When I meet up with Michaela Jaé Rodriguez near Madison Square Park, the Golden Globe winner has just come from filming Watch What Happens Live and is perfectly TV ready, her makeup flawless, her black hair sleek and middle-parted, her all-leather outfit looking like a few months of rent. Sitting on a couch beside the hotel-lobby bar, Rodriguez isn’t quite like any of the characters I’ve seen her play. She’s much more self-assured than Blanca was on Pose, the role for which she won that aforementioned Golden Globe, making her the first and thus far only trans actor to do so. She’s also way more fun and gossipy than Sofia, the no-nonsense nonprofit director who’s always cleaning up after Maya Rudolph on Loot, and she’s nothing like Nicolette, the possibly satanic fertility-cult witch from American Horror Story: Delicate, for reasons I hope would be obvious.
Even the press-week glam she’s got on to promote the new seasons of Loot and American Horror Story, both of which premiered on the same night last week, is a character of sorts. “I know that I give you this pretty girl, that she’s soft, but she’s been a tomboy all her life,” Rodriguez tells me. “I’m the girl who’s gonna have the kneepads on after she takes off the glam, who’s going to go on a bike ride, or go on a hike. I want some action! I wanna be Lara Croft,” and her gamer ways don’t stop there. “Right now, I’m playing Dragons Dogma 2. So, she’s a nerd. That’s, like, deep nerd.” But before we get into that — or talk about the political assault on bodily autonomy in the U.S., or the bittersweet loneliness that comes with being the only trans woman in a lot of industry spaces — we kick things off with a brief game of Would You Rather?
Between the two characters you play on your dueling new shows, who do you think you’d rather hang out with?
Oh, Sofia. I mean, I could help Sofia, help her loosen up a little bit. Nicolette? I don’t know …
There’s no help.
I might have to call for help when I’m with her. I don’t know what’s going to happen.
At the same time, she’s got that Hamptons house.
Yes, it looks really nice, but the longer you’re in there the more you notice it’s a house that no one would actually live in. Like, it’s a little too perfect. It kind of gives Barbie but like dark Barbie. All the dolls — wait, the dolls!
Just, like, ominously: the dolls.
Imagine a bunch of dolls sitting there in that house, though, looking sickening.
Wait, that would be such a good horror movie. Like, a bunch of the girls get to go out to Fire Island — gorgeous house, all expenses paid, feels too good to be true — and then things start going wrong because it was too good to be true.
Hauntings, flotation, levitation — honey, all of those things.
Do you like getting to play around with those dark and creepy elements in American Horror Story?
I do. Is that bad? I just love it so much, and I love that there’s a message behind all that darkness about people trying to have agency over our bodies.
The literal body horror of losing that control, it’s relevant right now in so many ways, what with the ongoing criminalization of abortion and trans health care. When we first meet your AHS character, you’re holding your baby. That’s something you don’t really see trans women doing onscreen. You don’t see images of motherhood that involve trans women. Of course, Pose was all about another kind of motherhood that we also don’t see all that often on TV. How do you feel about being the face of that maternal imagery?
I like being the face of that imagery because I know it’s much more than possible. I know trans women who have had children, their children call them “Mommy” — it’s a no-brainer, you know what I mean? Infancy is so interesting to me. Babies are so fragile. A lot of individuals don’t think we’re capable of having or raising something so delicate, but we are. I love that with American Horror Story, as dark as it is, the world gets to see that it’s possible.
Did winning a Golden Globe change your career, or the roles you’re being offered?
I think it definitely elevated things for me. Winning really meant a lot to me, but there was a lot of pressure that came with it, too — to be the only one. It feels great to win, but it’s so lonely and bittersweet. I’m thankful for the opportunity. It did change a lot for me, but with that change I know that I have to keep breaking down as many doors as I can so that I won’t be the only one. After I got it, I had a lot of anxiety about why I won and if I deserved it. As trans women, we come with a lot of insecurities due to our environments and how we grow up, and a lot of us have dealt with a lot of unwanted trauma. I think because of that, I started questioning that Golden Globe win. Like, Do I deserve this? Am I simply getting this because they wanted their first trans winner, or is my talent actually speaking for itself? I’ve put in a lot of work to heal from those insecurities, and I’ve learned through the healing that if something keeps happening for you then it probably means something. Like, if I am a lead on a show, like I was on Pose, and then win an award for that role and then go on to play second to Maya Rudolph and then book American Horror Story, that has to mean that my talent is pushing through. I try to keep myself grounded in that so I remember that I deserve this.
