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Jinkx Monsoon · It's Open with Ilana Glazer

• 0:00
  Welcome to It's Open with Ilana Glazer. I am so just, I'm glowing from the episode we just recorded.
• 0:08
  So today's incredibly special guest is an award-winning actress, comedian, and two time RuPaul's Drag Race winner, the only one of her kind at this point.
• 0:18
  She's a genuine Broadway star with critically acclaimed performances as Mama Morton in Chicago, and most recently as Mary Todd Lincoln in the Tony winning phenomenon Oh, Mary! where she sold out her entire run and they asked her back and it's about to close February 1st, so you get your ass there if you've missed it.
• 0:39
  She also appeared as the villain in Maestro in Dr. Who and continues to tour with the beloved Jinkx and de Holiday show, and next will play her first dramatic role as Judy Garland in a special London revival of the Play End of the Rainbow.
• 0:54
  Oh my God. She brings brilliance, intellect, humor, and heart to every stage she steps on.
• 1:02
  Please welcome the queen of all queens to it's open, Jinkx Monsoon.
• 1:14
  Thank you for having me, Ilana. I have to get this out of the way.
• 1:19
  I've seen every episode of Broad City as I've told you a couple of times, but imagine my shock and surprise when y'all end up at a drag brunch with Alan Cumming and the poster is a picture of me. I was like, so of course I got to tell everyone I'm in an episode of Process.
• 1:46
  You really changed a lot of people's, just everything with that show.
• 1:52
  It's like such a common language between me and so many people because it's such a unique thing.
• 1:57
  How do you feel about that show?
• 2:02
  Pretty good.
• 2:05
  I feel so it's just like I'm so proud of it and I get so emotional and it's common language is such a great way of putting it.
• 2:14
  I feel the same way as almost a consumer of it, although I haven't watched it since it aired, and I don't think Abby has either.
• 2:23
  I can never, I watch everything once.
• 2:25
  Same.
• 2:25
  And then I put it away and then it's for everyone else.
• 2:29
  But it's in my DNA in that common language sense and well, it just feels like a continual miracle to meet people like you who I respect and admire and get so much from in my own life force.
• 2:50
  And then for you to say that it gave you life force, it's this human miracle.
• 2:55
  It's this human magic miracle that keeps feeding itself.
• 2:59
  So it feels like a continual miracle because I don't know, we're the exact same age. Did you always want to be a performer? Yes.
• 3:08
  Did you just always know?
• 3:09
  Always.
• 3:10
  Right.
• 3:10
  And so you grow up and you're absorbing the things you watch because in the back of your head you're thinking One day I'm going to do that, and you're telling yourself maybe it won't happen, but it's going to happen, right? There's like a renaissance of funny people right now in our age group, and we're getting welcomed in by the generation before us and every day it blows my mind.
• 3:36
  I'm friends with Hari Neff, who's another trans actress, and I told her that seeing her succeed as a trans woman and an actress made me feel like I think I'm ready to transition because I was always so scared that I'd have to decide between being a trans woman or an actor, and I couldn't give up my life as an actor, and I didn't know what my life as an actor would be like if I transition.
• 4:08
  And she showed me a path of it can be everything you want.
• 4:12
  And then I got to say this to her. Then she tells me, watching me when she was in college was one of the things that inspired her to come out as non-binary, which led to her whole gender journey.
• 4:28
  It's like we had these effects on each other with no idea that we're doing it.
• 4:33
  And the chance to get to say it face to face is such a miracle of life.
• 4:39
  Miracle of life, reason to live and leave in this world.
• 4:45
  Yeah, absolutely. We need those fucking reasons. And jinx, when you showed up on Drag Race, it was so, you're so potent and you broke through as an incredible performer, but as a really incisively smart person, incisively, I.
• 5:06
  May I go on? Yeah. Yeah. I just don't think of myself as a smart person, but go for it. Yeah.
• 5:12
  The precision with which you could make fun of a situation was turning it around in such a way that invited people to not be alone in that situation.
• 5:21
  One of my favorite theater teachers talked about this, that reflex and it's childhood trauma.
• 5:28
  It's like it's just the reflex of tension in the room.
• 5:33
  I know what to do, tension in the room, make a joke about it.
• 5:38
  What's the one thing no one wants to talk about?
• 5:41
  I'll talk about it and then we'll all laugh it off.
• 5:43
  And then I grew up in a very, very loving environment and also very volatile and very unpredictable, and I grew up around a lot of addiction.
• 5:57
  And so I just feel like I was always able to see what was going on around me and always really like, okay, I'm going to have to be the one to fix it if I don't, who else is paying as much attention as me?
• 6:11
  So.
• 6:12
  I don't know, maybe it's the A DHD.
• 6:16
  Probably part of your superpower. Yeah, that makes sense then why you are sober.
• 6:23
  Yeah. I went through, I mean, I still smoke weed like a chimney, but I'm sober from alcohol because first straight edge, all through high school, all through college that I was straight edge.
