Jinkx Monsoon looks back on the moments that shaped her career and reflects on her journey to finding her place in the industry. From becoming a legend after her iconic Judy Garland 'Snatch Game' impersonation and making history with 'Doctor Who,' Jinkx breaks down some of the most memorable highlights from her life.
Director: Yanise Cabrera
Director of Photography: Mar Alfonso
Editor: LJ D'Arpa
Talent: Jinkx Monsoon
Creative Producer: Tyrice Hester
Production Manager: Peter Brunette
Talent Booker: Keaton Bell
Camera Operator: Meicen Meng
Audio Engineer: Lily Van Leuwen
Production Assistant: Kalia Simms
Stylist: Roberto Johnson
Hair & Make-Up: Davey Matthews; Mollie Gloss; Michael Brooks
Post Production Supervisor: Christian Olguin
Post Production Coordinator: Scout Alter
Supervising Editor: Erica DeLeo
Assistant Editor: Justin Symonds
Director: Yanise Cabrera
Director of Photography: Mar Alfonso
Editor: LJ D'Arpa
Talent: Jinkx Monsoon
Creative Producer: Tyrice Hester
Production Manager: Peter Brunette
Talent Booker: Keaton Bell
Camera Operator: Meicen Meng
Audio Engineer: Lily Van Leuwen
Production Assistant: Kalia Simms
Stylist: Roberto Johnson
Hair & Make-Up: Davey Matthews; Mollie Gloss; Michael Brooks
Post Production Supervisor: Christian Olguin
Post Production Coordinator: Scout Alter
Supervising Editor: Erica DeLeo
Assistant Editor: Justin Symonds
Category
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00My friend's in pain, and she's also being f***ing obnoxious.
00:04Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
00:07Hi, I'm Jinx Monsoon, and today we'll be looking back on some moments
00:14that have shaped my career and my identity.
00:17This is becoming Jinx Monsoon.
00:22Woooo!
00:24This is me and my music partner, Major Scales,
00:27and we're performing at the Baligan Theatre in a basement under a cupcake shop.
00:33And this was like our first gig right out of college.
00:37We had been working on these characters in like nightlife and cabaret gigs and stuff.
00:44And so this was like the first iteration of what would later become a show of the same title,
00:50but you know, really just the type version of that show,
00:54which we ran for four months at the Laurie Beechman Theatre off Broadway in New York.
00:59Ha ha ha ha ha!
01:01So the idea for this show evolved out of something we just used to do to make ourselves laugh.
01:07We came up with the idea of how to play young people from the 1920s but today.
01:15And the idea was through a Coke-fueled Antarctic mishap.
01:22They were frozen alive.
01:23Oh, they're absolutely queer-coded.
01:25What's playing underneath is that he's a repressed homosexual
01:29and she's a very, very independent woman who is being repressed by her husband.
01:36And then eventually she gets fed up and she leaves him.
01:40And then they kind of realize that they love each other anyway
01:44and that they really do like what they do together and they come back together.
01:48And this is all over-the-top, schmackting, stupid, like vaudeville.
01:52Like, oh, you came back to me, kitty!
01:59Oh, gosh.
02:01Oh, gosh! Oh, gosh! Oh, gosh!
02:05It was a really, really hard time.
02:09Overnight notoriety is hard to trust.
02:14Five years before this, I was already working up to this.
02:18But at the time, it just felt like it was all happening overnight, all of a sudden.
02:24And then my friend's in pain and she's also being fucking obnoxious.
02:32But I fucking love her for it.
02:34I actually loved her so much for doing that
02:37because it took all the attention off of me for a little bit.
02:41And I was, like, really grateful for it at that moment.
02:44And I was just like, I don't know what's going on.
02:46Boop-a-doop-a-doop.
02:49Sometimes I look at that moment and I'm like, bitch, you know?
02:54And she's actually, we've talked a lot about this moment.
02:58She actually reached out to be like, I'm so sorry I did this the night we found out you won.
