October 21, 2021 • 50 mins
On this final episode of the season, the one and only Billy Porter talks about his life in show business. He also candidly shares the trauma of his student days at Carnegie Mellon, the AIDS crisis, and bankruptcy, and his evolution into a multi-award winning superstar. Billy has wisdom to share about what it means to be a true artist dedicated to your craft and explains how his creative expression has been a tool to work through his trauma. Much of that trauma ironically stemming from working in creative industries which, back in the 80’s and 90’s, had little tolerance for an openly gay black man. His new memoir, Unprotected, is the life story of a singular artist and survivor. //
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Unprotected: A Memoir by Billy Porter: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/unprotected-billy-porter/1138773867
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to The Laverne Cox Show, a production of Shonda
land Audio in partnership with I Heart Radio. I have
something to say, and I wanted to make sure that
I was saying it for real, you know, and using
my voice in service. I was like, Oh, it's not
(00:23):
just overcoming adversity, it's healing my trauma through my art,
which is what I've been doing my entire life. It's
the only reason why I'm alive. It really is. Hello, everyone,
(00:52):
Welcome to the Laverne Cox Show. I'm Laverne Cox. So
earlier this year, I was on the show The View,
and I was talking about this podcast and the next
day I got a message from a friend saying that
Billy Porter wanted to call me, and um, they gave
me Billy's number. I call Billy. I think he was
on set somewhere working and he's like, I saw you
(01:15):
on the View and you were talking about attachment theory
and I was like, I'm working on this and let
me just reach out to her, and I'm so proud
of you. It was just he was just really sweet
and we talked about his journey and the work that
he's doing to heal some of his trauma, and it
was just a beautiful conversation. And I was like, what,
you want to come on the podcast and talk about
some of this stuff and he said absolutely. Um. I
(01:37):
was like, I know you have a book coming out
later this year, right, he was like, absolutely, let's do it,
and so here we are. Billy Porter is an actor, singer, director, composer,
and playwright from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He is the winner of
the two thousand nineteen Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead
Actor in a Drama Series for his portrayal of Praytel Impose.
(01:59):
He is the first openly gay black man to be
nominated for and win any lead acting category at the Emmy's.
Porter is also the winner of Tony Grammy, Drama Desk
and Outer Critics Circle Awards for his groundbreaking performances Lola
and Kinky Boots. As a director, among other shows, Porter
helm the revival of Susan Laurie Parks's Top Dog Underdog
(02:22):
at Boston's Huntington's Theater, where he was awarded the Elliott
Norton Award for Best Director. He is the author of
the new memoir Unprotected, a story of trauma and healing
please enjoy my conversation with Billy Porter. Hello, Billy Porter,
(02:43):
Welcome to the podcast. How are you feeling today? I
am really really good. Right now. I'm in downtown Pittsburgh.
I am in pre production to direct my very first
feature film. What's it called. It's called what If? What? Yes?
(03:04):
And you know, it's a really beautiful script. It follows
an African American trans high school girl. It's a coming
of age story, sort of in the genre of the
old John Hugh movies, which I'm obsessed with. Yes, So
it's sort of like I'm trying to bring that genre back,
(03:27):
you know, populated with characters with what the world looks
like today, you know, because coming up in that time,
you know, all those characters were white, so we all
had to superimpose ourselves onto those experiences. I'm really excited
about it because I personally believe the world is ready
(03:49):
for a different kind of trans narrative. You know. Having
been on Pose, you know that was a more traditional
narrative um that people are used to. And while I'm
not trans, I'm ready to see a new story. So
(04:10):
I know y'all are ready to see a new story.
You know, you've been posts has been such a groundbreaking show,
but you've worked very closely with transactors, writers, producers, directors
for the first time. I mean I I saw one
of your interviews when you said that even having been
you know, openly gay since nine five and living in
(04:32):
New York and knowing the girls, that you didn't even
have a full understanding of the depth of the struggle
that that we go through as trans women, particularly blacks,
black trans women. Can you talk a little bit about
since I mean, obviously there was something transformative for you,
you're still wanting to tell trans stories after pose well,
you know, being a black gay man in the eighties
(04:55):
in the middle of the Eights crisis, of course, had
its own complications and challenges and all of that. Everybody
was so focused on the crisis, which is understood. I
guess what I really didn't understand is how largely the
(05:17):
T and lgbt Q was missing from a lot of
the gay boys and gay women, you know, our consciousness.
And I feel like, as Maya Angelus says, when you
know better, you do better. It's incumbent upon me as
(05:44):
an ally to show up and transform my ally ship
into what's necessary to then transform the conversation. What does
that look like for you? Now? Obviously you're directing your
film about with the trans La character. Is that what
what it feels like for you that continuing to elevate
(06:05):
trans people and give them spaces to tell their stories. Yeah?
You know, I I am an artist who believes that
art is activism, whether you want it to be or not,
whether you're conscious of it or not. You know, I
(06:29):
got conscious a while ago. I was watching um Oprah
as we were all wont to do in the in
the time and in the day and still today, and
you know, she had on my Angelou and and yon
le Van sent and they were talking about service. They
were talking about when we can shift our life's intention
(06:55):
to service, everything else will work itself out. Do you
remember what year that was? Roughly? I don't, It was
at least twenty years ago. Yeah, because that for me,
when I was thinking about your story and and prepping
for this, it feels like that moment of intention, of
realizing you want to be a service and then leaving
Broadway feels like the turning point in your life. You
(07:17):
said in an interview that you were when you were
doing Greece that you felt like you were a clown.
But the decision to leave Broadway, the decision to say,
I'm being pigeonholed and I want to do something more
substantial as an artist. That's what I want to be
of service that I feel the calling is bigger than
this extreme singing is the phrase you used to describe
(07:40):
the singing. You had to live a life and go
through some things for all of that to, you know,
sort of fall into place. You know when I was
doing when I was preparing, I was like, we have
so much in common. We both basically had our big
breakout moments in our forties. You were a forty four
forty five when Kinky Boots happened. I was Kinky Boots,
(08:01):
and then I think forties seven for Pose. I was
forty when I booked Oranges in New Black and If
I was forty one when it premiered, and I was
forty two when I was in the cover of Time magazine.
So all of that and the beautiful thing about it
watching you sort of become an icon in a superstar
is that what I feel like. When it happened, we
were both working so hard and both like, okay, we
(08:25):
don't know how I don't know how long this is
gonna last. Let me make my coin, let me make
my mark, let me like say what I need to say.
Let me go and hustle like for death. Physically. I
feel like that when I saw you, I was watching
the interview when you were from two thousand nineteen with
Ryan Murphy, and you were like, you know, you were
(08:46):
nominated for the Emmy and you had had this the
Oscar moment that like, you know, rocked the world, and
you were like in your husband's like, can you take
this in? Ryan's like can you take this in? And
like I'm working, he was wretching your play in Boston.
You were working, And I was like, that was me.
That was me when Orange happened in two thousand thirteen,
and all of a sudden that people wanted me to
(09:07):
come to colleges and universities and I had to do
loan debt and I had gotten an eviction notice. You
had your bankruptcy moment in two thousand seven. I had
an eviction notice in twenty twelve, my second one in
two years. And how I was on a payment plan
when I both Orange a New Black to avoid eviction.
So when when the show premiered and people wanted me
to come to colleges. I'm like, okay, let me go,
let me go make it. I was on the road.
(09:28):
I was working so to pay off the decades where
you didn't have nothing and you were in debt for it. Yeah. Absolutely,
But also is so the hustle was there. But what
I think it's also so wonderful is that you always
foreground the actual work of being an artist. And I
think that is so important. That you're always talking about
(09:51):
doing the work, and not just we're overworking and working hard,
but doing the work of being an artist, the preparation,
the discipline that is required. And I really really loved
that about you. And obviously that started Carnegie Mellon. It did.
I was literally just gonna say, you know, Carnegie Mellon
was a very difficult period for me, and I loved
(10:16):
What was it? Why was it difficult? It was very traumatic,
you know, because it was the eighties and the cut
system was still in place. Can you describe the cut system?
So essentially, freshman year, we had sixty eight people in
my freshman class. By the time I graduated. Four years later,
(10:38):
we graduated seventeen girl The majority of The cuts would
happen after freshman year and after sophomore year. You could
get cut from the program anywhere along that time. And
it was a toxic environment and the system was warning probation,
(11:05):
final probation, advised to withdraw. Now what were they cutting
based on? Well, this is where this is, this is
the trauma, this is where the trauma lies. You know,
because with women, you know, you would show up to
the call board one day and there's a row of
letters and it's all girls, and you would see girls
(11:28):
open it up and then just run away screaming and
crying because they were fat letters, Like literally, you have
to lose weight if you're gonna get cut. And for
the men, for us, it was about being gay. And
interestingly enough, my class was the first class that came
(11:49):
in out loud and proud and said no, because we
came in strong and hard with the alan Now, you know,
first semester sophomore year, I got a final probation letter,
not going through any of the steps to get there.
