the bigger stress-inducer than just like, “Hey, I’m gay.”

When you’ve spent so long not being authentic, there’s just a little bit of fear around the unknown — even though I knew, with 99% certainty, that it was going to be okay. The fear of the unknown is enough to make anyone not do something. And I think I was grappling with a bit of that. I just hit a threshold where it was getting harder to not be who I was, and that’s what ultimately drove me to come out.

MW: And then you came out publicly about seven years later, during the final season of Orphan Black.

GAVARIS: Yeah, coming out publicly was something completely different. I thought about it when I started playing Felix, because the show had a real queer component. It just seemed to exist in a particular space in pop culture. Something that was quite a part of the zeitgeist, quite political. The show was politicized very quickly, especially because so many of its ideas were progressive in nature. It asked a lot of ethical questions.

But I would’ve regretted it if I had done it when I first started doing Orphan Black. I just wasn’t ready to be any kind of mouthpiece politically for the queer community. I wouldn’t have done anyone justice. And I wouldn’t have been an asset to the community the way that I would’ve liked to be an asset. Now, at 32, I feel very differently.

MW: Were you at all worried that being an out gay actor was going to be a hindrance to your career?

GAVARIS: I wasn’t worried that I wouldn’t find work. I figured I’d probably find work. I think what I was worried about was that I was going to then be relegated to playing the same character forever. And that is just sad because part of the thrill of being an actor is playing different people and telling different stories.

I think my soft worry at the time was, am I going to get to do this the way that I want to do it? Am I still going to get to be an actor on the terms that I want to be an actor? Or is the industry now going to dictate the terms of this relationship because I’ve taken this somewhat political position by coming out publicly?

But I don’t think I was overly concerned with how it was going to affect my career. I think that if I’d spent too much time thinking about it, I probably wouldn’t have done it.

Instead, I just decided that visibility mattered. And I had an opportunity to become a part of this growing chorus of people — like Neil Patrick Harris, people who were much braver than I was and did it faster and sooner than I did — I had this opportunity to become a part of that chorus, and I wasn’t going to turn it down. I have no idea if my coming out has meant anything to anyone, but at the very least being a part of that movement meant something to me.

MW: One thing that I particularly enjoy about The Lake is how sex-positive it is. It never feels judgemental or tawdry, even when it delves into three-way territory. That’s somewhat unique in a mainstream show that includes LGBTQ elements.

GAVARIS: Well, it’s unique in a show that includes LGBTQ elements and very heteronormative elements. The two worlds are colliding here, but the result is not friction. It’s kind of — I don’t know — a duet of sorts. That’s a weird way to put it. But I loved the sex positivity in the show. And I think the reason it doesn’t seem tawdry, as you say, is because the writers and the actors just didn’t have judgment over it. Nobody thought it was wrong.

In performing the threesome scenes, it’s not like Travis [Nelson, who plays Riley] and Jerry O’Connell and I were sitting around going like, “Man, is this, like, racy?” We were all just kind of like, “Yeah, okay, great. Of course this is what they would do. And of course this is okay.” I think having a sex-positive attitude between the creatives — and by the creatives, I mean the writers and the directors and the actors — that’s what makes it feel possibly more digestible to the audience.

MW: It was terrific to see all the sexual instances on the show dealt with such casual playfulness and warmth.

GAVARIS: The show was never self-righteous. That’s one thing that I really loved about it and what I love about the characters. Also because the characters are too complicated and they’re too flawed to be self-righteous. So thank God the show isn’t. Thank God it doesn’t lecture from a moral podium. We’re not about lecturing to the audience. We’re just about demonstrating. And I think it worked. I hope it worked.

MW: It absolutely worked. I have to also add that I think Jerry O’Connell does the best Grindr imitation I have ever heard in my life.

GAVARIS: [Laughs.] It was so good. It was so good. And he is such a treat to work off of because he is so surprising. I didn’t have to act at all. I just had to stand there and react to him because he’s so fearless.

MW: You seem born for the role of Justin. It feels like you were made to play Julian’s story.

GAVARIS: That’s how I felt when I read the script, and that doesn’t happen often. So much of deciding to be an actor for hire is trying to make things work. And the part doesn’t always fit like a glove. Sometimes you have to work at it. And some of that is a really fun exercise, but every once in a while you’re handed something where it’s like lightning strikes, and the intersection of the character and you becomes this blurry continuum that is hard to distinguish from one another, where I end and Justin begins.

I have no idea because Justin is me. Also, I’m not Justin Lovejoy. I’m not a mess. I hope I’m not a narcissist. I hope I understand what love is. I hope I’m more patient and less conniving, but I understand all those facets of myself — they’re there. I just don’t let them out as often as I think Justin does.

MW: There are people in the industry who advocate that LGBTQ roles should only be played by LGBTQ actors. Where do you land on that debate?