• 6:36
  Too.
• 6:37
  In.
• 6:37
  High school and was in a club for it.
• 6:40
  It wasn't until after college I started working in nightlife and I started dabbling with having a shop before the show and ooh, I feel even less. And then convincing myself that's part of.
• 6:55
  Being.
• 6:56
  A nightclub. Before I was very much Abby at the Val about town as a town about that's so I loved being that person, and I worked in piano bars, so I thought it was all part of it, but then it's like when I wanted to take that step into serious action, you've done Broadway eight shows a week, there's no time to be an alcoholic.
• 7:24
  No. It's like exhausting. And at a certain age, alcoholic just, it's diminishing returns. It takes so much more than it gives back.
• 7:32
  I remember that too in my early days of comedy drinking and being just loosening up and it's like, yeah, this is making the performance worse.
• 7:41
  Yeah.
• 7:42
  RuPaul said it to me that we develop the addiction because it does work at some point, and then we start relying on it, and then it stops being the thing that helped and starts being something we need. And then it's like, look at what you're objectively saying.
• 8:05
  You need to get drunk at work.
• 8:07
  To.
• 8:07
  Be able to do your job.
• 8:07
  Let's question that.
• 8:11
  The drugs that he used to do and the amount are incredible club pyramid.
• 8:16
  It just sounds like everyone was just walking around. No.
• 8:20
  Kidding. But there's something so quaint about it too back then.
• 8:25
  That's so sweet. Nobody's capturing it on a phone.
• 8:28
  And it's not to prove something.
• 8:28
  There's just something actually, I don't know pure about it in my mind.
• 8:33
  So I'm thinking about right now, more people are saying yes and feeling spontaneous right now because what have I got to lose?
• 8:44
  And I have to think about queer people.
• 8:48
  When we lived in the shadows, when we lived fully on the margins, when we could only meet in underground CD places. It was like, why not just get fucked up and have fun?
• 9:01
  They've already condemned us to hell. Why not make hell a fun place?
• 9:07
  And I kind of feel like the numbers are growing of people who are being condemned to hell and trying to make the most of it right now.
• 9:15
  It's not just queer people anymore. That's right.
• 9:17
  And it never was just queer people, but it's like through the years and some of it's drag race, straight people have started embracing the queer lifestyle like, oh, that's just smart. It's just human.
• 9:33
  That's just the better way to do things.
• 9:35
  Sometimes in some cases it's just more human.
• 9:39
  And the heteronormative narrative is just more restrictive on anybody's humanity. Whereas the queer lifestyle, if you're not subject to the script and handed this fucking script to read, then you actually are free to write your own, which every single person wants to do.
• 9:56
  And the gender stuff too, it's like, it's just as well, heteronormative includes typical feminine masculine dynamics and all the stuff that we fought hard to get rid of and then now are just like we fought hard to get rid of it.
• 10:16
  So we could still acknowledge it constantly and say it's a choice. Now.
• 10:21
  I've talked about this with Gen Z, I'm thinking about a Gen Z straight dude who I really love and respect, and he was talking about the left over articulating identity like you're saying.
• 10:36
  And.
• 10:36
  I'm like, I totally get what you're saying, and it is annoying or whatever, and Democrats will use it to their advantage and then avoid it when it's not convenient for them. But when people call your identity, name your identity, but use it as a slur, then you have to claim it and name it, Jew queer, black Mexican. Well, if you're saying it as a slur, I have to say it proudly so that you know it's not your slur.
• 11:07
  Absolutely.
• 11:07
  But it's fucking annoying. We're backed into a corner. Nobody wants to be like, I'm a neurodivergent Jewish.
• 11:16
  Nobody wants to do this, but we're forced to.
• 11:18
  And what you're pointing out though is that there's another fucking way. Well.
• 11:22
  I believe, and I think we all can see how it happens, but the pendulum swings.
• 11:31
  And so we have to go to each extreme to find where we land.
• 11:37
  And I hate that part of the progress is going to the horrible extreme.
• 11:43
  I feel like we're at this big moment of that pendulum is swinging full direction in that way so that everyone can see this is not what you want. This is what you have been told you want.
• 11:57
  Let's live in it for a while and see how much we want this.
• 12:01
  And I think people are realizing quickly they don't actually want that. That's.
• 12:05
  Right. That's right. And it dehumanizes everybody dehumanizing.
• 12:08
  One group dehumanizes everybody. And it's so crazy.
• 12:13
  I don't know where people's fucking empathy has gone.
• 12:15
  And when you were saying that the older generation is accepting us and we 38 year olds are finding our voice in the cultural landscape, it's also because we are adults and finally able to claim being adults.
• 12:33
  And we're so therapy that we've been talking about our flaws and acknowledging them. There's just been this fake script for so long, even the addiction narrative of being this secret addict and then breaking down and it's like I've ruined everything and then cleaning up completely. I feel like our generation, the lines are softer about it. We don't have to pendulum swing so hard.