(12:13):
I got a final probation letter for voice in speech class,
and this teacher said to me, your voice is too
high for the American stage and you'll never work oh,
So at nineteen years old, I was able to look
this white woman in the face and say, well, it's December.
(12:33):
Now you've been smiling in my face all semester telling
me how good I'm doing, and now I have this.
So if my voice is too high for the American
stage today, it has been since you met me. Do
your job. That's what I'm here, that's why I'm in school.
(12:55):
It's your job to actually fix it. So what are
you doing? It's been girl. And then I went into
the head of the of the department and I said,
what is this. You know, because you're just working with me,
you think it's a game. But this letter in this
grade takes away from my from my scholarship money. This
(13:16):
is not a game for me because those of us
who come from the hood, who don't have no money
and mama and daddy ain't paying dollars a year that
bill comes to miuse mhm. I said, fuck you, I'm
not going anywhere. But that's traumatic. At nineteen years old,
(13:36):
that's traumatic. And it was always about the gay thing,
and they were always trying to butch me up. I
can look back at it now and have compassion for
those teachers They saw my talent and they wanted me
to be able to work. They just that was the
only way they knew how to do it. And the
thing that I came out with the most from Carnickie
(13:57):
Mellan was a The training was impeccable. That's why I
was there and that's why I made them teach me,
and they taught us how to live as artists. They
differentiated in the training and in in my time, there
(14:19):
the difference between being a celebrity and being an artist.
I came out of Carnegie Mello with that and I
am grateful for that. What for you is that? What
does that look like? What does that mean living as
an artist? For people out there listening, because because that's
what I'm about you, well, you know, people who aren't
(14:41):
in the business only see and experienced success in show
business as celebrity. Yes, a lot of people don't understand
that the life as an artist has many paths. There's
many ways to make money, there's many ways to exist.
(15:03):
But you do it because you're an artist, not because
you want to be a star. You're gonna do it
whether or not you're getting paid for it or not.
That is the difference. It's like I can't do anything
else now, it feels like a great time for a
(15:27):
short break. We'll be right back then. Okay, we're back.
Let's keep the conversation going. So in my Valley period,
(15:52):
you know, those thirteen years where I was like on
the precipice of obscurity and unemployed, in bankrupt there was
never a moment in my mind where I was going
to leave the business. And the gift of not having
(16:14):
the success that I saw I was entitled to have
because of my talent early in my life, it pushed
me even further into my artistry. It pushed me into
a space that I've never even dreamed of. I'm directing
a feature film right now. But you were directing theater
(16:35):
for those of those Valley years, and you went to
U c. L A. For screenwriting to Girl. But that's
where the expansion came, you know. That's what I mean
about the great stuff from Carnegie Mellon. It was like, well,
I don't have to stop just because nobody's hiring me
as an actor. I don't have to stop being creative.
(16:57):
There are many different ways to be creative. And I
had purchased my first computer, had purchased final draft, and
I said, well, what about what would I right? You know,
I was just like, what's your favorite show? Just write
your favorite show. And at the time it was Will
and Grace and Mega mlally was you know, I had
done Greece with Megan mclally, and I was like, well,
(17:21):
it disturbs me that there are no black people on
this show, so let me write in let me write
an episode with a really big black guest starring part.
So I did that and both of the movies that
I made in ninety nine got into Sundance. Megan had
a movie and Sundance too, So we met up and
(17:42):
I was like, girl, wrote an episode of your show,
and I just want you to would would you just
take a look at it and see if it you know?
And so she literally read it that night and she
came back to me and she was like, heny, this
is really good. You're a really good writer. I was like, okay, okay,
like it was the first thing I've ever done. So
(18:03):
then I said, my next favorite show is Sex in
the City. So I'm like, let me write an episode
of Sex in the City where they all fucked black man.
So I sat down, I started to write it, and
I thought, why am I wasting my time on this?
Let me actually right the black gay version of this.
(18:24):
And so I wrote two original episodes of a show
that still sits on my computer to this day to
remind me of, m hm, how far I've come. Amen
called Ladies Who Lunch and I wrote two episodes and
I was writing in complete and utter silence. I wasn't
(18:44):
telling anybody. I was just doing it for me. Once again,
that's what you do as an artist, practice your art.
And then I was living in l A. And I
called a few of my friends and I said, I
want to have a reading of something that I wrote.
Come over to the house out cook will fellowship, and
let's just read this out loud. I'd love to see
(19:08):
if there's anything in it. And we finished it and
they were like, Billy, this is good. At this point,
I had written three things in my whole life. Because
freshman year of college, I wrote a short story for
history class and I created a character, you know, like
(19:29):
a hero's journey, and I put all of the information
into short story for this paper and the teacher failed
me and said, leave your drama and acting class. This
is now trauma so now this is two thousand. I
take those steps to write. There is a program at
U c l A which is the Professional Program and Screenwriting.
(19:52):
So Mondays was a lecture session and they were probably
about a hundred and fifty people in the program, and
then two more days in the week you would have
a breakout session with only eight people for four hours
at a time, and so you know, they've read all
of our material. We came in and then they were
(20:13):
going down the line, how long have you been writing?
How I said, this is the first thing I've ever written.
And the teacher pulled me us out at the end
of class and she said, listen, you're not a first
time writer. Something happened, and in order for you to
move forward, you're gonna have to go back in your
mind and figure out what blocked you from writing, because
(20:37):
you're writing is far too complex and layered, and you
know to never have done it before. I encourage you
to think about that. And that's when I remembered the
story of that teacher who said leave your drawing connecting class.
And I didn't even write a grocery list after that
for like twelve years. So that was the start of me,
(20:59):
like enlarging my territory. And there was one particular exercise
where you were supposed to just blurt and write down,
you know, ten or twenty people that you admire, but
not think about it, just write the first names that
come to your head. And so like a year later,
(21:20):
I opened up the book and I started reading my stuff,
and and in those blurts, what I discovered was, Oh,
it's not Whitney Houston that I want to be like.
She was not on the list. Michael Jackson was not
on the list. Denzel Washington was not on the list.
It was George C. Wolf, it was Steven Spielberg, it
(21:45):
was Ryan Mercy, it was Tony Kushner. You know, I
was like, wait, I want to be a performer like
it just it was news to me. It was news
to me that my own dreams unconsciously had expanded beyond
(22:07):
my ego. M that's the piece. And I mean one
of your interviews you talked about being young and wanting
to be famous, and like, you know that that thing
and how it went the ship to service. The ship
too took your ego out of all of it. And
I think for me, the power of speaking into existence,
but also writing it down. Is that many years later,
(22:29):
you were in Angels in America and I was in
Angels in America with Tony Kushner, like in rehearsal's video,
which is insane to me. Can you talk a little
bit about that experience, I mean, Tony Kushner, Angels America's
so iconic. Well, that was one of you. As we
spoke earlier. That was one of the transitions for me.
You know. The transition for me was I was doing
(22:52):
Greece on forty nine Street at the Eugene O'Neill Theater,
and everybody was talking about this play Angels in America
tongue Kushner and it's you know, Fantasia on national Themes
and you know, seven hours and two parts, and like
it was this grand thing, and so I took myself
to it by myself, and it was the first time
(23:14):
that I realized I had never seen a representation of
me in a positive light. You know, believe is the
moral core of that entire play. With all those crazy
white people swirling around him, he has be calm in
(23:37):
the middle of all of it. Like it's powerful to
see that. It was the first time that I had
seen it and I sat in my seat heaving, like
weeping because of what I had just seen, and also
the chasm that I knew existed between what I was
(24:02):
doing a block away and what I just saw that
I wanted to be doing. Yeah, And I was like,
here I am prancing around like a little Richard automaton
on crack when who I really am is this, And
because I'm doing that, no one will ever see me
(24:23):
as this. If I want anybody to see me as this,
I'm gonna have to take myself out of that and
change the narrative myself. And that's what I did. And
in that Valley period. You know, it took a long time.
It was not easy, it was not quick. I learned patients.
(24:45):
I thought I was moving to behind the scenes. I
was cool. I was calling that time my semi retirement.
Like I had found joy in creating. In another way,
I found joy, and writing I found joy, and directed.