GAVARIS: Here’s what I know. I know authenticity and casting can be important, vital even. What I also know is that I think there’s a hesitation for some people in the queer community to say, “Oh yes, queer actors should be portrayed exclusively by queer people,” because our fear is always that someone’s going to turn around and say, “Okay, well then, fine — you get those characters and any hetero character is off the table for you. So that’s it. You are relegated exclusively to playing queer characters.”

Which isn’t a bad thing. And wouldn’t be a bad thing if the number of queer characters at the center of narratives was ubiquitous. If there were just an abundance of stories revolving around queer characters, then that wouldn’t be so bad. I would say, yeah, [I’ll] play queer characters exclusively for the rest of my career. Fantastic. Sign me up. If those characters were as varied, as complicated, and as interesting as all of their heteronormative counterparts.

We’ve explored straight characters on screen in every imaginable way, from every imaginable perspective, since the dawn of cinema. And we’re still doing it. We’re still finding new angles on familiar stories or new stories under unturned rocks. So my response to this is not what side of the debate I fall on — I think it really just comes back to representation. Which is that I just think I would be completely comfortable playing exclusively queer characters for the rest of my career if those characters were just as varied and complex as all of their heteronormative counterparts. Where it becomes a problem is when I’m relegated to only playing queer characters and there just aren’t that many of them. Because then, I don’t get to do what I love to do.

But I mean, who am I to speak to this, really? There’s a real push in the community for people to be more identitarian. And I think it really helps the movement, and it helps liberation and it helps queer visibility. But it just so happens that identitarianism, when you’re an actor in the public eye, or when you’re an actor trying to play different people, is counterintuitive to your ability to make people believe you’re something else.

I guess this kind of relates to what we’re talking about with respect to actors only playing queer characters. I think that push for a strong identitarian visibility is just not helpful when you’re an actor. That it’s actually just better for people to know less about you. Not about your queer identity necessarily, because I think that’s important just because it’s important to be visible in that way right now. But just in general.

I think a little mystique is helpful, not about queer identity, just about your personhood. So I think my qualms are with social media in general. I think it’s weird, as an actor, that we put so much of ourselves out there. We’re required to put so much of ourselves out there for audience consumption. I think it kind of interferes with an audience’s ability to believe us as something different. I really do. I know we have to use it and I know it’s an essential marketing tool and it’s great to connect with fans, but I think it just is kind of holding actors back a little bit.

MW: Social media has ruined journalism.

GAVARIS: I hear you. And I feel bad dumping on it because I know its importance. And it’s done so many amazing things in connecting people. I just think that there’s this whole other world on social media where your identity is everything and how much you publicize it is everything. And I just think it just so happens that it interferes with people’s ability to believe actors as being anything other than what they are.

MW: I read on Wikipedia that you are distantly related to the legendary Greek filmmaker Costa-Gavras.

GAVARIS: That is so weird. I knew you were going to ask this question.

MW: How could I not ask that question?

GAVARIS: So, yes. It’s also very anecdotal. I have never met the man. I’m a huge fan of his work, of course. Completely beside myself that I could be or would be related to someone who directed Missing and who directed Sissy Spacek. I just know the lineage of our last names when they’re anglicized, translates to the same thing in Greek. I believe that he’s from the same regional area, and we’re all related. If you’re from an area, that is your family. That’s just how it works in European countries.

Anecdotally someone over the years has been saying, yes, we are related. I don’t have a copy of a genealogy report. I don’t know how it ended up on the internet. I don’t know how the internet knows these things.

MW: The internet sometimes makes things up.

GAVARIS: This one happened to be correct.

MW: Clearly, you need to be in one of his films.

GAVARIS: [Laughs.] Sure! I’d open a vein!

MW: You tied the knot in 2018 to Devon Graye. So let’s end on that old cliché: how’s married life treating you?

GAVARIS: Married life is great. Married life is honestly not very different from life before. And that’s something Dev and I have said to each other many times.

But there was a marked shift when we had our wedding — and we literally had 24 guests. It was in my parents’ backyard. It was very small. There was something special about standing in front of a group of people that you really love, and for us anyways, making this promise to one another that when things get tough, when you get bored, when the romance isn’t easy, or you get frustrated because the person likes the air conditioner at 72 and you are freezing, as I often am, you’re going to fight for it. That the whole idea is that you’re standing up in front of those people, and they’re witnessing you say to one another we’re going to fight for this thing, even when it’s tough because we really love each other and we make good partners and we make a really good team.

So really not much changed. Things look very similar to how they did pre-marriage. The only difference is now breaking up would be a lot more paperwork. But it didn’t really affect our commitment to one another.

I can’t speak for Dev, but I find little ways to fall in love with him all over again, all the time. Like, very small things. And sometimes it’s conscious. Sometimes I actually stop myself and look at him differently or look at something very adorable he’s doing. Just finding little moments where I actively and consciously try to remind myself of just how special he is, and just kind of fall in love again in little ways all the time, a little bit deeper.

All eight episodes of The Lake are streaming on Amazon Prime Video. Visit www.amazon.com.

Follow Jordan Gavaris on Twitter at @JordanGavaris.

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