RuPaul, Michael Patrick King Tease 22 'Drag Race' Cameos  in 'AJ and the Queen' | In Studio - video Dailymotion

Hollywood Journal

"For this first season, we picked these 22 because of the rural locations where they were, like who's Pittsburgh? Who's Louisville?" co-creator Michael Patrick King teased.

Transcript

00:00I'm Michael Patrick King.

00:02And I am RuPaul Charles, and we are in studio with The Hollywood Reporter.

00:12We're here to talk about AJ and the Queen.

00:14We'd like to go anywhere and talk about AJ and the Queen.

00:16We're so in love with them.

00:18Yes, and, you know, I thought it might be appropriate to discuss why Netflix,

00:23why did AJ and the Queen land at Netflix?

00:25It seems like the obvious choice.

00:27This is where people watch programming, so, you know, Netflix.

00:32And we did go out to other places.

00:34We had a lot of bites, but the idea, the thrilling idea of being for sure doing 10 episodes

00:43and on a platform that has more of an expansive idea of it can be something creative

00:50and something not defined by one element and also the length, it was important.

00:55We love the idea that you could click on Netflix and see our 10 episodes named after each of the city

01:02that the characters travel to.

01:03It just seemed like, oh, yeah, that's right, New York, Cleveland, Dallas.

01:08Yeah, and it is a bingeable program.

01:11So bingeable, and the way it was crafted was with that in mind, too,

01:17because, you know, the things that I go back to, like, you know, The Wizard of Oz or Grease

01:22or, you know, I just watched Soap Edition again.

01:26Oh, yeah, fantastic.

01:26You know, where it has these sort of tentpole arcs, these happenings that you think,

01:31you know what, I have 10 minutes, I can watch that much, or I have an hour, or, you know.

01:36So that's, the show is crafted for people who watch their television in big chunks or little increments.

01:44Right, and each episode has a journey on a bigger journey,

01:47but the fun thing about Roos' kind of taste and when we were creating it together was, like,

01:53we'll do the musical numbers, and then after the people see the narrative,

01:56they can come back to episode three and see Tina Turner.

01:59Right.

01:59Because I do a Tina Turner number in there, too.

02:01Yeah, not that she's in the show.

02:03Yeah.

02:04Well, she is.

02:05She is.

02:06But the idea that it's all there at once, and you can go back at your own pace

02:12and enjoy to get in your couch in January and New Year

02:17and just sit back and go across the country with AJ and the Queen.

02:20Yeah, one of the things, if you're a fan of RuPaul, there's a performance in every single episode.

02:26Sometimes two.

02:26Yeah.

02:27And we have, I've lost count of how many of the girls from Drag Race are in the show.

02:3222.

02:33I heard 22.

02:3322.

02:34Okay.

02:34Yes, I read that, too.

02:3522, and there could have been 42, because they're all amazing.

02:38And for this first trip, this first season, we picked these 22 kind of because of the

02:45rural locations where they were, like, oh, who's Pittsburgh?

02:48Who's Louisville?

02:49Oh, that's so funny.

02:49But the other thing, too, about, for RuPaul fans, you said he gets to perform,

02:55but he gets to lip sync, which is, even for RuPaul fans, is a rare treat,

02:59because Ru hasn't really done it up in terms of laying it all out there in terms of singing

03:06and dancing, and he does in every episode.

03:08And you also do celebrity impersonations.

03:10Is that something you've ever done before?

03:12I have done terribly.

03:13In the past?

03:14In the past, I've done terribly, you know.

03:16Oh, he does an amazing Diana.

03:19You do.

03:20I do a Diana.

03:20And that is not terrible.

03:21I do Diana.

03:23I do a few others.

03:24I do Olivia Newton-John.

03:27Yes.

03:27And I think, do I do Cher?

03:28That's the easy one to think about.

03:30That's the easy one.

03:30Do I do Cher?

03:31You do a little bite of Cher?

03:33Yeah.

03:34And, actually, I do this Jamaican character where I had to have one of the other actors

03:38on the set help me with a Jamaican act.