I was can. I said, what's deep to me is
that someone with the talent that that you have, we
all understand how enormous the talent is, and how for
(25:07):
decades folks with your level of talent because there were
no opportunities in front of the camera, were relegated to
doing things behind the scenes, right that there was just
no space for openly gay folks, especially an openly gay
black man. But the world has changed so much and
there is space for you now to be able to
you know, Ryan Murphy said to just sit on your throne,
(25:29):
and you said, you don't have to tell me twice,
and and you're sitting on your throne, darling, You're sitting
on your throne where you belong with the talent, but
also with the years of of struggle. You know, rejection
is God's protection. That came up for me when you
were talking your story, the whole thing about being sort
of pigeonholed and then understanding that you were here for
(25:51):
something different. The rejection of not being seen for who
you are and being told to shape shift was the
blessing that you needed so that the world could see
all the things that you have to offer, and being
willing to do that work, being willing to sort of
go into the valley. You know, it was. Really, it's
been it's been a real like my mind is blown
(26:15):
and I'm living in you know, never in a million
years I had big dreams. I've always had big dreams,
but they were always based on in springboarded office ship.
I had already seen why can't I be the first
black Jean Valjean, Why can't I be the first black headwig?
Why can't I be the first black X y Z?
(26:35):
Instead of the first period. It never occurred to me
that I could be the first period. Yeah, that to
really have the career that was authentic for you, that's
what had to happen, correct, you know, because I was
just ready to settle for Reese Witherspoon's best friends, and
and I don't mean that in any shady kind of way.
(26:57):
It was like, that's just the only thing there was.
I didn't know how to dream the impossible. And that's
what this last ten years from getting that Angels in
America audition, finally knowing that it was a courtesy audition,
(27:19):
to walking in that room and speaking in the first
line and seeing the whole room leaning and keep me
in there for an hour. Well, everybody waited outside, and
Tony Kushner got up from his table with tears streaming
down his face and gave me a bear hug and said,
you're the voice I heard when I wrote this play.
(27:39):
Twenty five years ago, I said, I know, Boo, that
I've been trying to get in this room for twenty years.
I know, that's what I've been saying. It just blows
my mind. Do you know what this shift was? You
know what the moment? I know you talk a lot
about it speaking things into existence, but do you have
a sense of was it just a cumulative thing or
was there a moment when it just when it just clicked.
Was it that audition for Angels and American I mean,
(28:01):
Tony Kushner, hug made Jesus, It's beautiful. It was cumulative,
you know, after not having been in anything in the
theater for for a decade, you know, to come back
with Angels in America was the launch of something new. Absolutely.
(28:22):
But also what I believe too, is that you for
that ten years, you have been laying the groundwork that like,
because I've been speaking Laverne being a superstar into existence.
As I moved to New York and the Girl it
wasn't happening, But but you were laying the groundwork through
the writing, through the One Man Show, through moving but
being of service and I think mining them. You can't
(28:45):
just show up. There was a foundational work inside for
you to be prepared. So then though speaking into existence
came after a lot of groundwork was laid. I just
want people to understand that because I think people get
confused with manifestation. That didn't mean you don't do work.
You have to take action. There was a guest teacher
(29:05):
that came to Cardion when I was there. She said,
do one one thing every day, think about it, and
just take one step every day towards what your goal is.
It's the work, you know, And we're in an industry,
one of the only industries, by the way, where you
(29:27):
can have the talent or not amen. You can be
plucked off the street and be number one on the
call sheet, or you could have gone to Cardigie Mellon
or Yale or something and not even get anywhere near
booking it. That can throw you off, you know, because
everybody else's careers are linear, that's what every other profession does.
(29:51):
This one does not. In Ping Pong's it's up, it's down,
it's cyberates, you know, it's all over the place. And
so for me, what I found is that it really
was about what am I doing it for? Yeah, what
is the service component? You know? And when I asked
myself that question, it hit me like a ton of bricks.
(30:12):
It was like, it's your queerness. It's that thing that
everybody's telling you is your liability. Yeah, and it was
my liability for a long time. My transmence was mine.
It was my liability for a long time until it
wasn't yes for me, it was like this thing that
(30:33):
was gonna hold me back. And then I said, wait,
this is like, this makes me different, this makes me special,
this is beautiful. And just that shift really like it
really was the beginning of like so many things for me.
What is so beautiful about you and is that your
life is an artist, is intertwined with your healing. And
I don't want to end our time without talking about
(30:55):
your book Unprotected, without talking about how much you talk
about trauma and trauma resilience and trauma healing. That's what
sort of sparked me wanting to have you on the show.
But the memoir Unprotected, why just that title evokes so
much for me? Can you tell us why you're calling
the book unprotected? You know, it's interesting because the title
(31:17):
didn't come until way into the writing of it, and
the writing of it didn't click for me until COVID
because when the writing agent approached me in two thousand
and fourteen after he saw my play that I had
written while I yet live, about healing the trauma of
(31:41):
my sexual abuse at the hands of my stepfather through
the eyes of my mother and my sister, that started
as The Pace of Murkison off Broadway in two thousand
and fourteen. Simultaneously, as I was doing Kinky Boots, this
agent came and just called me out of the blue
and said, oh, you should write a book. I want
to represent you to Dajaja and so we s about it,
and you know, we went back and forth for years
(32:03):
and we got it sold to Abrams Press, and then
I got down to trying to figure out how to
write it, never having written a book before. Like, I'm like,
and the theme was overcoming at very city, you know, like, yes,
(32:25):
that's always the thing they want, but that wasn't specific enough, right,
But I didn't know what the specifics of it were.
And then Trump happened, and then COVID happened. Like in
my trauma therapy, my trauma therapist was like, you weren't protected,
(32:47):
and I was like, oh my god, right, nobody was
protecting you. And then we were in the middle of
COVID and lockdown, and I was like unprotected, unprotected the
micro which is my own personal journey and the macro
(33:07):
because I couldn't understand my way in writing wise, you know,
sort of like structure wise, because the last thing I
wanted to do was right a cradle to grave narrative
linearly like a bad one person show. I was like,
I read too much James Baldwin and Tony Morrison and
(33:30):
todda Heasy Coats and you know, like I read too
much to go down like that, like you know, and
it was it was a thing that was like blocking
me for a sounds a little perfectionist dick, yes, yes,
and comparing myself to that and it's like, okay, I
have to stop doing that. But like, what is it
(33:52):
that's completely me that will just knock that away? And
so what I found was is I would go on
these rants during the Trump administration. The news was always on,
and I would just found myself talking to myself and
(34:13):
talking back to the TV, and I was like, oh
my god, oh my god, that's what connects the story
of the past to the one in the present, like,
that's the connection. So the structure of the book fell
into place because of that. And the thing that makes
(34:34):
it interesting to read is that we pop back and forth,
you know, we pop to the past via a rant
that I'm having from something I just watched on television
because of trauma, because of trauma, because of trauma, and
all of a sudden, it just started. I wouldn't say
(34:56):
flowing saying. It took me time. It took me a
long time because I have something to say and I
wanted to make sure that I was saying it for real,
you know, and using my voice in service. I was like, Oh,
(35:21):
it's not just overcoming adversity, it's healing my trauma through
my art, which is what I've been doing my entire life.
It's the only reason why I'm alive, it really is.
(35:45):
I gotta take a teensy break here, but I'll be fast.
That wasn't so bad, now, was it. Let's get back
(36:06):
to it. Your artistic life has been a rope map
to your healing. When you talk about you talk about
pose and how I didn't know how autobiographical pose. What
this girl and you talked about the first couple of
seasons and how you were giving them sixteen takes of
all this trauma and how retraumatizing it was for you.
(36:29):
And I know what that's like as an actor. And
so where's the healing piece for you now around? Do
you feel like you're there now through the process of
posts through their memoir where there's still there's always stuff,
but it's it's that stuff to bed so you can
work on other stuff. I mean, the short answer is yes, Like,
(36:53):
finally I feel that cloud of trauma lifting, you know,
because I have taken the steps to work through it.
And I think a huge piece of it was the
shame of my HIV positive status. And when I was
(37:16):
able to stand in front of the world and release that,
I literally felt weight lifted off of me, like taking
in amounts of air that I don't think I've ever
been able to take it. How many people knew about
(37:40):
your STAF? Did Ryan know? Did the post people know?
So they wrote all that not knowing Jesus Christ? I
didn't know, so like did your husband at My husband?
My husband knows, my sister knows, my close friends, so
just a very small circle, but they didn't Even my
close friends didn't know until after several years. What do
(38:02):
you think the shame was about weird for me? I
grew up, I'm I'm forty nine. I grew up, you know,
in the eighties. So when I started, when I went
through puberty, like HB was happening, right, and my whole
association with sex on my knew I liked boys. I
was like, I'm gonna have sex, get aids and die.