• 13:00
  I mean, we grew up watching that narrative over and over and over.
• 13:05
  We grew up with Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton and anyone else, Brittany Spears, and we were force fed that narrative.
• 13:15
  And the way to do it correctly, if you end up doing it, I don't know.
• 13:20
  I like having the idea of wanting to be a public personality.
• 13:27
  I'm constantly shaping who that person is going to be in my head.
• 13:32
  And I didn't predict addict as part of it. I wanted that not to be a part of it, but it worked its way in there.
• 13:41
  But the more I talk openly about who I am, the more people come to me because I talked openly about that.
• 13:52
  I thought talking about witchcraft and being a practicing witch would be one step too far, like TMI or who's going to want to hear about this kind of stuff?
• 14:00
  Or they're going to think I sound like a lunatic.
• 14:04
  And now witches come to Broadway shows and say, blessed Bee, and thank you for talking about we're out there.
• 14:12
  And even your episode of The Witches out there, it was like, I'm like, I'm not alone in this.
• 14:19
  Witches.
• 14:20
  Have always existed. Why the fuck we pretending we don't? Right?
• 14:24
  You're making me, it's lighting up my witches, my daughter.
• 14:28
  We play witches all the time and we collect sticks and it's just like, and I have this character where I'm a witch and I love it, and she loves it.
• 14:37
  We just like, damn, damn.
• 14:40
  And I've also been praying more a lot more lately, but I'm also starting to hear what you're saying about a witchcraft.
• 14:48
  Yeah. Well, I was raised loosely Catholic.
• 14:55
  We found out we had Jewish heritage at one point.
• 14:58
  I explored that and then I was kind of like, I don't think I believe in any religion.
• 15:03
  And pretty early on in my adulthood, I was the kind of person who just in case I'm still going to do all the Catholic stuff or whatever, I've learned just at some point I became disinterested with organized religion and very interested in the idea of witchcraft.
• 15:24
  You form a coven, but it's also like you are your own temple.
• 15:28
  You're your own priest.
• 15:28
  You carve your own path.
• 15:33
  Every witch finds her own skills and traits and the things she focuses on. It's like drag honestly.
• 15:40
  It's like you've got your green witches and your kitchen witches and your death witches and divination, witches and it's just like comedy. Ballroom fuck. Fashion is hitting me. Go on. This.
• 15:54
  Is hitting me.
• 15:55
  Yeah, I love it. I don't know. It's always made me, and now that I learn the history of witches and different cultures, it's just like being an actor.
• 16:07
  It feels like plugging into something that's existed for a long time before me, and I'm just getting to lay my bricks down in it. It feels.
• 16:16
  Simultaneously.
• 16:17
  Like a cosmic calling.
• 16:19
  And it's humbling because it reminds you that you're part of something bigger.
• 16:22
  You're part of a tapestry.
• 16:27
  Like, okay, fuck, this is just resonating within me so hard.
• 16:31
  And you could still be a practicing whatever.
• 16:34
  And a witch.
• 16:35
  And also, I did a comedy show last night.
• 16:38
  It was so bad the night before. I did two shows. They were so good.
• 16:42
  And I mean at both shows, honestly, I'm like, this is my faith house.
• 16:47
  You know what I mean? This is where I meet with my community, talk, reach out to the wider community, but meet with my coven, connect to the community.
• 16:57
  And then also my Judaism has fluctuated and also groan in the last as I've become an adult. And since COVID too, I've needed it.
• 17:05
  But I don't know just what you're painting for me today.
• 17:08
  I think I might be ready to enter my witch era.
• 17:11
  Well, I really think I don't fuck, I'm disinterested with organized religion for a bevy of reasons, but I'm not disinterested with us having faith and I That's right, you too.
• 17:23
  Like you said, I like to find out the logical logic behind everything.
• 17:29
  I like to figure out the logic of why something works and then forget it and just make the choice that no it, it's the crystal.
• 17:38
  I know it's this big metaphysical blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 17:41
  And the crystals triggering my brain to trigger this part of my body to trigger this or this chemical release of blah, blah, blah.
• 17:50
  But I just make the more fun choice and it's made life that much more fun.
• 17:56
  And I think this is also, this is just something about that's hitting me about millennials.
• 18:01
  Millennials choosing and claiming our faith is something that has been feeling so adult in the last few years.
• 18:08
  And I do think it's been like COVID these life or death fucking times that I've just been hearing about it more.
• 18:14
  And also Rami and his show comes up really seeing a Muslim American millennial American claim. His religion and broad city mean we were so Jewish and.
• 18:28
  Very Jewish.
• 18:30
  And also, I don't know, seeing millennials who are Christian but not white nationalist Christians, but truly Christians.
• 18:38
  It's.
• 18:38
  Been so inspiring.
• 18:40
  I have no problem with people who practice Christianity.