03:42Yeah.

03:42And that's full-on Carol Burnett.

03:45Yeah.

03:46I mean, Ru is playing a character that he did from a one-woman show called Jamaica Me Crazy.

03:51But that's a treat, too, because that's clearly just comedy.

03:58Yeah.

03:58That's Ru not even singing and dancing.

04:00It's like, oh, look, there's Ru as a Jamaican nurse.

04:03Yeah.

04:03A 7'5 Jamaican nurse that people just see it or accept.

04:08So we've talked a little bit about the fantastical musical numbers in the show.

04:13But, you know, you created this, you wrote it, you produced it.

04:19It's very personal to you.

04:21So are any of these events that happen throughout the show based on any real-life events?

04:26Well, you know, together, we put the show together with gathering all of the humanity

04:32we've gathered in our combined lives.

04:34Right.

04:34And it shows there.

04:37It's so heartfelt.

04:39It's so funny and moving and fun.

04:43Musical numbers, tears.

04:45And it's a snapshot of America today and the America that we grew to love and that we are

04:54trying, want to get back to, you know.

04:57It feels like America's gone a little bit off the rails.

05:00And this show is a love letter, sort of an alignment, a realignment for America.

05:07Michael, you're the creator of The Comeback.

05:09Yeah.

05:09I assume that's a big reason why you two decided to work together, being that Ruby is such a

05:16huge fan of the show.

05:18How does Ruby Red and Valerie compare as characters?

05:22Well, you know, it's interesting you say that.

05:24They both have red hair.

05:25Well, they both have red hair, but there is a certain gullibility that both characters

05:29have and that are an openness and a sort of a protective layer, too, that both characters

05:38have.

05:39And an optimism.

05:40They're both very optimistic, even in light of some really horrific situations.

05:46Because Valerie Cherish has to witness some real horrors of Hollywood.

05:52I mean, when Lisa and I created Valerie, Lisa Kudrow and I did it together, one of the things

05:57that we thought was so harrowing about her is how obsessed she was with getting show business

06:03right.

06:03And I think the difference between Valerie and Robert, which is Rue's character, is that

06:09he's obsessed with getting life right.

06:12He wants to align correctly to have a healthy spirit and soul.

06:18And Valerie, the horror of her was that she was misaligned and all she wanted to do was

06:23be in the spotlight.

06:24And Michael, as a writer of Sex and the City, would Rue be considered a Carrie, a Miranda?

06:33What do you think?

06:33Okay.

06:34RuPaul would be RuPaul.

06:37There would be Carrie, Miranda, Samantha, Charlotte, and RuPaul.

06:41Would Robert Ruby be one of those characters?

06:45I think Rue is undefinable as any, you can't link him to anything, but the character of Robert

06:51would probably be a really interesting Charlotte.

06:56Charlotte, a romantic, but also with a little bit of a Miranda smarts.

07:02And then Ruby, of course, is Samantha and Carrie.

07:04Yeah.

07:05She's stylish.

07:06She knows things.

07:07She's impulsive.

07:08She's the artist.

07:09She's ahead of the curve.

07:10And she's fierce.

07:11So, Ruby and Robert get to really instill some life lessons on AJ.

07:19Can you tell me a little bit about your bonding experience with the actress that plays AJ?

07:25Well, we spent side by side, six months, side by side, every day, holding hands.

07:31I'm listening to her say, Ru, hold your hands up.

07:34Or, you know, telling stories and, you know, side by side.

07:38So, once we finished filming, I could still feel her presence next to me.

07:44And I still do to this day.

07:46And I've used this many years of therapy.

07:49I've used that feeling, that essence, to be able to reparent my own 10-year-old, the one

07:55that lives inside of me, who acts up and does all these other things.

07:58So, it's been this brilliant gift on so many different levels.

08:03But, for me, whenever I feel, you know, not so star-like, I imagine my 10-year-old.

08:12And I can feel my 10-year-old standing here.

08:15And I think, well, oh, you know what?

08:17Hey, you want to go for some yogurt?