But that was my whole trauma around sex, right, That's
(38:22):
what I'm still working through right now, you know. So
I went from being molested by my stepfather from the
age of seven to twelve to being gay to being
dropped in the middle of the age crisis. If you
have sex, you die, Like it was all trauma. It
was all trauma, you know, and it was like the
shame of it came at the intersection of society and
(38:47):
the church, you know. So the component of you're gonna
be a statistic as a black man, You're gonna be
a statistic. You know. What I say is two thousand
and seven was the worst year in my life. February
was diabetes, March was bankruptcy, June was HIV. All of
(39:08):
the things that everybody said I would be in the
statistic conversation happened in the same year, and that was
the shame. And I had been running from it from
my entire life. I had been avoiding it. And the
matrix like, yes, right, like you know I ate proctly
(39:29):
for breakfast, like it runs in my family. It was
gonna happen. Type two can be hereditary to a lot
of people. Don't really realize that, you know. And so
it was like I just had so much shame. I
was bankrupt, you know. Everybody said, you're in show business,
You're never gonna make a living, you know what I'm
hearing it with shame, so much is about the stories
(39:50):
we tell ourselves, right, Shame is so much about all
those stories. And I haven't Shame has been a huge
part of my life. But when at Bernie Brown, are
our shame, our shame eggs for this. When we deny
our stories, those stories define us. When we own our stories,
we can write a brave new ending. And you are
owning your story this year in a way that is
so insanely powerful for all of us. Shame does not
(40:15):
like like when we speak the shame. Burnee Brown says
that shame dissipates when we tell the story to someone
who's earned the right to hear, you know, met with empathy.
Empathyist the antidote to shame, and that's what we do
as artists. For me, the trauma pieces, yes, the trauma happened,
and we have to deal with that. But the resilient
piece has been there throughout your whole life. It's been
(40:35):
the art. It's been that incredible voice. I can't believe
you stood up to your teacher like that, even the
way you stood up to your abuser a teenager, that
there was something inside you that had a sense of
your own worthiness. You know, when I was in college
with my ballet teachers, I didn't have that right. I
wasn't being cast in things, and I was being shamed
because I was too firm too, I was too much
of a girl. I wasn't masculine enough. And now that's fine,
(41:01):
that's great, right now, even with this deep voice, and
I did not have the courage just stand up to
my ballet teachers. And you stood up for yourself, And
it seems it feels like you've always done that, even
and and even leaving Broadway, standing up for yourself, standing
up for a vision, for your life. That's bigger. Leaving
my record label. Leaving my record label when they took
my song and gave it to Celine Dion. Which song
(41:23):
was that? Love Is on the Way. You said that
the music industry almost killed you? What did you mean
by that? And the nineties? For people who don't know
you had a record deal? You are? You are on
Star Search girl. You want Star Search thousand dollars you had?
You did three R and B albums, you just one
R and B album came out. In What I meant
(41:45):
by it almost killed me? Was up until that point,
my voice, my singing voice, was my savior. Yes, it
got me out of my circumstances. It did everything for me.
And then in the arena of music, it became about
(42:07):
my gayness. Nobody cared about my voice. Oh it didn't
matter how well I sang. It was like I couldn't
even speak without somebody, you know. I was getting ready
to go on the Rosie o'donald show from my album,
and I had already been on the show several times
because she was a friend of mine from the Revival
(42:28):
of Greece. So I was here now was like a
record in a in a song and um, right before
I went out, the room was bustling with my music
industry people, and somebody said, well, just don't you you
don't speak, I mean, you don't, just try not to
talk too much. Do you feel like you were defined
by that voice that you that you were like literally
(42:49):
you were whether you're Donald called you the voice, Rosier
Donald called you the voice. And all of a sudden,
this thing that you have been defined by, this thing
that has been celebrated, this thing that's InCred of ball right,
all of a sudden is a liability, and all of
a sudden is the thing that's not getting you to
where you want to go. I can't even imagine what
that must be like. It's horrible. Oh my god, it
(43:12):
was horrible, you know. And to say to the universe
I am more than my voice. I am more than
my voice. And then to wake up September twelve, two
thousand and one, too severe as reflex. Oh that took
my voice away. I was like, Okay, lord, I don't
(43:32):
know what's going on right now, but I'm just gonna
lay it at the cross chow because the wait I
didn't know you had severe as a reflex and took
your voice with obviously your voice back, So it was it,
but it's a way different voice than what it was.
I had really bad reflex in two thousand six and
I had to change my diet. I locked my singing
voice to with it. Just training. Was it changing your diet?
(43:54):
It was all the stress, Like I had all of
the tests done, the tube down my stomach, They're like,
there's nothing there. It's all stressed. You know. That was
me holding all of the just the all of the trauma.
It was just I put myself on the path to
figure out how to fix it. But what a gift
(44:16):
though that it's all a gift that I knew it then.
I actually knew it in the middle of it. You know,
when I lost my voice, I was like, okay, you know,
because I wasn't turning things down. I was too scared.
I was too scared to be without money. I was
too scared to be without means. I was too scared
(44:40):
to take the actual leap of faith that I needed
to take to get to the other side of it.
You know, I got fired from the revival of Little
Shop of Horrors out of Town because I needed to
be amen. Because the universe was saying, you know, you
(45:03):
ain't supposed to be singing backstage and no booth. Mm hmmm,
you've been asking for something else? Yes, do you really
want something else? We're gonna see And that job went
right away and I was like, okay, okay, gorgeous. I'd
(45:25):
like to end the podcast with the question what else
is true? And this actually comes from my trauma resilience
work and the in the concept of both. And even
if there's something traumatizing our lives, something that's really really challenging,
if we focus on that, that gets bigger. But if
there's there's something else that's true and we can focus
our energy there is that can get bigger, that can
be the thing that gets us through, that can be
(45:45):
the place of resilience. So for you today, Billy Porter,
what else is true? M That's a really good question.
What else is true? Is that I, Billy Porter M
enough m hm, always have been, always will be for real. Yeah,
(46:10):
for everybody out there, like you are not all the
things and all the things where stands in the way
becomes the other things that people say that are that
are bad about you. That's your goal. It totally is.
We're living proof of that. My sweetheart. Yes, we are
all right. Thank you, Billy, thank you brilliant. Okay, bye bye, Darling,
(46:39):
Billy Porter, Billy Porter. In this moment, I'm thinking what
a shame it would be if we didn't have all
of the moment that Billy Porter has given us over
the past several years. In the Kinky Boots moment, everything
(46:59):
that Billy is done, I pose the Oscar moment in
the Christian Ciriano tuxedo gown. We didn't even talk about fashion.
We need Billy's life. We need Billy's talent, Billy's testimony
desperately and badly, and that homophobia and industry that just
didn't know what to do with him could have kept
(47:20):
us from that talent. But as Oprah says, God can
dream a bigger dream for us than we can dream
for ourselves. Billy had the dream after seeing Angels in
America and knew the kind of work that he wanted
to do. The space of what Kushner was doing in
that brilliant play is the space that he wanted to
exist in artistically, and he set that intention, and the
(47:43):
universe conspired once he did sat down and did the work.
Oprah again says, after she read Seat of the Soul
by Gary zo cooped and thought about, you know intention
what Gary Zookov says about authentic power. She says that
authentic power is when you're personality comes to serve the
energy of your soul. And Billy Porter is the epitome
(48:08):
of authentic power in this moment, and we can all
learn from Billy's story. Go out and get Billy's new book,
Unprotected and you are indeed enough. M H. Thank you
(48:33):
so much for listening to The Laverne Cox Show. Please
rate reviews, subscribe and share with everyone you know. You
can find me on Instagram and Twitter at Laverne Cox
and on Facebook at Laverne Cox for Real. This is
the last episode of season one of The Laverne Cox Show.
We don't know if there will be a season two.
(48:55):
Whatever happens, I have had a blast bringing these conversations
to you. It hasn't always been easy. I think about
the times I was in tears or frustration as I
prepare for various episodes. After my conversation with Chase strange you,
for example, I had to go an ugly cry for
about twenty minutes before I could do the wrap up
but I have learned so much, and I am so
(49:17):
grateful to each and every one of my guests for
their wisdom, generosity and for teaching me and us. I
want to go back and re listen to episodes because,
as Bell Hooks reminds us, our struggle is also one
of memory against forgetting. I encourage you to re listen
to episodes as well. So much of this first season
has been about going on a journey of deeper healing
(49:40):
for me. I wanted that for myself and thought I
would invite you to sit in on that journey. But
we've also had a lot of fun talking about Beyonce
and my deep luff for opera for example. Thank you
for going on that journey with me. Thank you so much.