• 18:45
  I've known Christians my whole life, but now they've colored this word.
• 18:53
  And that's the whole thing about organized religion.
• 18:56
  It's like whenever the person at the top decides something, then that religion becomes that.
• 19:01
  And who would want to let someone completely remove from their life, tell them that now because the smoke went this way, we all believe this.
• 19:14
  And you're like, but I've believed this my whole life because it aligned with blah, blah, blah.
• 19:19
  It's like my mother was a devout Catholic when I was a child and just the circumstances of life, she still considers herself a Catholic, but I can't remember the last time she's done anything catholicy.
• 19:32
  The crazy thing was when the church was exposed for its pedophilia and then nothing really, and it just happened. That was so.
• 19:39
  Crazy. Well, it felt crazy until apparently that's the mo is just to do nothing.
• 19:48
  Even when we uncover it, it's like, okay, so we're just going to talk about it for a long time.
• 19:53
  I don't protect the lengths. Men will go to protect other men. I mean, we're just seeing it in such a blatant way.
• 20:03
  It's so disgusting.
• 20:04
  I think we need to bring back that word and that emotion.
• 20:08
  It kind of feels gross to say and be in, but I'm like, it's disgusting men protecting other men for trafficking children.
• 20:19
  And then I mean so pertinent to what we're talking about today, to blame grooming and pedophilia on queer people and drag queens. It's such a sick joke and shows the thing, the stones that you're throwing are because you caused it.
• 20:34
  It drives me crazy, which is part of the intention.
• 20:37
  And also it is just so disgusting.
• 20:40
  It's been really hard to contend with these Epstein files coming out and coming out and coming out and nothing happening about it.
• 20:49
  And everything keeps turning and they keep doing stuff and it's like, why would we let them continue to do anything if we knew this about them?
• 20:58
  Obviously they're not good people.
• 20:58
  And so yeah, it's really maddening.
• 21:03
  And the way I kind of keep myself sane is deciding when to look at it.
• 21:11
  I delete Instagram from my phone and if I know I've got to check in on messages or whatever, I redownload it for an hour and then delete it again.
• 21:22
  So I'm not constantly in every gap in my day getting another bad alert, right?
• 21:27
  Because it's so cloying at our addictive tendencies, and I've been struggling with that in the last week.
• 21:36
  I had some really good boundaries around it and was barely even using it.
• 21:39
  Those boundaries made me realize, oh, I don't even want this.
• 21:41
  And.
• 21:42
  Then, but sometimes I get lured and it drives me.
• 21:46
  Insane. Oh yeah, I'm right there with you.
• 21:47
  I re downloaded it to see everyone's Halloween costumes this year and then two months of just like, and I was on tour, so it was so easy to just fill a couple hours.
• 21:58
  I'm lonely. This'll help. It's like makes you so much lonelier on.
• 22:02
  Tour and sometimes it's fun and then sometimes I'm in a fucking horrible mood for the rest of the day.
• 22:07
  That's right. And everyone's like, why are you upset? And I'm like, I saw something that made me upset.
• 22:14
  And so trying to decide, I don't know. I think this is a half baked theory.
• 22:24
  I love it. I love it. So you're getting me first public.
• 22:28
  We're stoners. So half baked is pretty much the goal.
• 22:32
  I think we're heading to some kind of, not steam punk the way it looks in tv, but our own version of Steam punk.
• 22:40
  Fucking Girl.
• 22:41
  They are making it impossible to use the technology without participating in something.
• 22:46
  We don't want to participate in.
• 22:50
  100.
• 22:51
  I'm literally at the point where I'm so frustrated with, so I delete my Spotify account because of the ice ads, and then it's like I moved to a different app and then it's like, oh, this app is blah, blah, blah. And then I moved to a different, and I'm like, what's the way to not participate? Buy CDs?
• 23:10
  Oh my God, we got to go back to fucking just buying it from the artist in some way. 100.
• 23:16
  And I think the fact that we're seeing phones that are just purposefully dumb phones. Dumb.
• 23:24
  Phones, yeah, a hundred.
• 23:24
  Hundred is that people have been overloaded with this only way to regain control is to just get it the fuck out and redevelop your relationship with it.
• 23:36
  It's like we know the technology's there, we know it's not going anywhere, but we need to decide how much we want to interact with it.
• 23:45
  So with you, and when we were teenagers, late teenagers and steam punk was happening.
• 23:50
  There were these movements and also the fucking 2008 housing crisis and recession and steam punk and Occupy Wall Street.
• 24:01
  It was all these first whiffs to then get us here and into this totally to the 10th power.
• 24:06
  So we could understand when we're at this moment again, we can better understand, oh, last time we were here, this is how we, and it just fucking sucks. That history has to repeat itself.
• 24:22
  It feels like half of us are looking at the past and saying, let's not repeat this. And then half of us are looking at the past and saying, there's no way we're repeating it.