03:04And I'm like, I thought it was a hilarious one
03:07because earlier in the day, she basically told me she was coming.
03:10She told me earlier in the day that she's like,
03:14Jinx, I love you, but I'm a really sore loser.
03:18So when you win tonight, I'm going to throw a temper tantrum.
03:23But it has nothing to do with you.
03:25So I knew it was coming. I wasn't surprised.
03:28And later, she's storming around the courtyard of this hotel
03:33and everyone's kind of following her around and trying to calm her down.
03:38And she screams for the door of her hotel room to be open.
03:42And I'm standing right next to it, and I'm like, oh shit.
03:46And she walks past me, and right before she enters her room,
03:50she looks at me and goes...
03:54And then she goes, and then the door shuts.
03:56So this moment is a lot, it's a lot of things.
03:59She's one of my best friends. She was one of my best friends in that moment.
04:02She was one of my best friends during.
04:04Roxy's one of my best friends today, during, after, before.
04:09The three of us went through something that only the three of us went through with each other.
04:16Let's watch more clips.
04:18Did you really think I wasn't going to be able to track my own ship?
04:22It was just such a cool thing. It felt like such a moment of community.
04:28Rebecca meets me, and somewhere in the day tells me that they basically knew
04:34my love of the show and my interest in voice acting for them from day one.
04:40Rebecca essentially said that the thought had come years before the invitation
04:48just to keep it secret and special.
04:51And they were waiting for a character for me to voice.
04:55So I already felt very welcomed and very trusted.
05:00Rebecca told me there are no bad gems, just gems that haven't learned how to be good yet.
05:07Oh my God, I can't start crying again.
05:09That stayed with me.
05:12Okay.
05:15My journey getting to this point was a lot of thinking about it.
05:20And for me, it involved therapy and psychiatry, and I had a close inner circle
05:29who were still there with me, you know, even after the harder years.
05:35And they weren't even telling me, we think you should quit drinking.
05:39Things were going pretty all right.
05:41There was just a thought in my head where I was like, you got things going well again.
05:46I had a great new show with Major.
05:48I had a great new show with Bentelecrem, the holiday show which still exists.
05:53And it was like, if you want to get serious, let's remove the obstacles and get serious.
06:00And this was a big obstacle.
06:02My deal with myself was I wasn't going to post about it until I had hit a year.
06:08Because I had tried a couple times before, and I just knew when I quit this time
06:14that this was the time.
06:15The app was such a helpful tool.
06:18The app is called I Am Sober, and it's just been keeping track for me.
06:24It's been so helpful because it's like building up points in a video game.
06:30If I have a drink, I lose all my points.
06:35And I like my points.
06:39Let's move on down to Judy Garland.
06:41Chris Hemsworth.
06:42Chris Hemsworth.
06:43His blank is bigger.
06:44We're looking for Hammer.
06:45Broom.
06:46I don't know if I'm...
06:49That was me doing Judy Garland on the Snatch Game.
06:52My hugest thank you goes to Thirsty Burlington in Provincetown.
06:58I wouldn't say that we do the same Judy Garland, but she taught me what was cool
07:04about a Judy Garland impression.
07:06She showed me what would be fun to do about Judy.
07:10And from that moment on, I was developing a Judy impersonation for years,
07:16just kind of by myself in the dressing room with friends,
07:20and by myself with friends.
07:22I knew that it was going to be good, right?
07:25I didn't know people were going to respond to it the way they did.
07:28On the day, on set, I was feeling like, this is going really well, right?
07:33And I used my, just in case it's going well, I'm going to do these jokes, jokes.
07:38So I was feeling good about it, but you never know with anything, really.
07:43Tips for impersonating someone is zero in on what you love about that person
07:50and what you can see other people love about that person,
07:53and that's what we want to see in your impersonation.
07:55It's like, yes, we want it to be funny, but that has to start with what's authentic.
08:01There's nothing I could say that you couldn't probably guess.