A very special thanks to Lauren Holman and Brooke Peterson
and everyone at Shonda Land and I Heeart Media. They're incredible,
(50:03):
and thank you all so much for listening, and as always,
stay in the luck. The Laverne Cox Show is a
production of Shonda land Audio in partnership with I Heart Radio.
(50:24):
For more podcasts from Shonda land Audio, visit the I
Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows,
Welcome to The Laverne Cox Show, a production of Shonda
land Audio in partnership with I Heart Radio. I have
something to say, and I wanted to make sure that
I was saying it for real, you know, and using
my voice in service. I was like, Oh, it's not
(00:23):
just overcoming adversity, it's healing my trauma through my art,
which is what I've been doing my entire life. It's
the only reason why I'm alive. It really is. Hello, everyone,
(00:52):
Welcome to the Laverne Cox Show. I'm Laverne Cox. So
earlier this year, I was on the show The View,
and I was talking about this podcast and the next
day I got a message from a friend saying that
Billy Porter wanted to call me, and um, they gave
me Billy's number. I call Billy. I think he was
on set somewhere working and he's like, I saw you
(01:15):
on the View and you were talking about attachment theory
and I was like, I'm working on this and let
me just reach out to her, and I'm so proud
of you. It was just he was just really sweet
and we talked about his journey and the work that
he's doing to heal some of his trauma, and it
was just a beautiful conversation. And I was like, what,
you want to come on the podcast and talk about
some of this stuff and he said absolutely. Um. I
(01:37):
was like, I know you have a book coming out
later this year, right, he was like, absolutely, let's do it,
and so here we are. Billy Porter is an actor, singer, director, composer,
and playwright from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He is the winner of
the two thousand nineteen Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead
Actor in a Drama Series for his portrayal of Praytel Impose.
(01:59):
He is the first openly gay black man to be
nominated for and win any lead acting category at the Emmy's.
Porter is also the winner of Tony Grammy, Drama Desk
and Outer Critics Circle Awards for his groundbreaking performances Lola
and Kinky Boots. As a director, among other shows, Porter
helm the revival of Susan Laurie Parks's Top Dog Underdog
(02:22):
at Boston's Huntington's Theater, where he was awarded the Elliott
Norton Award for Best Director. He is the author of
the new memoir Unprotected, a story of trauma and healing
please enjoy my conversation with Billy Porter. Hello, Billy Porter,
(02:43):
Welcome to the podcast. How are you feeling today? I
am really really good. Right now. I'm in downtown Pittsburgh.
I am in pre production to direct my very first
feature film. What's it called. It's called what If? What? Yes?
(03:04):
And you know, it's a really beautiful script. It follows
an African American trans high school girl. It's a coming
of age story, sort of in the genre of the
old John Hugh movies, which I'm obsessed with. Yes, So
it's sort of like I'm trying to bring that genre back,
(03:27):
you know, populated with characters with what the world looks
like today, you know, because coming up in that time,
you know, all those characters were white, so we all
had to superimpose ourselves onto those experiences. I'm really excited
about it because I personally believe the world is ready
(03:49):
for a different kind of trans narrative. You know. Having
been on Pose, you know that was a more traditional
narrative um that people are used to. And while I'm
not trans, I'm ready to see a new story. So
(04:10):
I know y'all are ready to see a new story.
You know, you've been posts has been such a groundbreaking show,
but you've worked very closely with transactors, writers, producers, directors
for the first time. I mean I I saw one
of your interviews when you said that even having been
you know, openly gay since nine five and living in
(04:32):
New York and knowing the girls, that you didn't even
have a full understanding of the depth of the struggle
that that we go through as trans women, particularly blacks,
black trans women. Can you talk a little bit about
since I mean, obviously there was something transformative for you,
you're still wanting to tell trans stories after pose well,
you know, being a black gay man in the eighties
(04:55):
in the middle of the Eights crisis, of course, had
its own complications and challenges and all of that. Everybody
was so focused on the crisis, which is understood. I
guess what I really didn't understand is how largely the
(05:17):
T and lgbt Q was missing from a lot of
the gay boys and gay women, you know, our consciousness.
And I feel like, as Maya Angelus says, when you
know better, you do better. It's incumbent upon me as
(05:44):
an ally to show up and transform my ally ship
into what's necessary to then transform the conversation. What does
that look like for you? Now? Obviously you're directing your
film about with the trans La character. Is that what
what it feels like for you that continuing to elevate
(06:05):
trans people and give them spaces to tell their stories. Yeah?
You know, I I am an artist who believes that
art is activism, whether you want it to be or not,
whether you're conscious of it or not. You know, I
(06:29):
got conscious a while ago. I was watching um Oprah
as we were all wont to do in the in
the time and in the day and still today, and
you know, she had on my Angelou and and yon
le Van sent and they were talking about service. They
were talking about when we can shift our life's intention
(06:55):
to service, everything else will work itself out. Do you
remember what year that was? Roughly? I don't, It was
at least twenty years ago. Yeah, because that for me,
when I was thinking about your story and and prepping
for this, it feels like that moment of intention, of
realizing you want to be a service and then leaving
Broadway feels like the turning point in your life. You
(07:17):
said in an interview that you were when you were
doing Greece that you felt like you were a clown.
But the decision to leave Broadway, the decision to say,
I'm being pigeonholed and I want to do something more
substantial as an artist. That's what I want to be
of service that I feel the calling is bigger than
this extreme singing is the phrase you used to describe
(07:40):
the singing. You had to live a life and go
through some things for all of that to, you know,
sort of fall into place. You know when I was
doing when I was preparing, I was like, we have
so much in common. We both basically had our big
breakout moments in our forties. You were a forty four
forty five when Kinky Boots happened. I was Kinky Boots,
(08:01):
and then I think forties seven for Pose. I was
forty when I booked Oranges in New Black and If
I was forty one when it premiered, and I was
forty two when I was in the cover of Time magazine.
So all of that and the beautiful thing about it
watching you sort of become an icon in a superstar
is that what I feel like. When it happened, we
were both working so hard and both like, okay, we
(08:25):
don't know how I don't know how long this is
gonna last. Let me make my coin, let me make
my mark, let me like say what I need to say.
Let me go and hustle like for death. Physically. I
feel like that when I saw you, I was watching
the interview when you were from two thousand nineteen with
Ryan Murphy, and you were like, you know, you were
(08:46):
nominated for the Emmy and you had had this the
Oscar moment that like, you know, rocked the world, and
you were like in your husband's like, can you take
this in? Ryan's like can you take this in? And
like I'm working, he was wretching your play in Boston.
You were working, And I was like, that was me.
That was me when Orange happened in two thousand thirteen,
and all of a sudden that people wanted me to
(09:07):
come to colleges and universities and I had to do
loan debt and I had gotten an eviction notice. You
had your bankruptcy moment in two thousand seven. I had
an eviction notice in twenty twelve, my second one in
two years. And how I was on a payment plan
when I both Orange a New Black to avoid eviction.
So when when the show premiered and people wanted me
to come to colleges. I'm like, okay, let me go,
let me go make it. I was on the road.
(09:28):
I was working so to pay off the decades where
you didn't have nothing and you were in debt for it. Yeah. Absolutely,
But also is so the hustle was there. But what
I think it's also so wonderful is that you always
foreground the actual work of being an artist. And I
think that is so important. That you're always talking about
(09:51):
doing the work, and not just we're overworking and working hard,
but doing the work of being an artist, the preparation,
the discipline that is required. And I really really loved
that about you. And obviously that started Carnegie Mellon. It did.
I was literally just gonna say, you know, Carnegie Mellon
was a very difficult period for me, and I loved
(10:16):
What was it? Why was it difficult? It was very traumatic,
you know, because it was the eighties and the cut
system was still in place. Can you describe the cut system?
So essentially, freshman year, we had sixty eight people in
my freshman class. By the time I graduated. Four years later,
(10:38):
we graduated seventeen girl The majority of The cuts would
happen after freshman year and after sophomore year. You could
get cut from the program anywhere along that time. And
it was a toxic environment and the system was warning probation,
(11:05):
final probation, advised to withdraw. Now what were they cutting
based on? Well, this is where this is, this is
the trauma, this is where the trauma lies. You know,
because with women, you know, you would show up to
the call board one day and there's a row of
letters and it's all girls, and you would see girls
(11:28):
open it up and then just run away screaming and
crying because they were fat letters, Like literally, you have
to lose weight if you're gonna get cut. And for
the men, for us, it was about being gay. And
interestingly enough, my class was the first class that came
(11:49):
in out loud and proud and said no, because we
came in strong and hard with the alan Now, you know,
first semester sophomore year, I got a final probation letter,
not going through any of the steps to get there.
