00:00So, before Pose, you were being sort of passed over for part after part after part in Hollywood.
00:10Now, obviously, you had a theater, a thriving theater career before this.
00:14How close were you to actually throwing in the towel, and what made you keep going?
00:20You know, it's a double layer.
00:21The layer of actually being a person of color in this industry, and then the other layer of being a queen.
00:29Yep.
00:30Nobody can see you as anything else.
00:33If flamboyantly dot, dot, dot wasn't in the description of the character, no one would see me, ever, for anything.
00:41Which wouldn't be so enraging if it went the other direction, but it doesn't.
00:46Right.
00:47Because straight men playing gay, everybody wants to give them an award.
00:51Thank you for gracing us with your straight presence.
00:54So, that gets tiresome.
00:56Yep.
00:57So, here I sit, I can't get the gay parts.
00:59I can't get the straight parts.
01:00I can't get nothing.
01:02Yep.
01:03The last pilot season I went through, it was that over and over and over and over again.
01:07It was a couple years ago.
01:08And my sister calls me on the phone, and she catches me right after one of those, like, dismissive, you're too flamboyant calls.
01:17And I just, I just went in.
01:20I was just crying.
01:21I had to pull a car to the side of the road.
01:23I was like, I can't.
01:24I can't.
01:25Like, your body doesn't know that it's not real.
01:29The emotions, your body still goes through, you know, it's like, I can't keep putting myself into this position where I'm always begging the next day.
01:39Ring.
01:40Brian Murphy wants to see you for a show called Pose.
01:42It's set in the LGBTQ, Paris is Burning Paul culture.
01:47And I literally was like, okay, Lord.
01:52Or the universe, or whatever.
01:55Like, it just was like, you've got to be kidding me.
02:03When initially you were called for Pose.
02:05Yes.
02:06It's not the role that you ultimately play.
02:08No.
02:10That role was not a part of it.
02:11What did you see when you, when you walked in the door?
02:14What did you sort of know?
02:15And where did the confidence come to say, hey, wait a second.
02:18I think there's another role here.
02:19I did the audition and then I said to Alexa Fogle, okay, so can we talk?
02:25Because this is what's happening, right?
02:27I've lived it.
02:29You know, yes, whatever y'all want me to do, I'll be there for it.
02:33But like, what about one of the mothers of the houses of, or, you know, because there were male and female mothers.
02:40And she said, Ryan wants to go transgender.
02:42And it's like, the most brilliant idea ever.
02:46I had just directed a play.
02:48It was four transgender actresses of color in it.
02:51And I said, I've worked in that world.
02:53The talent is there.
02:55There's been no opportunity, though.
02:57Yeah.
02:57To sort of cut their teeth.
03:00So there's a lot, you know, so many of the actresses, actors and actresses are really green.
03:05And you're going to like need somebody over there to be daddy, right?
03:09And I'm here.
03:10You know, daddy's right here.
03:13So I got a call a couple of weeks later.
03:17Ryan thinks you're right.
03:19If you can come in and do an impersonation of the emcee from Paris is Burning, he will develop something for you.
03:26And I thought, if I can do.
03:30It's like the whole world has been doing an impersonation of these people from this movie, not even knowing that they were doing impersonations of these people.
03:39In terms of your preparation processes, what are your sort of go-to tricks, the things you sort of need to do to get into a role?
03:53For me, it's usually one garment.
03:55Uh-huh.
03:56Or even the way you wear one garment.
03:58For this Jeremy Thorpe thing, he was famous for wearing these hats.
04:02And I was standing there at Manz's costume place in London for days and days thinking, what the fuck is wrong here?
04:07And I'm dressed just like Jeremy Thorpe.
04:09I'm wearing the same hat.
04:10I can't get it right.
04:10I can't see him.
04:11I can't see him.
04:12And then one of the guys there said, just tilt it back two inches.
04:16Bingo.
04:16There it was.
04:17That was me.
04:17Yeah.
04:18And then everything started to fall into place.
04:20I took the hat home.
04:21And when I was sort of studying the part to wear it, I could see him, feel him.
04:25It's weird.
04:26I'm very much like that, too.
04:27It's a costume.
04:28You know, it's very much about the silhouette.
04:31It's very much about what would this person, you know, that's a lot of it.
04:36Which is not what we're supposed to do.
04:37We're supposed to work from the inside out.
04:38I work from the outside.
04:39We work from the inside out, too.
04:41But that's the moment, that final moment when you actually get those clothes.
04:45All that inside interior work is the foundation.
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