08:05I'm playing Mama Morton in Chicago on Broadway.
08:09It's not only that I get to be in Chicago on Broadway,
08:16which is a show that I love, doing something I always wanted to do,
08:21but I get to play Mama Morton, who is definitely queer-coded.
08:25And it was like, from the audition on,
08:29I knew I wanted to bring queer-coding to my performance of her.
08:34I don't often feel like leaving an audition where I'm like,
08:39but that was one of those auditions.
08:41I really, I left there feeling like, this might happen.
08:45And I auditioned with that character.
08:48It's a developed and, you know,
08:51I auditioned with that character.
08:53It's a developed and informed version of what I auditioned with,
08:58but that's essentially what I auditioned with.
09:04I mean, it took me how long?
09:07I probably knew I wanted to transition my whole life.
09:10I think I knew my whole life.
09:12It just took until I felt ready and until I knew the way I was going to do it.
09:18And once I knew, then I was like, okay, let's do this.
09:21I feel so fortunate that it's been a positive experience.
09:25It's like something that everyone close to me
09:29has just always known about me.
09:32I've been very slow and methodical
09:34about how I want to go about pursuing my truth.
09:41Now in retrospect, some of it's like,
09:44I had the most supportive family.
09:46I grew up in a place where it was possible to transition from an early age.
09:52It takes a while to figure out how to arrive where you always saw yourself.
09:59And so it's taken this long to really know exactly what to do to be me.
10:06And I feel really lucky that it's happening at a point in my life
10:10where I feel really grounded and like I'm taking good care of myself.
10:14I'm fully aware that I am a very, very lucky, fortunate person.
10:20But I hear from people every day that being outspoken
10:25about who I am and how I arrived here
10:29helps them because they just know there's a path to take,
10:34there's a route to take.
10:39Even though I haven't talked about it as much
10:42because it wasn't like the first,
10:45but it's very much a full circle moment with Little Shop of Horrors as well.
10:50It's like the musical everyone in my family loves.
10:53And now I'm playing Audrey in this really, really incredible production of it.
10:59It's at the West Side Theatre on 43rd.
11:03I'm sure it's still running whenever you're watching this.
11:06Even if I'm not in it, go see it.
11:08It's just the best. It feels amazing.
11:10Because I'm playing a female lead.
11:13And I never thought a big production would ever call me
11:20and offer me the female lead in anything,
11:22let alone one of my favorite shows.
11:24So it's been very fun.
11:27This is me as Maestro in Doctor Who.
11:31Russell T. Davis had this character conceived already,
11:35then came to see me in my show Together Again Again,
11:39which is a show I do with major scales.
11:41All these years later, we still put on shows together.
11:45Russell came to see us on our UK tour in Manchester
11:50and saw me portraying myself in my 80s
11:54and said, I think there's something about Jinx in this maestro character.
12:01And then from that point on was imagining me playing this role.
12:06Again, on set with these incredible people
12:11in this wonderful production,
12:12I knew we were creating something really special
12:15and something really magical.
12:16I love the show Doctor Who.
12:18I don't know if I'm contractually allowed to say this,
12:21but yes, this is the queerest season of Doctor Who.
12:25I've watched many seasons.
12:26I'm such a fan of Russell.
12:28I'm such a fan of Shruti, Millie.
12:32They were so wonderful to work with.
12:34Ben, the director.
12:35I'm such a fan of the show Chicago.
12:37I'm such a fan of the show Little Shop of Horrors.
12:39I love these things.
12:41So I feel responsible to do a good job by them.
12:45I always feel responsible to do a good job by my audience,
12:51because it's absolutely my connection with my audience
12:56that is why I'm here right now.
12:58I started being very honest and very open,
13:01and in return, my audience shows up
13:03and are excited when I get things like this.
13:07Thank you so much for hanging out with me
13:09and taking a little walk down memory lane,
13:12watching me cry a little.
13:14This has been Becoming Jinkx Monsoon.