(12:13):
I got a final probation letter for voice in speech class,
and this teacher said to me, your voice is too
high for the American stage and you'll never work oh,
So at nineteen years old, I was able to look
this white woman in the face and say, well, it's December.
(12:33):
Now you've been smiling in my face all semester telling
me how good I'm doing, and now I have this.
So if my voice is too high for the American
stage today, it has been since you met me. Do
your job. That's what I'm here, that's why I'm in school.
(12:55):
It's your job to actually fix it. So what are
you doing? It's been girl. And then I went into
the head of the of the department and I said,
what is this. You know, because you're just working with me,
you think it's a game. But this letter in this
grade takes away from my from my scholarship money. This
(13:16):
is not a game for me because those of us
who come from the hood, who don't have no money
and mama and daddy ain't paying dollars a year that
bill comes to miuse mhm. I said, fuck you, I'm
not going anywhere. But that's traumatic. At nineteen years old,
(13:36):
that's traumatic. And it was always about the gay thing,
and they were always trying to butch me up. I
can look back at it now and have compassion for
those teachers They saw my talent and they wanted me
to be able to work. They just that was the
only way they knew how to do it. And the
thing that I came out with the most from Carnickie
(13:57):
Mellan was a The training was impeccable. That's why I
was there and that's why I made them teach me,
and they taught us how to live as artists. They
differentiated in the training and in in my time, there
(14:19):
the difference between being a celebrity and being an artist.
I came out of Carnegie Mello with that and I
am grateful for that. What for you is that? What
does that look like? What does that mean living as
an artist? For people out there listening, because because that's
what I'm about you, well, you know, people who aren't
(14:41):
in the business only see and experienced success in show
business as celebrity. Yes, a lot of people don't understand
that the life as an artist has many paths. There's
many ways to make money, there's many ways to exist.
(15:03):
But you do it because you're an artist, not because
you want to be a star. You're gonna do it
whether or not you're getting paid for it or not.
That is the difference. It's like I can't do anything
else now, it feels like a great time for a
(15:27):
short break. We'll be right back then. Okay, we're back.
Let's keep the conversation going. So in my Valley period,
(15:52):
you know, those thirteen years where I was like on
the precipice of obscurity and unemployed, in bankrupt there was
never a moment in my mind where I was going
to leave the business. And the gift of not having
(16:14):
the success that I saw I was entitled to have
because of my talent early in my life, it pushed
me even further into my artistry. It pushed me into
a space that I've never even dreamed of. I'm directing
a feature film right now. But you were directing theater
(16:35):
for those of those Valley years, and you went to
U c. L A. For screenwriting to Girl. But that's
where the expansion came, you know. That's what I mean
about the great stuff from Carnegie Mellon. It was like, well,
I don't have to stop just because nobody's hiring me
as an actor. I don't have to stop being creative.
(16:57):
There are many different ways to be creative. And I
had purchased my first computer, had purchased final draft, and
I said, well, what about what would I right? You know,
I was just like, what's your favorite show? Just write
your favorite show. And at the time it was Will
and Grace and Mega mlally was you know, I had
done Greece with Megan mclally, and I was like, well,
(17:21):
it disturbs me that there are no black people on
this show, so let me write in let me write
an episode with a really big black guest starring part.
So I did that and both of the movies that
I made in ninety nine got into Sundance. Megan had
a movie and Sundance too, So we met up and
(17:42):
I was like, girl, wrote an episode of your show,
and I just want you to would would you just
take a look at it and see if it you know?
And so she literally read it that night and she
came back to me and she was like, heny, this
is really good. You're a really good writer. I was like, okay, okay,
like it was the first thing I've ever done. So
(18:03):
then I said, my next favorite show is Sex in
the City. So I'm like, let me write an episode
of Sex in the City where they all fucked black man.
So I sat down, I started to write it, and
I thought, why am I wasting my time on this?
Let me actually right the black gay version of this.
(18:24):
And so I wrote two original episodes of a show
that still sits on my computer to this day to
remind me of, m hm, how far I've come. Amen
called Ladies Who Lunch and I wrote two episodes and
I was writing in complete and utter silence. I wasn't
(18:44):
telling anybody. I was just doing it for me. Once again,
that's what you do as an artist, practice your art.
And then I was living in l A. And I
called a few of my friends and I said, I
want to have a reading of something that I wrote.
Come over to the house out cook will fellowship, and
let's just read this out loud. I'd love to see
(19:08):
if there's anything in it. And we finished it and
they were like, Billy, this is good. At this point,
I had written three things in my whole life. Because
freshman year of college, I wrote a short story for
history class and I created a character, you know, like
(19:29):
a hero's journey, and I put all of the information
into short story for this paper and the teacher failed
me and said, leave your drama and acting class. This
is now trauma so now this is two thousand. I
take those steps to write. There is a program at
U c l A which is the Professional Program and Screenwriting.
(19:52):
So Mondays was a lecture session and they were probably
about a hundred and fifty people in the program, and
then two more days in the week you would have
a breakout session with only eight people for four hours
at a time, and so you know, they've read all
of our material. We came in and then they were
(20:13):
going down the line, how long have you been writing?
How I said, this is the first thing I've ever written.
And the teacher pulled me us out at the end
of class and she said, listen, you're not a first
time writer. Something happened, and in order for you to
move forward, you're gonna have to go back in your
mind and figure out what blocked you from writing, because
(20:37):
you're writing is far too complex and layered, and you
know to never have done it before. I encourage you
to think about that. And that's when I remembered the
story of that teacher who said leave your drawing connecting class.
And I didn't even write a grocery list after that
for like twelve years. So that was the start of me,
(20:59):
like enlarging my territory. And there was one particular exercise
where you were supposed to just blurt and write down,
you know, ten or twenty people that you admire, but
not think about it, just write the first names that
come to your head. And so like a year later,
(21:20):
I opened up the book and I started reading my stuff,
and and in those blurts, what I discovered was, Oh,
it's not Whitney Houston that I want to be like.
She was not on the list. Michael Jackson was not
on the list. Denzel Washington was not on the list.
It was George C. Wolf, it was Steven Spielberg, it
(21:45):
was Ryan Mercy, it was Tony Kushner. You know, I
was like, wait, I want to be a performer like
it just it was news to me. It was news
to me that my own dreams unconsciously had expanded beyond
(22:07):
my ego. M that's the piece. And I mean one
of your interviews you talked about being young and wanting
to be famous, and like, you know that that thing
and how it went the ship to service. The ship
too took your ego out of all of it. And
I think for me, the power of speaking into existence,
but also writing it down. Is that many years later,
(22:29):
you were in Angels in America and I was in
Angels in America with Tony Kushner, like in rehearsal's video,
which is insane to me. Can you talk a little
bit about that experience, I mean, Tony Kushner, Angels America's
so iconic. Well, that was one of you. As we
spoke earlier. That was one of the transitions for me.
You know. The transition for me was I was doing
(22:52):
Greece on forty nine Street at the Eugene O'Neill Theater,
and everybody was talking about this play Angels in America
tongue Kushner and it's you know, Fantasia on national Themes
and you know, seven hours and two parts, and like
it was this grand thing, and so I took myself
to it by myself, and it was the first time
(23:14):
that I realized I had never seen a representation of
me in a positive light. You know, believe is the
moral core of that entire play. With all those crazy
white people swirling around him, he has be calm in
(23:37):
the middle of all of it. Like it's powerful to
see that. It was the first time that I had
seen it and I sat in my seat heaving, like
weeping because of what I had just seen, and also
the chasm that I knew existed between what I was
(24:02):
doing a block away and what I just saw that
I wanted to be doing. Yeah, And I was like,
here I am prancing around like a little Richard automaton
on crack when who I really am is this, And
because I'm doing that, no one will ever see me
(24:23):
as this. If I want anybody to see me as this,
I'm gonna have to take myself out of that and
change the narrative myself. And that's what I did. And
in that Valley period. You know, it took a long time.
It was not easy, it was not quick. I learned patients.
(24:45):
I thought I was moving to behind the scenes. I
was cool. I was calling that time my semi retirement.
Like I had found joy in creating. In another way,
I found joy, and writing I found joy, and directed.