I relate to that. I definitely have that impulse to question my successes, or if something good happens I come up with all these reasons why that good thing is actually bad or why I should be ashamed that I got it.
It’s a real thing for us, as women of this experience. I know that a lot of girls go through this. They could be at the top of their field and still not know how to reconcile some accolade they got with what they’ve always been told, which is that we are not worthy of even sharing space with other people. But as much as that makes me uncomfortable, I’m going to stay and make them feel uncomfortable, too.
That reminds me of Cecilia Gentili, who you worked with on Pose.
I surely did.
Well, rest in peace, first of all. She said this amazing thing once about how we should “always terrorize cisgender people. It doesn’t take much. Sometimes you just have to show up.”
I mean, they stay terrorizing us! But yes, just confidently sitting there in the same room is enough to set them off sometimes. As much trauma as we have as trans people, they have a lot of trauma with themselves, too, that they have not reconciled at all. But it will be okay. You will all be okay.
Speaking of being in the room, you recently made an Instagram post where you wrote about feeling out of place at a big event and how another trans woman in the industry, who you only referred to as “one of my trans sisters,” came over and talked and helped break you out of that negative headspace. Can you say who that was?
It was Hari [Nef], the actress from Barbie. We see each other at events, and every single time there’s just that innate thing between the girls — the “I see you, and I’m glad to see you here in this space.” Just with me and the way I can be introverted, there are days when I’m completely out of it and checked out and need someone there to help bring me out of it. There are also days when I’m the extroverted one who’s helping to bring other people out of their heads. But on the day of that event, I was feeling completely socially awkward. So once I was at the party, I just found a couch in the corner and decided I’d try to enjoy the space and all the people in it from a distance. Hari saw me and came over and asked, “What are you doing here, sitting by yourself?” I told her that I was just watching the party. She said, “Mhm, tell me about it, girl.” We had a small conversation about some things that I think a lot of our sisterhood would understand. It really helped. After she left, some old friends of mine found me back there, and then we started talking and catching up. Next thing I know, I’m meeting Lenny Kravitz. Chile, I met Lenny Kravitz on that day! He came up to me! And he was so sweet, a rock fucking star. He was everything I always dreamed he would be. I was so starstruck I barely knew what to say.
I feel like my brain would just be falling out of my ear.
It’s sliding out like noodles, and the whole time I’m just trying to maintain my composure.
I heard you’ve been making some music of your own. Is an album on the way?
Very soon. I’ve been working on the album for the last few years. I’ve got some singles coming out in a couple of months. I studied songwriting and performance at Berklee, so I’m really excited — nervous but excited — for people to hear my music. It’s got pop aspects to it because she’s a pop girl, but it’s also got some techno, some R&B, some Afrobeats. It’s a mixture of so many different things. I hope you like it.
How does that feel, to release something where you are yourself — Michaela Jaé Rodriguez — and not a character you’re playing?
I always say, there are three sides of Michaela Jaé. There’s the past, the present, and the future. It feels good to play out these different parts of myself through my music. I get to rehash my past to give people a better understanding of where I come from, and then the present me gives them all the upbeat, happy aspects of myself. The future me, she’s making her introduction this year. She’s this hybrid entity, cyberpunk-robot android kinda girl who’s chasing her past and trying to see how she can get back to her present because the world she’s in is so different than what she would’ve ever imagined. She’s not here in the present — she’s not even on our planet — but I always meet her onstage. That’s who you’ll get a glimpse of.
Is there anything else you’d like to add?
Not to be all cheesy, happy-happy message, but I just always want the kids to know — the children, the teens, the young adults who are trans and queer, even the ones who happen to be heterosexual but different in some way, all the people lumped together as the quote-unquote “misfits” — please know that being labeled a misfit is not a bad thing. That is the best thing you could actually ever be. If you’re different, they’re always gonna try you, but stay different. Be yourself, and love hard.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Harron Walker , 2024-04-12 14:00:11
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