• 24:30
  It's so different. And it's like, no, on paper it's objectively the same.
• 24:39
  It's also the way that we keep voting is a third, a third and a third vote.
• 24:43
  Loved a third vote, right?
• 24:47
  A third don't fucking vote is, and the two party system, people are like, we need some other system.
• 24:52
  But I'm like the two party system is already the three option. I don't know.
• 24:56
  Again, we're in the pendulum so far this way and everyone is realizing just how much this stuff doesn't work.
• 25:06
  I fought hoof and nail before the election to prevent this outcome, and I knew there was no perfect outcome.
• 25:15
  Same I knew and I knew that it was a really divisive topic to even pick a any side because the whole thing's fucked.
• 25:23
  But as soon as that went that way, then I said, operation, burn it all down.
• 25:29
  It's like I tried to work within the system and now system, but here we are.
• 25:33
  And when I zoom in locally, it's like I see theater thriving.
• 25:41
  I see musicians and artists thriving.
• 25:41
  We're going back to real instruments.
• 25:46
  We're going back to live entertainment.
• 25:48
  Because.
• 25:49
  There's no other way to not participate. Right?
• 25:52
  That's.
• 25:53
  Right. And.
• 25:53
  Also, okay, so Jinx, speaking of theater, thriving.
• 25:57
  So your first run at O' Mary was sold out for eight weeks, which hadn't happened since Cole had been at the play.
• 26:05
  Not to rank people, but I'm just saying it was sold out and then they asked you back for four weeks and your four week run is about to end on February 1st.
• 26:14
  I never care about the numbers other than when the numbers are good.
• 26:19
  I'm like, okay. The producers have to see that it works.
• 26:24
  Part of why the older generation is welcoming in the young people is because you had a completely unique take on things.
• 26:34
  And now it cannot be denied that the audiences want to see that authentic take on things like Cole's show being the queerest filthiest thing, and also the most celebrated comedy on Broadway this year. It's like you can't deny that we know how to speak to our audience. That's right.
• 26:59
  You can't deny that your formula of what cells is not really working anymore.
• 27:05
  Does not work. When I saw you the other night in Mary, you were sparkling, you were the light itself emanating onto the audience and we were just dying.
• 27:19
  What I have found is that thing that calls in all the different people, it's not the jokes, it's not the, it's like the reason why anything resonates with That's.
• 27:37
  Right.
• 27:37
  That's.
• 27:38
  Right.
• 27:39
  I think when it's honest and earnest and you find a way to tell the truth And be very vulnerable and honest, that's when it's like an art form or craft a way of communicating in a very specific way. And I don't think all performance is like this, and I don't think it all has to be, you can also just be entertained.
• 28:06
  But the reason why you go to live theater or the reason why you see something like this is one, it's filthy and hilarious, but that's just to get you loose and feeling good so that you can take in the message of, look at what we do to women.
• 28:25
  Look at what people do when it's life or death circumstances.
• 28:30
  And I just find you do stand up specials.
• 28:34
  So it's like you can joke about what you find funny and they can have no idea what you're talking about, but they know that you actually find this funny.
• 28:45
  And so they'll go on the whole story with you.
• 28:48
  And I only have one standup special, but I'm like, the moments I'm most proud of are the moments I'm like, I can tell they don't have any idea what I'm talking about, but they're still laughing, telling the story story.
• 29:01
  Connected to it. I only have two, so we're not the different you and me upt tie you soon.
• 29:07
  You're also making me realize that Mary is such a cunt in this play the whole time.
• 29:15
  But what we are leading to what the peak is, is the audition when she is vulnerable.
• 29:21
  So it's like that is always in Cole's performance and in yours.
• 29:25
  It just arrested me both times where I'm like, fuck, this person has actually been hurting. That's when it gets so real.
• 29:31
  This person has been hurting and this is why she has been such a raving bitch at everybody. And it's so funny to watch, and it's so funny to see a woman misbehave in this way centered around her desires and her whims, but then the audition becomes, it gets so real so fast. It's wild. You were phenomenal in it.
• 29:53
  Well, thank you. Cole really wrote something very, very special.
• 29:58
  And I know it's going to have a long life, but I hope it continues to have a long, long life because you should play Mary, I met Maya Rudolph last night.
• 30:09
  We were all saying, when are you going to play Mary?
• 30:11
  And it's because she's written in such a way that yes, she's a crazy cunt. And yes, there's a lot of fun material to work with, but all of that's decoration for a really earnest and honest story that Cole wrote from their perspective that I can relate to so hard that people are always like, it's, it was written for you. But then I saw it with Titus and I'm like, it could have been written for Titus.
• 30:42
  It's about really locking in with your personal way you connect to Mary. For me, it was easy. I was an alcoholic and a niche cabaret legend.
• 30:51
  It's like it's very easy for me to remember what it felt like to just feel stuck and bored because you know, have more to offer than what you're being allowed to offer.
