And they’re winning awards for playing them too.
JT: That feels crazy, because it seems like every aspiring actor I know is gay. I’m obviously biased and living in my own little universe, but I don’t think I know a single straight aspiring actor. I’m like, Okay, let me think of straight aspiring actors. There’s Brian, and, like…that’s it.” There are no straight aspiring actors. I don’t think they make them anymore.
As we’re discussing who gets to tell our stories, I want to talk about how each of you writes. What’s most important for you when you’re creating a queer character on the page?
JT: The main objective is to write characters whose one and only trait isn’t being queer through the lens of a straight audience. Not every one of these characters has to weep and come out of the closet. You can start in the middle! It doesn’t have to be this harrowing, complicated journey with pat-yourself-on-the-back writing.
LD: I’m very sick of that coming-out story being told. I’m sure it’s important to young queers, but let’s stop with that story already. If I am given a stand-up special on Netflix, I’m not going to tell my coming-out story. Why the fuck would I? I did that 35 fucking years ago.
JT: The character I play on Los Espookys is gay, but I think the word gay is uttered maybe once. He has a boyfriend he despises; a gay relationship can be every bit as toxic and horrible as a straight relationship. Also, it’s not a story about others learning how to accept my character’s queerness. It’s more about, “Ugh! Can he just break up with that horrible guy?” And not because he’s gay. It’s because he just sucks.
LD: That was one reason I loved playing Big Boo. Every butch I’ve ever seen on television is fat and ugly and drunk and beats up her girlfriend, all that kind of shit. And Boo is not only smart, she’s the smartest fucker in that prison. She had a soul and a heart.
I think there’s another layer in comedy, specifically. There’s a history of queer characters having their identity treated as the punchline itself.
JT: When I started in comedy, I truly wasn’t thinking about queerness so much as I was thinking about my immigration status. I wasn’t like, Oh, no, I’m gay! I was like, Oh, my God, I hope I get to stay in the States! But I feel like I got to focus on one thing over the other because I started comedy during a time when my queerness, thankfully, wasn’t seen as my defining trait. For the longest time, my queerness was just sort of implied — whether because of my preferences, the way I look, the way I talk, the way I think. But none of my comedy was directly about it.
I know that you came up in a queer comedy scene, Lea. What was it like to start out surrounded by people with similar life experiences and then launch into the mainstream, where your comedy is consumed by a much wider audience?