I was can. I said, what's deep to me is
that someone with the talent that that you have, we
all understand how enormous the talent is, and how for
(25:07):
decades folks with your level of talent because there were
no opportunities in front of the camera, were relegated to
doing things behind the scenes, right that there was just
no space for openly gay folks, especially an openly gay
black man. But the world has changed so much and
there is space for you now to be able to
you know, Ryan Murphy said to just sit on your throne,
(25:29):
and you said, you don't have to tell me twice,
and and you're sitting on your throne, darling, You're sitting
on your throne where you belong with the talent, but
also with the years of of struggle. You know, rejection
is God's protection. That came up for me when you
were talking your story, the whole thing about being sort
of pigeonholed and then understanding that you were here for
(25:51):
something different. The rejection of not being seen for who
you are and being told to shape shift was the
blessing that you needed so that the world could see
all the things that you have to offer, and being
willing to do that work, being willing to sort of
go into the valley. You know, it was. Really, it's
been it's been a real like my mind is blown
(26:15):
and I'm living in you know, never in a million
years I had big dreams. I've always had big dreams,
but they were always based on in springboarded office ship.
I had already seen why can't I be the first
black Jean Valjean, Why can't I be the first black headwig?
Why can't I be the first black X y Z?
(26:35):
Instead of the first period. It never occurred to me
that I could be the first period. Yeah, that to
really have the career that was authentic for you, that's
what had to happen, correct, you know, because I was
just ready to settle for Reese Witherspoon's best friends, and
and I don't mean that in any shady kind of way.
(26:57):
It was like, that's just the only thing there was.
I didn't know how to dream the impossible. And that's
what this last ten years from getting that Angels in
America audition, finally knowing that it was a courtesy audition,
(27:19):
to walking in that room and speaking in the first
line and seeing the whole room leaning and keep me
in there for an hour. Well, everybody waited outside, and
Tony Kushner got up from his table with tears streaming
down his face and gave me a bear hug and said,
you're the voice I heard when I wrote this play.
(27:39):
Twenty five years ago, I said, I know, Boo, that
I've been trying to get in this room for twenty years.
I know, that's what I've been saying. It just blows
my mind. Do you know what this shift was? You
know what the moment? I know you talk a lot
about it speaking things into existence, but do you have
a sense of was it just a cumulative thing or
was there a moment when it just when it just clicked.
Was it that audition for Angels and American I mean,
(28:01):
Tony Kushner, hug made Jesus, It's beautiful. It was cumulative,
you know, after not having been in anything in the
theater for for a decade, you know, to come back
with Angels in America was the launch of something new. Absolutely.
(28:22):
But also what I believe too, is that you for
that ten years, you have been laying the groundwork that like,
because I've been speaking Laverne being a superstar into existence.
As I moved to New York and the Girl it
wasn't happening, But but you were laying the groundwork through
the writing, through the One Man Show, through moving but
being of service and I think mining them. You can't
(28:45):
just show up. There was a foundational work inside for
you to be prepared. So then though speaking into existence
came after a lot of groundwork was laid. I just
want people to understand that because I think people get
confused with manifestation. That didn't mean you don't do work.
You have to take action. There was a guest teacher
(29:05):
that came to Cardion when I was there. She said,
do one one thing every day, think about it, and
just take one step every day towards what your goal is.
It's the work, you know, And we're in an industry,
one of the only industries, by the way, where you
(29:27):
can have the talent or not amen. You can be
plucked off the street and be number one on the
call sheet, or you could have gone to Cardigie Mellon
or Yale or something and not even get anywhere near
booking it. That can throw you off, you know, because
everybody else's careers are linear, that's what every other profession does.
(29:51):
This one does not. In Ping Pong's it's up, it's down,
it's cyberates, you know, it's all over the place. And
so for me, what I found is that it really
was about what am I doing it for? Yeah, what
is the service component? You know? And when I asked
myself that question, it hit me like a ton of bricks.
(30:12):
It was like, it's your queerness. It's that thing that
everybody's telling you is your liability. Yeah, and it was
my liability for a long time. My transmence was mine.
It was my liability for a long time until it
wasn't yes for me, it was like this thing that
(30:33):
was gonna hold me back. And then I said, wait,
this is like, this makes me different, this makes me special,
this is beautiful. And just that shift really like it
really was the beginning of like so many things for me.
What is so beautiful about you and is that your
life is an artist, is intertwined with your healing. And
I don't want to end our time without talking about
(30:55):
your book Unprotected, without talking about how much you talk
about trauma and trauma resilience and trauma healing. That's what
sort of sparked me wanting to have you on the show.
But the memoir Unprotected, why just that title evokes so
much for me? Can you tell us why you're calling
the book unprotected? You know, it's interesting because the title
(31:17):
didn't come until way into the writing of it, and
the writing of it didn't click for me until COVID
because when the writing agent approached me in two thousand
and fourteen after he saw my play that I had
written while I yet live, about healing the trauma of
(31:41):
my sexual abuse at the hands of my stepfather through
the eyes of my mother and my sister, that started
as The Pace of Murkison off Broadway in two thousand
and fourteen. Simultaneously, as I was doing Kinky Boots, this
agent came and just called me out of the blue
and said, oh, you should write a book. I want
to represent you to Dajaja and so we s about it,
and you know, we went back and forth for years
(32:03):
and we got it sold to Abrams Press, and then
I got down to trying to figure out how to
write it, never having written a book before. Like, I'm like,
and the theme was overcoming at very city, you know, like, yes,
(32:25):
that's always the thing they want, but that wasn't specific enough, right,
But I didn't know what the specifics of it were.
And then Trump happened, and then COVID happened. Like in
my trauma therapy, my trauma therapist was like, you weren't protected,
(32:47):
and I was like, oh my god, right, nobody was
protecting you. And then we were in the middle of
COVID and lockdown, and I was like unprotected, unprotected the
micro which is my own personal journey and the macro
(33:07):
because I couldn't understand my way in writing wise, you know,
sort of like structure wise, because the last thing I
wanted to do was right a cradle to grave narrative
linearly like a bad one person show. I was like,
I read too much James Baldwin and Tony Morrison and
(33:30):
todda Heasy Coats and you know, like I read too
much to go down like that, like you know, and
it was it was a thing that was like blocking
me for a sounds a little perfectionist dick, yes, yes,
and comparing myself to that and it's like, okay, I
have to stop doing that. But like, what is it
(33:52):
that's completely me that will just knock that away? And
so what I found was is I would go on
these rants during the Trump administration. The news was always on,
and I would just found myself talking to myself and
(34:13):
talking back to the TV, and I was like, oh
my god, oh my god, that's what connects the story
of the past to the one in the present, like,
that's the connection. So the structure of the book fell
into place because of that. And the thing that makes
(34:34):
it interesting to read is that we pop back and forth,
you know, we pop to the past via a rant
that I'm having from something I just watched on television
because of trauma, because of trauma, because of trauma, and
all of a sudden, it just started. I wouldn't say
(34:56):
flowing saying. It took me time. It took me a
long time because I have something to say and I
wanted to make sure that I was saying it for real,
you know, and using my voice in service. I was like, Oh,
(35:21):
it's not just overcoming adversity, it's healing my trauma through
my art, which is what I've been doing my entire life.
It's the only reason why I'm alive, it really is.
(35:45):
I gotta take a teensy break here, but I'll be fast.
That wasn't so bad, now, was it. Let's get back
(36:06):
to it. Your artistic life has been a rope map
to your healing. When you talk about you talk about
pose and how I didn't know how autobiographical pose. What
this girl and you talked about the first couple of
seasons and how you were giving them sixteen takes of
all this trauma and how retraumatizing it was for you.
(36:29):
And I know what that's like as an actor. And
so where's the healing piece for you now around? Do
you feel like you're there now through the process of
posts through their memoir where there's still there's always stuff,
but it's it's that stuff to bed so you can
work on other stuff. I mean, the short answer is yes, Like,
(36:53):
finally I feel that cloud of trauma lifting, you know,
because I have taken the steps to work through it.
And I think a huge piece of it was the
shame of my HIV positive status. And when I was
(37:16):
able to stand in front of the world and release that,
I literally felt weight lifted off of me, like taking
in amounts of air that I don't think I've ever
been able to take it. How many people knew about
(37:40):
your STAF? Did Ryan know? Did the post people know?
So they wrote all that not knowing Jesus Christ? I
didn't know, so like did your husband at My husband?
My husband knows, my sister knows, my close friends, so
just a very small circle, but they didn't Even my
close friends didn't know until after several years. What do
(38:02):
you think the shame was about weird for me? I
grew up, I'm I'm forty nine. I grew up, you know,
in the eighties. So when I started, when I went
through puberty, like HB was happening, right, and my whole
association with sex on my knew I liked boys. I
was like, I'm gonna have sex, get aids and die.