• 31:05
  And so those are my things that I relate to, but I'm sure it's different for every Mary. Sorry.
• 31:11
  To call her a cunt. So No, I love.
• 31:13
  Calling her a cunt.
• 31:14
  I know, but you've spent real time with her and she's like a person to you.
• 31:17
  But I was shocked. I was like, but she's a cunt. This bitch.
• 31:20
  A cunt. And she gets to be, because she's at the top of the food chain.
• 31:25
  I, I don't think I've ever played such a high status character.
• 31:31
  Even.
• 31:32
  Mama Morton has men above her, but Mary, the only person above her is Abe, and he's got a tenuous grasp on her.
• 31:43
  Oh my God. It's so funny.
• 31:44
  I made my Broadway debut in Chicago and it's like opening nights always get in my head and trying to be perfect and all this stuff. And then the actors in Chicago, especially the people who've been doing the role, the roles they've played for 22 to 25 years or however long, they are just so comfortable and at ease in their craft and they welcomed me in to play with them in that way.
• 32:14
  So it was like after a couple of weeks, once the lines were in and I was really confident, then I could really just like we would be present with each other and no two scenes were the same from night to night. And it just became this really electric living thing that now I am excited to do.
• 32:32
  Yes.
• 32:33
  And so I say to myself all the time, you already opened a show on Broadway.
• 32:37
  This can't be any harder than that.
• 32:43
  You already won Drag Race twice.
• 32:43
  It can't be any harder than that.
• 32:46
  You're the only queen to have twice for now. I know it's good.
• 32:51
  I'm really enjoying the time while there's not another double winner because you're.
• 32:56
  The only person who's won drag race twice.
• 32:59
  For.
• 33:00
  Now. For now.
• 33:01
  I challenge another queen.
• 33:04
  I love it. That's an invitation that I love.
• 33:06
  And the way that you're talking about Chicago, it's reminding me the meaning that you make with your minion or your coven of creatives that you're working with the meaning to make of we're doing the same words and the same blocking, but it's different tonight. Tonight.
• 33:21
  That was just such a beautiful lesson and spiritual practice as an actor.
• 33:27
  I was so in the mindset of the goal is to rehearse until you have the perfect version.
• 33:35
  Totally.
• 33:35
  Of everything. And doing standup, you can change an inflection.
• 33:40
  You can change the timing and the delivery and it changes the laugh and the response entirely.
• 33:49
  So in my mind, I thought it was all about getting the perfect performance, locking it in, and then that's your performance every single time.
• 33:59
  And it's like that's what you do first.
• 34:03
  And then once you have that performance, then you let it all go.
• 34:06
  And.
• 34:07
  It's all just about being with whoever you're seeing partner is.
• 34:11
  And you get everything from the scene partner.
• 34:14
  And it's so different from TV and film because Kumail and I talked about this with TV and film, we're going to reset and get her shot. So it's like your present for your scenes when all the cameras are on you and then the cameras reshift and then maybe you're a little checked out this time because the cameras aren't on you.
• 34:42
  When.
• 34:42
  You're live on stage, the cameras are on everyone all the time.
• 34:46
  So.
• 34:47
  You can't check out.
• 34:48
  And it means when you have a good scene partner, you two on stage can just go any fucking way, even though you're saying the same lines.
• 34:58
  Yeah. You're bringing up for me what we've talked about before, which is creative relationships and how their proximity to romantic relationships. And you have a special creative relationship with Ben de Larame.
• 35:11
  Yeah, and we reference Broad City all the time, not because our stuff is anything like yours, but because we saw in your show female friendship being celebrated rather than female rivalry. So for the first three years, we've now toured this show.
• 35:31
  We've written a brand new show every year for eight years.
• 35:34
  And the one year we couldn't go on tour, we did the film And the first three were very much, jinx Hates Christmas, Dela Loves Christmas, and they came together to do a variety show in hilarity Ensues, and there would be some kind of extenuating circumstance like Day's Dead Grandmas talking to her through an eggnog.
• 35:57
  Hysterical. That's funny.
• 35:57
  And then year four, we wrote a show that was just fully jinx versus day where we even have a fight.
• 36:08
  And in act two we start putting on competing shows the middle and it got the audiences into this Go Jinx kill Daylight, or No fuck Jinx.
• 36:26
  We love daylight. It was like, wait a second, we're friends.
• 36:30
  This is just supposed to be a joke.
• 36:32
  We don't want you actually rooting for us to hate each other.
• 36:36
  We want you to be excited when we end up together at the end.
• 36:39
  And it was encouraging our audience to pick sides.
• 36:42
  Copy that.
• 36:44
  To.
• 36:44
  Pit women against each other.
• 36:45
  Which you didn't want.
• 36:46
  Following year we make it jinx and day love versus something else.
• 36:51
  And.
• 36:51
  Been, we threw out the old formula and now we say every year we don't know what the show's going to be, but it's going to be jinx and Dayla versus something else, the.
