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Billy Porterlives in the Venn diagram of seriousness and fabulousness.
Long before he wasdominating red-carpet SEO, Porter studied drama at Carnegie Mellon in his native Pittsburgh.
The first time you were introduced to America was onStar Search.Yes and no.
Tell me the no first.I was already in my first Broadway show.
Second semester, senior year of college.
So, yes, it was the first time I was on TV likethat.
How did you think of yourself as a performer at that time?
Did you already consider yourself a multi-hyphenate?I was always a multi-hyphenate.
They were simultaneous tracks Broadway and the recording industry.
It was preAmerican Idol.Star Searchwas our generationsAmerican Idol.
Went back to work $100,000 richer!$42,000 post-taxes!
What was unfulfilling aboutGrease?The original Teen Angel wore a white suit and a pompadour.
I didnt want to do that show to begin with.
Why?Because I dont like that show.
Its not about me, as a Black person.
During auditions, everybody else had a role to read for.
They were just callingmein.
They gave me carte blanche to do whatever I wanted with the song.
I did a completely Blackity-Black-Black arrangement.
I thought,Theyre gonna hate this and Im gonna be done with it.
They loved it and wanted me to do it with another part but they made me a clown!
It took me 25 years to dig myself out of the hole of that visual.
Because people could only see you that way?Yeah!
Im already gay, Im already Black, and now youve turned me into this magical fairy.
I went to school likethat, and yall turned me into a clown because its easy.
He sings real high, hes a little sissy, so thats it!
The Eugene ONeill was on 49th, and the Walter Kerr was on 48th.
The people inAngelswere like, We always knew when your song was happening!
What changed for you when you saw that show?I saw myself in the role of Belize.
I didnt even know thats what I was looking for.
I just knew I was unfulfilled.
So from 1994 to 2010, I had to pull myself out of that pigeonhole.
And I did it, bitches!
Your first album came out around that time.
How did that experience compare to breaking into theater?My first album wasBilly Porteron A&M Records.
The industry was very homophobic.
It was traumatizing, since my voice, my singing voice, had been my savior.
All they were concerned about was who I was fucking behind closed doors on my own private time.
Same producer produced it for her.
I was like, I did not come here to be a demo singer for fucking Celine Dion!
I love her, no shade, shes fabulous, this isnt about Celine Dion.
Its about the systems of oppression that mute and dismiss our contribution to the world.
It happened in that moment, and I said, Im done.
If this is all the music business has to offer me, Im done.
She can have it, yall can have it, Im out.
I thought,I can do this on my own, and I did.
I made three albums on my own.
You cansee it now!
She free, bitch!
At the same time, in the late 90s, theater wasnt doing you much better.No, it wasnt.
As a Black artist, we didnt haveHamiltonin the 80s.
We had musical revues that you came into, no character, no human being, no nothing.
Just come and perform for us, let the happy darkies perform for us and make us happy.
And when I demanded to be treated like a human being, the work dried up.
What are you talking about?
The book was calledDestined to Witness: Growing up Black in Nazi Germany.
What are yall talking about?
So I spent the first 25 years of my career not being able to audition for shit!
Fast-forward to: I win the Tony forKinky Boots, thenHedwig and the Angry Inchcomes in the next year.
A year later, they want me to replace this little white boy.
I was like,That bitch has been on TV since he was 15!
Yall can kiss my ass.
I created my own thing!
I dont have to come behind this white boy no more!
All of my white counterparts had many things to do.
I hadnothing.If I didnt want to be in a musical revue, there was nothing for me.
I loved seeing the recent revival ofInto the Woodswith its multi-culti cast.
My generation fought for that.
In 2005, you did your first solo show,Ghetto Superstar.Yes I did!
Is that how it felt?Yeah.
What happened is that I finally got in with George C. Wolfe.
He was somebody I had always wanted to work with.
After I booked aKeith Haringmusical with him in 2002, he became a real mentor for me.
I got out here and there wasnota space, and I left.
You have to always be doing that, whether people are listening or not.
And most of the time, they will not be listening.
SoGhetto Superstarcame, and I was able to talk about my life and just put myself out there.
Your story is just as important as the classics.
I went to these white institutions.
Who are these classics for, based in this European space?
Those are the conversations that we now get to have postGeorge Floyd.
Im grateful for that.
A few years later, you finally got to star as Belize.
I grew up in the Pentecostal church, Church of God in Christ.
Its the worst for anything that is not the status quo.
I also came out when I was 16, in 1985.
We went straight to the front lines to fight for our lives during the AIDS crisis.
The hypocrisy of the church to this day I dont know how to speak about it.
I lost more friends by 21 than my 85-year-old grandmother.
Belize is the moral compass for all these spiraling white people around him.
But then you see Part Two I was like, Oh my God!
I hadneverseen anything like that!
Thats what was so special about it.
I didnt know thats what I was waiting for.
I came back with that part, which nobody in the business thought I could play.
Which leads intoKinky Boots.
When people are saying these things about you, does that affect how you work?Yes and no.
First of all, I dont give a fuck about what people say or think about me.
Nobody thought I could do it.
The voice part was easy.
That was whatLittle Shopwas.
When I got fired from that show, I was like, Okay, universe, I hear you.
After 9/11, I was diagnosed with acid reflux, and that was debilitating.
My specialty was sounding like Whitney Houston and Jennifer Holliday and Jennifer Hudson as a man.
you’ve got the option to go listen to it, its on record.
I remember going in forPorgy and Bessfor the role of Sportin Life.
The highest note is a B-flat.
In my heyday, I was singing almost an octave higher than the required note in this opera.
But the feedback was, Oh, his voice is a little weak.
In a role that doesnt even require me to do what youre used to me doing?
And then you hire David Alan Grier?
