“Mid-Century Modern” Cast Says It's Liberating to Love and Laugh on Their Gay “Golden Girls”-Inspired Sitcom (Exclusive)

Mid-Century Modern has a golden charm!

Now streaming on Hulu, the series stars Matt Bomer, Nathan Lane and Nathan Lee Graham as three gay men of a certain age who decide to live together in a Palm Springs, Calif., home as they help each other through life's ups and downs and navigate their various romances and relationships.

Loosely inspired by Golden Girls, the charmingly funny and fabulously gay sitcom from creators Max Mutchnick and David Kohan feels like a natural extension of their previous hit, Will & Grace. In fact, while acknowledging the influence of both classic shows, Kohan, 60, tells PEOPLE that "if Will & Grace were the Fire Island years, these are the Palm Springs years, where these friends have reconvened to live out the latest trimester."

"Like the fans of the show, the writers have all matured and grown to this point and we are much more lived in — but still have plenty of vitality and life to live," he continues, noting, "There's so much left to say."

While the various comedic plots and the many laugh-out-loud jokes don't hold back in terms of exploring life as a gay man, especially with the hindsight of being from an older generation, it's something that Mutchnick, 59, says they weren't overly conscious of in producing season 1.

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"I don't think we were in that place when we were writing it, which is a very good sign because I don't think we were paying attention when we were writing Will & Grace," he says. "We were just writing the stories that we wanted to tell about these characters because they were fresh in our minds."

Mutchnick adds, "These are characters that are based on people and parts of our lives, and we took it from that place."

Those characters include local lingerie mogul Bunny (Lane), quick-witted ex-Vogue columnist Arthur (Graham) and the pretty-but-dimwitted flight attendant Jerry (Bomer), as well as Bunny's sharp-tongued mother, Sybil (the late Linda Lavin in her final posthumous role), who all end up living together after Bunny's bidding.

Elsewhere, there are guest stars Jesse Tyler Ferguson as a stuck-up store clerk, Zane Phillips as a hunky hookup and Pamela Adlon as Bunny's slighted sister, Mindy, as well as many other people in their lives played by Billie Lourd, Cheri Oteri, Vanessa Bayer and Richard Kind.

For Graham, who broke out as Todd in Zoolander and has most recently appeared on Katy Keene and Woke, being on a show as free and open as Mid-Century Modern "feels liberating."

"It's liberation, it's magical, it's prophetic, it's needed, it's freeing, it's exciting," the actor, 56, tells PEOPLE. "I feel seen. I want other people to feel seen. I feel represented. I want other people to feel represented."

Graham adds, "It's funny as hell, so I want people to laugh. God knows we need to be laughing."

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"I think we all wanna be seen and understood and loved and that's what these men find in each other and that's what the world needs more of in this day and age," Bomer, 47, says, echoing his costar's sentiment.

Graham also notes that "all of it's true." He adds, "The reason I can be so animated and positive about it is because I actually believe what I'm saying."

"To get to work with these icons and laugh every day and experience joy in the work and try to share that that joy with the audience and hopefully the folks at home who watch, that's the reason I wanted to be a part of this," says Bomer, who is coming off his second Emmy nomination for the heavier, historical queer drama Fellow Travelers and Netflix's film adaptation of The Boys in the Band.

"Amen," sums up Lane, 69, who is in first starring TV role after supporting and recurring roles in everything from The Good Wife to The Gilded Age to Only Murders in the Building.

The Tony and Emmy winner adds that being on set with his costars, particularly Bomer and Graham, is a delight. "I'm laughing at all the shenanigans that they get up to on set all the time," he says.

Joking that he has to "pinch [Bomer] to keep myself from laughing" out loud at times, Lane admits that while they "rarely break" while filming in front of the live in-studio audience "there's so many times when I want to."

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Mid-Century Modern season 1 is now streaming on Hulu.

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