Jinkx Monsoon on trans visibility, Patti LaBelle's Virgo vitality, and dangerous lip studying

On her first night playing Audrey in Off Broadway’s Little Shop of Horrors, Jinkx Monsoon stopped traffic. “I’ve been rehearsing this for weeks now,” she tells Mashable over Zoom, but “I still forget that there’s moving set pieces and it’s tight quarters backstage.” The most challenging choreography, it turns out, happens behind the curtain. “If I’m not out of the way,” the two-time RuPaul’s Drag Race winner adds with a charming cackle, “I actually could cause huge traffic jams.”

For Monsoon, cramped corridors compound the charm of performing Off Broadway. “It has just enough of that DIY, get-your-hands-dirty experience that you feel like, ‘Yeah, I’m a real New Yawk actuh here,'” she laughs. This particular production of Little Shop of Horrors has seen more than half a dozen Audreys since it opened in 2019, from Constance Wu to Evan Rachel Wood. Monsoon is the first trans woman to take on the role, and she’s doing it opposite another icon of the silver screen: High School Musical star Corbin Bleu.

A few days after her debut as Audrey, Monsoon sat down with Mashable to share the YouTube videos she’s been watching during rehearsals and unpack her identity and ideals in the process.

Jinkx Monsoon: I love Corbin Bleu. I was not expecting for him and me to be the same person offstage. We have such a parallel story about wanting to be performers pretty much our whole lives, but really wanting to do what we’re doing right now. This is where we feel alive. It’s a lot of fun because you don’t feel like such a dork for caring so much. In theater, almost everyone’s a huge dork. It’s like being queer and finding your tribe.

When High School Musical happened, I gotta say, I had a huge crush on him. Because I love guys with big hair. I just do. Meeting him in person, he is such a dreamboat. He is such a charming, delightful person. Both he and (co-star James Carpinello) treat me like a princess. Here I am at the beginning of my medical transition, playing a female-assigned, female-intended character. And I’ve got these two straight guys on either side of me, treating me like a fucking queen.

This video is something I’ve seen before, and that I had to go back to (while) working with Corbin. I freaking love the concept of bad lip reading. It’s hilarious to me. My two favorites are the Twilight compilations and Beyoncé singing the national anthem.

I try not to bring up High School Musical because I figure that’s (Corbin’s) whole life. He and his wife are Drag Race fans. We had dinner the other night and did our compulsory gushing over each other. And that’s how I learned that he and his wife and me and my buddies, we are all just gamer dorks who like cartoons. I play Overwatch constantly. I’m a PS5 fantasy RPG girl.

I started drag because I wanted to play roles like this… to play all the characters that I didn’t get cast in… to get that fantasy fulfilled for myself. Now I get to play these characters. And I just didn’t see it being a possibility in my lifetime, which is why I so fervently fight for the trans and queer community these days. I’m fighting for myself. I don’t want to lose this… to lose the progress we’ve made. And I don’t feel like we will. I have so much hope. But that doesn’t mean I’m not filled with white-hot rage at almost all times.

I started drag because I wanted to play roles like this… to play all the characters that I didn’t get cast in… to get that fantasy fulfilled for myself. Now I get to play these characters.

When I meet people at the stage door… young trans (people say that) seeing me on stage makes it feel more possible for them to one day be on that stage, playing the roles that they know that they are meant to play, not the roles that society told them to play because of what’s between their legs. I think the most important thing (about being cast) is that it shows producers that this can work and not to be afraid of gender-blind casting. It’s cool to see a show like Little Shop that is so beloved, so ingrained in Americana, be reinterpreted with Seymour as a mixed-race person and Audrey played by a trans performer. Until there’s true equity of roles, we’ve got to be open-minded to seeing characters reinterpreted by many different people.

I seriously watch this clip almost daily because it makes me feel so much better. I have been in those nightmare performances, where everything’s going wrong. I really relate to her inability to let it go. I don’t know if she’s a Virgo, but if you told me she was a Virgo, I would not be surprised. I see a performer who loves performing, who loves doing what they do, and everything’s going wrong. And she cannot accept it. She keeps trying to fix it in the moment. 

Mashable: Are you a Virgo?

I am. The big thing is having people you trust to delegate things to who are really good at their jobs. And I’m lucky that I’m surrounded by a great team. And I work with wonderful collaborators. What I love to do these days is be really clear about what my job is that day. Then my brain tunes out everything else, and I just let everyone else do their job. And if my job is to be a perfectionist, micromanaging control freak, I’ll do that. But if my job is to be a pretty model that day, and I see something that’s not happening the way I would do it, I try to let people just do their job. Because to micromanage is to tell a person you don’t trust them. But I will, occasionally, when it is important enough to me, ask a person if they would like my opinion.

I say, “Would you like my input on this? Are you feeling really good about how it’s going?” I know that sounds loaded but most people can hear it for what it’s worth. What I like to say to other drag queens after they perform is — it’s a joke, of course, I’m being a bitch — “Are you at a place where you could receive notes?”

Has anyone ever said “yes?”

Usually, they just say “fuck you.” But that’s why you do it. You gotta keep drag queens’ (feet) on the ground.

(Auntie Mame) was a book and then the book became the movie Auntie Mame. Then someone had an idea to write the musical, (Mame). I watched the original movie with my assistant. He is not that much younger than me, but we have an Auntie Mame / Patrick vibe, where it’s very much like I kind of picked him up out of his life and started making him tour with me and showed him all the wonders the world has to offer, and I very much believe that if he ever has a kid that I’ll get to spend summers with him (laughs).