08:19I'm going to take you for some frozen yogurt.

08:20Or, you know what I want to do?

08:23I'm going to take you on the Staten Island Ferry right now.

08:25It's free.

08:25You get to see the Empire, you get to see the Statue of Liberty.

08:31So, I think of myself taking care of this 10-year-old.

08:35So, not only do I have a new friend in Izzy G for life, but I also have sort of a touchstone

08:43for my own 10-year-old.

08:45It also, seeing them together was special because they were both so different.

08:50But they both were starting a new thing together.

08:53Rue is going to a level of acting that he hadn't yet exposed.

08:57And she was doing it for the first time.

08:59And the other interesting thing about it was, you know, show business and making things can

09:04be very intense.

09:05And Izzy was a great antidote to the intensity.

09:10Because she's 10.

09:11And she's pretending.

09:14And no matter how late the show is going, she's still like, hi.

09:19And you just, it's like, oh yeah, it's pretending.

09:23And there's a person there that doesn't have a, isn't covered in any sort of armor yet.

09:28So, we constantly had to appreciate the fact that she's like a, she's like a mood, a bad

09:35mood breaker.

09:36All of a sudden, it's just like, oh yeah, Izzy.

09:39There's a kid here and we're playing.

09:41We're playing.

09:42Yes.

09:42As adult men, we're pretending.

09:44And she's a 10-year-old pretending.

09:47Rue, how did it feel to dive into the more dramatic moments?

09:52Because there's some moments of darkness on this show.

09:55And, you know, what was that like kind of going through that process?

10:00Well, you know, I've said this many times, you know, I'm Scorpio, I'm controlling, I like

10:06to control the things around me.

10:07And I knew that I was in a place where I could let that go on Michael's set because he gives

10:15permission for everyone to just let it out, just get it out and to, I felt safe with him.

10:23You know, you mentioned the comeback.

10:25I did a scene in the comeback and he did this small adjustment for me.

10:31And in that moment, I knew I could trust him.

10:35I knew that I could trust him with my emotions.

10:36We wrote the show together.

10:38So by the time we got to the set, we both had created this thing we tried to make come

10:43to life.

10:43So it was a dream.

10:45But yeah, it was something.

10:47And to see him do that emotionally, to see him open up like that.

10:52And when he saw the first episode cut together, when I showed him the very first rough cut

10:56for his reaction, he said, wow, I thought this was going to be the show where I revealed

11:02myself to the world.

11:03And it turns out it's the show where I revealed myself to myself.

11:06So it was naked.

11:08I mean, he has freckles.

11:09And it was, he was very emotionally there.

11:13And it was thrilling.

11:14Oh, wonderful.

11:16Well, last question to you.

11:18Can you tell us one performance to watch out for or one moment of the show?

11:24Maybe your favorite, something you're looking forward to the audience seeing.

11:28Without giving away too much, just tease it out.

11:30There's so many.

11:32Like I said, do a number in every show, sometimes two.

11:35There's so many.

11:37I think my favorite, though, is probably the Tina Turner, maybe.

11:42Because we go from, it's a fight.

11:46It's literally almost a fist fight to running on stage.

11:50Two drag queens both doing Tina Turner together.

11:53And one is seven foot five in black and one is short in white.

11:57So it's full on.

11:59You know, when we created the show, we wanted to be like big laughs sometimes.

12:02And there's a lot of great numbers.

12:05I mean, that's a high point.

12:07And I think there's another surprise to our show, which is there are very small moments

12:11between AJ and Robert that have giant emotional high points for me.

12:18So simple.

12:20Just two beings connecting and looking at each other is a giant emotional spike.

12:26And if we can get those to go with the giant music and comedy spikes,

12:31to me, that's what we tried to do.

12:33We tried to show big emotions when it leads to comedy

12:37and big emotions when it leads to maybe reality.

12:41Well, congratulations on a wonderful first season.

12:45You can see AJ and the Queen on Netflix.

RuPaul, Michael Patrick King Tease 22 'Drag Race' Cameos in 'AJ and the Queen' | In Studio

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