• 37:02
  World.
• 37:03
  And it's just so nice when you don't have to have your defenses up around your best fucking friend.
• 37:15
  What about day?
• 37:18
  What keeps your relationship continuing to grow? I mean, I hear that you guys are open for change, you know what I mean?
• 37:26
  So that's like to me, the number one.
• 37:28
  We say we make the choice over and over to keep doing this.
• 37:35
  We have our own private plans of how long we want to do the holiday tour and what we might do if we moved on to a different project and stuff.
• 37:43
  But basically every year it's like, you want to do it again? Yeah, let's do it again.
• 37:49
  Because we both have our own solo careers and we never want anything to one of us to stand in the way of the other one doing their thing.
• 38:00
  The holiday show is our way of just really just, it's our message we want to give to our community that year as a response to what the fuck we just lived through.
• 38:14
  And it started with the post COVID year of really the show's plot became about processing collective trauma.
• 38:25
  And unfortunately every year there's new collective trauma to process.
• 38:29
  So we've got plenty of material to work with, but it's so much nicer when it's jinx and day trying to fix this problem together because that's what we want our audience to then turn around and try to do.
• 38:46
  Yep. Yep. You and I were talking the other day about marriage.
• 38:51
  I married you were married and how this mirrors creative relationships.
• 38:55
  What I've learned as an adult is there's lots of different kinds of love and almost none of it looks like what we were told it was going to look like.
• 39:04
  I think I grew up with this idea that the whole goal is to meet the one person who is everything. They're your best friend, they're your lover, and if you have this one person, you need absolutely nothing else in life.
• 39:18
  And it turns out putting that kind of pressure on another human being isn't good for anyone involved.
• 39:25
  I was continually disappointed in my partners and I continually felt like they were expecting way too much of me because it's like that's way too much to expect of any one person.
• 39:38
  So now we're embracing the idea that every relationship should be defined by the two people in the relationship and whatever they decide works, works.
• 39:51
  But this pisses people off because I think they're like, why don't I get to do that?
• 39:56
  And the thing is, you do.
• 39:59
  That's right. That's right.
• 40:02
  And this goes back to us talking about the queer way of living, of just not accepting the script.
• 40:07
  This is something that RuPaul talks about really elegantly about this script in life that is just a farce. And when you throw it out the window, you are so free and life is so funny, and it's so true.
• 40:20
  These people who are mad about it, it's like, sorry, you have to look inward for one second.
• 40:25
  And then you will see that these options of a diverse array of options are also available to you. And I love, I'm just a proud millennial.
• 40:33
  I love that millennials talk about this.
• 40:35
  I think it's like our parents' generation had the nuclear family thrust upon them, and I don't know about you, but on the suburbs of Long Island on a quarter acre plot of land, it was so isolating. Even though I grew up in a safe, loving and funny home, it was still isolating to be there and to be just siloed in this little house because.
• 40:59
  When you grow, it's the queer experience.
• 41:03
  It's the oddball experience. It's anything.
• 41:07
  As soon as you realize you don't fit the mold, then you are just either lying or accepting that the world isn't built for you.
• 41:22
  And so it's, as soon as I realized I was queer, which was a very early age in my family, when I came out as queer, when I came out as trans, it was like they were all waiting for me to catch catch up. Right.
• 41:33
  That's so sweet. They were all like, we know about everything constantly.
• 41:37
  I love that. That's so sweet.
• 41:37
  And it wasn't always perfect, but I had a very loving family, but they also were very real with me about this is how it is here at our house with us, and you have to know that it's not like that everywhere out there.
• 41:53
  And they were constantly real with me of, we want you to wear that clothing if you want to wear it, but you have to understand that it will attract this attention.
• 42:05
  And so it's like you make the choice, am I going to let this ruin the rest of my life or not?
• 42:14
  So when you're young and you're starting to realize the ways you don't fit, of course it's isolating.
• 42:17
  Even if you're in a, as soon as you realize the life that you see is not going to work for you, then you're like, I'm alone.
• 42:29
  I can't unsee this.
• 42:30
  And it's both freeing and it's like for thinking about young people who are not in a place where they feel they can be themselves, It's like even though it's hard to feel so alone in that situation, you kind of always have the sense that there's a cool fucking tribe waiting for you somewhere and you're going to find them. But those years are painful.
• 42:53
  I kind of felt like alone starting in that way at seven, and I knew it was the arts and comedy and writing and performing in queer spaces and diverse spaces waiting for me, and I knew it was New York City, and it's like painful, but it's this really delayed gratification that pays off and feels so good. If you can stick saying this to the youths, if you can stick to your guns, if you can stay true to yourself, you are going to make it out on the other side.
• 43:21
  Well, and from two people, and we mentioned coal, everything takes so much more time than it looks, right? That's right.
• 43:32
  People sometimes think it's about you come up with a good idea and then you pitch it and everything opens. It's actually you come up with a good idea, you advocate for yourself for a solid decade.
