When I was working at Trio, I was pitched 'Queer Eye for the Straight Guy' and I knew, whoever gets this, this is a game changer. When I started at Bravo in 2005, it was a hit, and Season 1 of 'Project Runway' was in postproduction.
It's queer how ready people always are with advice in any real or imaginary emergency, and no matter how many times experience has shown them to be wrong, they continue to set forth their opinions, as if they had received them from the Almighty!
Frankly, if people aren't going to cast me because I'm queer, than I don't want to work with them.
On 'Queer Eye' I come in with what I know, and I try to parlay that into lessons for our 'heroes.' But that's really listening to what they need. Sometimes it's a little more ambitious. Sometimes it's very simplistic. But it's got to be something that's condensed into a short amount of time.
I would want to do a cooking show. But I want to honor the opportunity that's been given to me with 'Queer Eye.' I feel like my work is cut out for me with the show alone. If it ever goes bust, then I'll explore that possibility.
I think any time we do drag, especially in 2018, it's a political statement. Because we're living in a world where people don't see drag queens as equal. They don't see queer people as equal. They don't see people of any minority as equal.
'Drag Race' is so unique in how much progress it has made in how people think of people in LGBTQIA-plus community and has helped make big strides in the way queer art is perceived.
I'm so unmaterialistic in every way. If you saw my apartment, it would explain a lot, I think. It's not so much a mess, but it just needs to have some feng shui or a real 'Queer Eye' makeover or whatever.
Sometimes you have to see the thing to know that it exists. Maybe there's a queer person in a town, but they don't feel comfortable or safe coming out, frankly, and the only representation they feel that they have or connection they have is on television or in a movie, and that's really powerful.
The stories I grew up with, whether it came to queer representation or representation of anyone that was different, it was always a story of, like, very sad, usually ended up with somebody dying, and it made the idea of being queer or different really scary, actually.