No shade, David!
Hes a great singer, Im a better one.
On my worst day, I sing better than that, and he knows it!
So when I gotKinky Boots, I stayed with that show for three years and never missed a performance.
It was a fuck you.
Dont ever question what I can do again.
But I do love auditions.
I love proving the naysayers wrong.
Question me at your own peril!
You dont have to be able to do everything!
Look at the stars and the celebrities!
Most of the time, they do one thing, unless youre Meryl Streep or Daniel Day-Lewis.
You know what I mean!
For the most part, Will Smith is playing himself.
Julia Roberts is playing herself.
Theres no shade to that Im playing myself too!
But playing myself in this industry was not popular.
Ive lived long enough to see the day where my queerness is my asset.
Yall want it now because Im fun!
When you won the Tony forKinky Boots, you said, Mamas relevant again!
It was a different kind of relevancy than you had previously achieved.
I want to be more than relevant than just this ten-block radius.
That continued to be elusive untilPose.
You gotPosetwo years later.
That show has a lot of fabulousness and a lot of seriousness.
He deals with those women all the time, the Jessica Langes of the world.
He understands how to create for them for us so that were presented at our best.
He saw the necessity for my lived experience on that show.
Pray Tell was not in the original script.
The character was created for me, post-audition.
He was on my vision board.
It was a goal to work with Ryan Murphy?Yes.
I knew he would understand me.
He wouldnt be afraid of me.
Hes too flamboyant is all I would ever hear.
Too this, too that.
Its like, well, somebody has to be!
Ryan comes up to the podium and says, What the fuck are you doing?
I go, What do you mean?
And hes like, Wheres the Billy Porter thing?!
I was like, Oh, I was just trying to … you know … do the TV version!
Hes like, kindly stop.
I needallof you!Everything on the floor, now.
And thats all I needed to hear, child!
Was that the first time youd heard that in the film and TV space?Yeah!
Were you instantly able to process that?
Did you know how to respond to, They want the full me?Yes.
I grew up in the Black church, which is a fashion show.
My whole life, Ive been a fashion person.
Its not just about performing its showbusiness.
That was bow ties and suits.
I was walking in Harlem and somebody was like, All right, hot fashion Pinocchio!
But around that time, something interesting happened.
I hadnt been on Broadway in almost 13 years, and while I was away, the internet happened.
We were doing the out-of-town tryout.
You rehearse all day, you make changes, you put them in at night.
So I looked like a vagabond, because I was rehearsing all day.
After that, I commenced spending a lot of my money on the evolution of that idea.
My business manager was saying, Youre spending too much on clothes.
Im like, Its a reinvestment.
The whole Broadway industry made fun of me for dressing up every day.
Why are you doing that?
You gonna do it every day?
But my aunt Dorothy said, Dress for the job you want, not for the job you have.
I was trying to run shit!
I need to look like Im gonna run it.
Then fast-forward to the Golden Globes when I had my first nomination forPose.
I wore that suit with a cape with the pink on the inside.
I didnt win the Globe, but I was the only person people were talking about that weekend.
I said to my team, Are yall getting it?
Then I got the invite for the 2019 Oscars.
I was like, Uhhhhh, what am I gonna do?
Its the biggest night!
Its our Super Bowl!
John Travolta said Idina Menzels name wrong and she became a household name!
What the fuck am I gonna do?
This was during New York Fashion Week, my first Fashion Week.
I was a spokesperson or whatever you call it, and I went to the Christian Siriano show.
I had loved him fromProject Runway.
Im gonna wear a gown to the Oscars!
Your image started to represent something on a worldwide level that it hadnt before.
Did you feel ready for that?The short answer is yes.
When it happened, I was almost 50 years old.
Id been working for this.
I knew exactly what I was doing.
Yes, people tried to come for me.
Oh, hes just trying to get attention!
Yes, I am!
Why you mad at me because Im good at my goddamned job?
Imsupposedto be getting your attention!
But what I didnt understand is that I wasnt doing it simply for attentions sake.
The conversation is not actually about me wearing dresses.
This conversation is more nuanced than that.
Everything has changed.Straight boys are showing up to the Met Gala with trains.
Youre fucking welcome, Bad Bunny!
The de-gendering of fashion weput gender on clothing!
I dont care whether you understand it or not.
Im not doing it for your understanding.
If you want to understand it, you will ask.
Its very easy to put me in a box.
Do you feel yourself still being put in the box?All day, every day.
That said, I got a call one day from my sister back in April.
Not just Black gay men, but Black gay English professors around the country.
And because I took myself out of that toxic masculinity space, I dont exist in it anymore.
In general, its Black people that put me out first.
Theres no worse pain than being consistently put out by my own.
In 2024, Billy Porter is not the one to play James Baldwin?
What do you mean?
You want a straight man to do it?
You want Jonathan Majors?
You want LaKeith Stanfield?
Finally, we have an out, Black gay man playing an out, Black gay man!
And yall better go seeColman Domingo inRustin!
Its a new day!
The whole point is: No more straight boys playing gay people!
And even when I would get seen, the feedback would be, Hes too flamboyant.
You have a movie coming out later this year calledOur SonYes, I do!
We can talk about it now!
Which is a straight-up drama.
We talked about the difference between the fabulousness and the seriousness before.
This felt like you were being asked to do something that was to be taken seriously.
How was the process?It was unbelievable.
My agents brought this to me for that reason.
Its a divorced child-custody drama in the spirit ofKramer vs. KramermeetsMarriage Story.
I wrotea love duet for Luke Evans and myself to sing.
I know they gonna give that bitchBillie Eilish the Oscar!
You got the queen and you got the Welsh straight-presenting gay boy.
They need to have us there, so Im putting that out in the universe.
Dont think Im not trying!