There was a time when I thought I was gonna raise my own children. That thought is kind of waning these days. But I know I can be a great “Auntie Mame” to my niece, Chloe, and any other children my siblings have. I was pretty much raised by my Aunt Mimi, and I know that special relationship between aunt and uncle and their siblings’ kids because you’re a little bit removed. You’re not the disciplinarian. You just get to be the person who fills them with knowledge and gives them gifts. And that’s a really privileged position.

My niece is just so freakin’ cool. Not an ounce of prejudice in that perfect being. I explained gender nonbinary pronouns to this kid at seven, and then they turned around and explained it to other people. Like, that’s what kids kids are. I mean, I’m sure that sounds like grooming. But kids do not come pre-dispositioned to hate people. My niece meets everyone with the same open heart and the same open mind, and it is what gives me hope.

Isn’t it messed up that you think some people might think about that as grooming? 

Exactly. And that’s what fills me with rage the most is how much I now distrust myself, or distrust my own actions or how they will be perceived. I think it’s a beautiful thing that my niece had no trouble understanding that some people don’t identify with the binary. But I think about you printing that and someone thinking like, “Wow, you really brainwashed your niece at an early age.” Whereas I feel like prejudice is the brainwashing. That’s conditioning a child to hate someone before they’ve even met them. Any way you teach a child love and open-mindedness and open-heartedness… that can’t be bad, right?

We’re just at a time where, if you’re queer, you’re scared to be part of that. I’m candid for a reason. I want people to know that this is what’s going through my brain. I want people to know that queer people are thinking this way. Because J.K. Rowling is out there saying that every trans person is a predator… politicians are continually lying to the public. And that is why queer people are now second guessing their own nature. That’s the effect it has.

I do not wish to presume what was happening with Liz Taylor this night time. You can put two and two collectively. It looks like she had a pair. I’ve zero judgment as a result of I am a recovering alcoholic myself. However to have captured this second in time, the place Liz Taylor virtually ruined the tip of the Golden Globes is simply hilarious. She performs it off like such a queen, like such royalty. She makes a joke. She’s charming and effervescent the entire time. After which she steals Dick Clark’s ultimate line.

I simply relate to it. I have been on stage and realized I used to be too drunk to be on stage and tried my greatest to maintain issues charming and effervescent. I don’t suggest it. However some folks want a shot of liquid braveness to get on stage. Once more, I don’t decide. I feel whenever you’re mixing alcohol and efficiency, you are strolling a slippery tightrope.

With the darker issues in life, when you may get to a spot the place you may snicker at it and poke enjoyable at your self about it, it is a greater place to be as a result of there’s loads of guilt and disgrace that comes with alcoholism. And I am not saying do not study out of your errors however, when you may, snicker at it somewhat bit. I simply can really feel that clip. I bear in mind residing that.

Your ultimate video is from The Carol Burnett Present, and it is really a part of a playlist of skits between the identical two characters.

I despatched you the playlist as a result of I not too long ago watched this complete factor once I was recovering from my facial feminization surgical procedure. I really like the present Mama’s Household, which is a spin off of The Carol Burnett Present. Betty White and Rue McClanahan have been visitor stars on Mama’s Household proper earlier than they received supplied Golden Ladies. That is a enjoyable little reality.

The Carol Burnett Present (was broadcast) within the ’70s. There are moments that don’t maintain up, that do not age effectively. Nonetheless, the ladies on the present are spectacular. Carol Burnett and Vicki Lawrence can do something. Carol Burnett performed the character of Eunice who is that this dejected black sheep of her household and always stricken by her overcritical, grouchy mom performed by Vicki Lawrence. The rationale why I sat and binge-watched all these sketches is as a result of I spotted it was my household. If anybody desires to know what it was like rising up in my (organic) household, they want solely watch Mama and Eunice.

In the identical manner that these sketches do not maintain up, some elements of Auntie Mame do not both.

What sucks about Auntie Mame is that she’s this character who is a great individual and even she’s not immune from informal racism. Being somebody who loves Previous Hollywood and who loves this “yesteryear” aesthetic, and (you are) always being like, “Oh, my god, I forgot about this half.” However I do not assume we must always overlook that. It isn’t making an excuse, it is saying, “This existed in our historical past.”

We want to have the ability to have a look at the previous and have historical past of the nice and dangerous to study from it. And that is why banning books (and) destroying tradition will not be good for tradition. Cancel tradition is dangerous for tradition. I really consider that we, because the group consuming leisure, resolve what we wish to devour. However to attempt to erase its existence is like saying it by no means occurred. And we have to bear in mind it occurred. We have to educate ourselves to ensure it would not occur (once more). Consciousness would not shift with out this trial and error.

I am actually prepared to speak about what’s mistaken with the world from the place I see it. I am actually able to get all fired up on these points. However I hope that you just hear how a lot hope I’ve. I see youthful folks seeing by way of the lies that we’re informed about our gender, about our race, about our limitations. I used to be actually a product of this technique till I began to see how corrupt it was. We have realized a lot within the final 5 years that we won’t return. The younger folks of our technology are those who’re going to say, “We’re so achieved with this.” We can’t know till we’re there. So all we will do is preserve combating till we now have to plot a brand new course.