• 43:43
  And.
• 43:44
  Then someone finally realizes you were saying everything correctly the whole time. That's exactly that.
• 43:50
  You knew exactly what you were doing and you need to throw money at it.
• 43:53
  That's exactly correct.
• 43:53
  So that it can get bigger.
• 43:56
  And it rarely changes.
• 43:56
  It remains that way.
• 43:59
  And that becomes the spiritual practice, believing yourself, staying true to yourself, and just staying on message for yourself and your audience.
• 44:06
  When you're talking about, I want to wear these clothes and your family being like, okay, let's talk about context.
• 44:12
  We were talking the other day about being a woman walking down the street and how it, I'm laughing because it sucks so bad. It does.
• 44:20
  It sucks because it's inherently dangerous. It's inherently dangerous.
• 44:23
  Unlike the other night I was driving home, I did a set or a couple sets, and I'm driving home and I see a woman jogging against traffic on a busy Brooklyn, not even a street like a road. And I was like, yeah, you are safer driving against traffic.
• 44:40
  Than.
• 44:40
  On the sidewalk. And then I park my car, I get out, I'm creeped out, and I walk home in the street, not on the sidewalk, because as a woman, it's safer to walk among giant vehicles, heavy machinery.
• 44:53
  So there's all of that when you're walking down the street as a trans woman.
• 44:58
  And then also the what's going to happen if they can tell if I'm a trans woman and is that going to matter? Right?
• 45:11
  And then it's like sometimes I'll hear cat calls and I'm like, I better keep myself as small and anonymous as possible because even though they decided to cap call me, if they had a problem with the fact that I'm trans, it becomes my fault.
• 45:29
  I tricked them or something. That whole rhetoric that still persists.
• 45:34
  And so I'm not trying to say it's worse for trans women.
• 45:39
  There's different layers for cis women, and it's like I'm six two, so I try to make myself small to just kind of blend in.
• 45:49
  Whereas I'm sure small women, small cis women are worried about being so small.
• 45:56
  And so it's like you just can't fucking win.
• 45:59
  You're too tall hunch you're too small. Wear heels.
• 46:04
  It's like, but men come as you are. Factory settings are good.
• 46:11
  Oh my God. It's like Hedwig getting the angry inch. If I don't laugh, I'm crying and it doesn't, well, it was changing and then it changed back.
• 46:23
  Here's one thing standing out in my brain when you were playing Alana Wexler and she goes with her mom, Bobby underground purse shopping, and then she hears from Abby that she's going to peg the guy she's seeing.
• 46:41
  And then you did a headstand, or you did a handstand to example your excitement In that moment, it was almost like, because I am so used to feeling too much too over the top, and then Alana Wexler became this character that was pointedly over the top and everyone loved her for it.
• 47:02
  And it almost opened an archetype up for me to be where I stopped feeling so self-conscious about the ways in which I express myself. And nowadays, I feel like a lot of that shit is what people know me for.
• 47:20
  And literally since I met you, I've been thinking about that.
• 47:24
  I wanted to do the handstand when I came down to meet you after Mary, but then I saw my friends and I just hugging them and I forgot.
• 47:33
  That is so funny. Thank you so much.
• 47:33
  Jinx. That means the world to me.
• 47:38
  Thank you. Well, sisters are doing it for.
• 47:40
  Ourselves.
• 47:41
  That's right. So Jinx, I could talk to you for hours and hours and I hope we do.
• 47:49
  I really love you as a public persona and performer, but it's my privilege to get to know and love you interpersonally.
• 47:58
  Thank you so much for joining us here at Its Open.
• 48:01
  Thank you for.
• 48:01
  Having me.
• 48:03
  Thank you Jinkx Monsoon for being my guest and now my friend. Okay. No choices.
• 48:08
  There's no choice after this. We're friends.
• 48:10
  I'm texting you all the time anyway.
• 48:10
  Okay. So thanks to Jinkx Monsoon, thanks to Robbie, PR Witch who really made it all happen.
• 48:16
  And thanks to my creative team who made this show happen, I certainly couldn't do it alone. It takes a whole village.
• 48:21
  I want to thank my creative producers, Annika Carlson, David Rooklin, Kelsie, Kiley, Glennis Meagher, and Madeline Kim. I want to thank our editor, Tovah Liebowitz.
• 48:31
  I want to thank the creative artists who made this episode sound and look so good. Rachel Suffian on Sound.
• 48:37
  Louise Nessralla on cameras and Kevin Deming who set these lights.
• 48:41
  Gorgeous bitch.
• 48:43
  I want to thank Raymo Ventura for the incredible graphics and the intro musical thing and the band Don Hur for this outro music. Like subscribe, actually subscribe first and then like and comment. But really subscribe.
• 48:54
  Join this community. It's something new and it's still open for what it is, and I want you to be a part of whatever it becomes. Bye.