But that was my whole trauma around sex, right, That's
(38:22):
what I'm still working through right now, you know. So
I went from being molested by my stepfather from the
age of seven to twelve to being gay to being
dropped in the middle of the age crisis. If you
have sex, you die, Like it was all trauma. It
was all trauma, you know, and it was like the
shame of it came at the intersection of society and
(38:47):
the church, you know. So the component of you're gonna
be a statistic as a black man, You're gonna be
a statistic. You know. What I say is two thousand
and seven was the worst year in my life. February
was diabetes, March was bankruptcy, June was HIV. All of
(39:08):
the things that everybody said I would be in the
statistic conversation happened in the same year, and that was
the shame. And I had been running from it from
my entire life. I had been avoiding it. And the
matrix like, yes, right, like you know I ate proctly
(39:29):
for breakfast, like it runs in my family. It was
gonna happen. Type two can be hereditary to a lot
of people. Don't really realize that, you know. And so
it was like I just had so much shame. I
was bankrupt, you know. Everybody said, you're in show business,
You're never gonna make a living, you know what I'm
hearing it with shame, so much is about the stories
(39:50):
we tell ourselves, right, Shame is so much about all
those stories. And I haven't Shame has been a huge
part of my life. But when at Bernie Brown, are
our shame, our shame eggs for this. When we deny
our stories, those stories define us. When we own our stories,
we can write a brave new ending. And you are
owning your story this year in a way that is
so insanely powerful for all of us. Shame does not
(40:15):
like like when we speak the shame. Burnee Brown says
that shame dissipates when we tell the story to someone
who's earned the right to hear, you know, met with empathy.
Empathyist the antidote to shame, and that's what we do
as artists. For me, the trauma pieces, yes, the trauma happened,
and we have to deal with that. But the resilient
piece has been there throughout your whole life. It's been
(40:35):
the art. It's been that incredible voice. I can't believe
you stood up to your teacher like that, even the
way you stood up to your abuser a teenager, that
there was something inside you that had a sense of
your own worthiness. You know, when I was in college
with my ballet teachers, I didn't have that right. I
wasn't being cast in things, and I was being shamed
because I was too firm too, I was too much
of a girl. I wasn't masculine enough. And now that's fine,
(41:01):
that's great, right now, even with this deep voice, and
I did not have the courage just stand up to
my ballet teachers. And you stood up for yourself, And
it seems it feels like you've always done that, even
and and even leaving Broadway, standing up for yourself, standing
up for a vision, for your life. That's bigger. Leaving
my record label. Leaving my record label when they took
my song and gave it to Celine Dion. Which song
(41:23):
was that? Love Is on the Way. You said that
the music industry almost killed you? What did you mean
by that? And the nineties? For people who don't know
you had a record deal? You are? You are on
Star Search girl. You want Star Search thousand dollars you had?
You did three R and B albums, you just one
R and B album came out. In What I meant
(41:45):
by it almost killed me? Was up until that point,
my voice, my singing voice, was my savior. Yes, it
got me out of my circumstances. It did everything for me.
And then in the arena of music, it became about
(42:07):
my gayness. Nobody cared about my voice. Oh it didn't
matter how well I sang. It was like I couldn't
even speak without somebody, you know. I was getting ready
to go on the Rosie o'donald show from my album,
and I had already been on the show several times
because she was a friend of mine from the Revival
(42:28):
of Greece. So I was here now was like a
record in a in a song and um, right before
I went out, the room was bustling with my music
industry people, and somebody said, well, just don't you you
don't speak, I mean, you don't, just try not to
talk too much. Do you feel like you were defined
by that voice that you that you were like literally
(42:49):
you were whether you're Donald called you the voice, Rosier
Donald called you the voice. And all of a sudden,
this thing that you have been defined by, this thing
that has been celebrated, this thing that's InCred of ball right,
all of a sudden is a liability, and all of
a sudden is the thing that's not getting you to
where you want to go. I can't even imagine what
that must be like. It's horrible. Oh my god, it
(43:12):
was horrible, you know. And to say to the universe
I am more than my voice. I am more than
my voice. And then to wake up September twelve, two
thousand and one, too severe as reflex. Oh that took
my voice away. I was like, Okay, lord, I don't
(43:32):
know what's going on right now, but I'm just gonna
lay it at the cross chow because the wait I
didn't know you had severe as a reflex and took
your voice with obviously your voice back, So it was it,
but it's a way different voice than what it was.
I had really bad reflex in two thousand six and
I had to change my diet. I locked my singing
voice to with it. Just training. Was it changing your diet?
(43:54):
It was all the stress, Like I had all of
the tests done, the tube down my stomach, They're like,
there's nothing there. It's all stressed. You know. That was
me holding all of the just the all of the trauma.
It was just I put myself on the path to
figure out how to fix it. But what a gift
(44:16):
though that it's all a gift that I knew it then.
I actually knew it in the middle of it. You know,
when I lost my voice, I was like, okay, you know,
because I wasn't turning things down. I was too scared.
I was too scared to be without money. I was
too scared to be without means. I was too scared
(44:40):
to take the actual leap of faith that I needed
to take to get to the other side of it.
You know, I got fired from the revival of Little
Shop of Horrors out of Town because I needed to
be amen. Because the universe was saying, you know, you
(45:03):
ain't supposed to be singing backstage and no booth. Mm hmmm,
you've been asking for something else? Yes, do you really
want something else? We're gonna see And that job went
right away and I was like, okay, okay, gorgeous. I'd
(45:25):
like to end the podcast with the question what else
is true? And this actually comes from my trauma resilience
work and the in the concept of both. And even
if there's something traumatizing our lives, something that's really really challenging,
if we focus on that, that gets bigger. But if
there's there's something else that's true and we can focus
our energy there is that can get bigger, that can
be the thing that gets us through, that can be
(45:45):
the place of resilience. So for you today, Billy Porter,
what else is true? M That's a really good question.
What else is true? Is that I, Billy Porter M
enough m hm, always have been, always will be for real. Yeah,
(46:10):
for everybody out there, like you are not all the
things and all the things where stands in the way
becomes the other things that people say that are that
are bad about you. That's your goal. It totally is.
We're living proof of that. My sweetheart. Yes, we are
all right. Thank you, Billy, thank you brilliant. Okay, bye bye, Darling,
(46:39):
Billy Porter, Billy Porter. In this moment, I'm thinking what
a shame it would be if we didn't have all
of the moment that Billy Porter has given us over
the past several years. In the Kinky Boots moment, everything
(46:59):
that Billy is done, I pose the Oscar moment in
the Christian Ciriano tuxedo gown. We didn't even talk about fashion.
We need Billy's life. We need Billy's talent, Billy's testimony
desperately and badly, and that homophobia and industry that just
didn't know what to do with him could have kept
(47:20):
us from that talent. But as Oprah says, God can
dream a bigger dream for us than we can dream
for ourselves. Billy had the dream after seeing Angels in
America and knew the kind of work that he wanted
to do. The space of what Kushner was doing in
that brilliant play is the space that he wanted to
exist in artistically, and he set that intention, and the
(47:43):
universe conspired once he did sat down and did the work.
Oprah again says, after she read Seat of the Soul
by Gary zo cooped and thought about, you know intention
what Gary Zookov says about authentic power. She says that
authentic power is when you're personality comes to serve the
energy of your soul. And Billy Porter is the epitome
(48:08):
of authentic power in this moment, and we can all
learn from Billy's story. Go out and get Billy's new book,
Unprotected and you are indeed enough. M H. Thank you
(48:33):
so much for listening to The Laverne Cox Show. Please
rate reviews, subscribe and share with everyone you know. You
can find me on Instagram and Twitter at Laverne Cox
and on Facebook at Laverne Cox for Real. This is
the last episode of season one of The Laverne Cox Show.
We don't know if there will be a season two.
(48:55):
Whatever happens, I have had a blast bringing these conversations
to you. It hasn't always been easy. I think about
the times I was in tears or frustration as I
prepare for various episodes. After my conversation with Chase strange you,
for example, I had to go an ugly cry for
about twenty minutes before I could do the wrap up
but I have learned so much, and I am so
(49:17):
grateful to each and every one of my guests for
their wisdom, generosity and for teaching me and us. I
want to go back and re listen to episodes because,
as Bell Hooks reminds us, our struggle is also one
of memory against forgetting. I encourage you to re listen
to episodes as well. So much of this first season
has been about going on a journey of deeper healing
(49:40):
for me. I wanted that for myself and thought I
would invite you to sit in on that journey. But
we've also had a lot of fun talking about Beyonce
and my deep luff for opera for example. Thank you
for going on that journey with me. Thank you so much.
A very special thanks to Lauren Holman and Brooke Peterson
and everyone at Shonda Land and I Heeart Media. They're incredible,
(50:03):
and thank you all so much for listening, and as always,
stay in the luck. The Laverne Cox Show is a
production of Shonda land Audio in partnership with I Heart Radio.
(50:24):
For more podcasts from Shonda land Audio, visit the I
Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows,
Host
Laverne Cox
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