Interview: Jai Rodriguez of JAI RODRIGUEZ: A THOUSAND SWEET KISSES at 54 Below

Full disclosure: The following is NOT objective journalism or anything that remotely resembles it. I am crazy about Jai Rodriguez. I've had a huge crush on him for just over 20 years - ever since I tuned in to a new show on the BRAVO network: Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. When I heard Jai was coming back to New York, I actively campaigned to interview him. I actually performed as Dame Edna with Jai a few years ago for the Richmond/Ermet AIDS foundation benefit in San Francisco. He was charming then, and he still is. I sat down for a phone interview with him and discussed his return to New York, his career and his place in Latinx LGBT history.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

This is something of a homecoming for you. You'll be at 54 Below from October 26th through the 28th. Have you performed at 54 below before?

I haven't performed in New York City in over 17 years. I don't believe 54 Below was even in existence, then. But in terms of doing a solo show or headlining a show, that would have been 2005 for me. So this has been a dream. Once I saw that 54 Below was in existence, I was very excited and I thought... one day.... because I saw these huge names and popular faces - not just from Broadway but from television and film - that would make their way through, and I thought "Well, if I'm ever on the East Coast and if I ever end up doing Broadway again or do a TV series that has me in New York for awhile, I'll ask them and maybe I could do my thing there." To my surprise, I'd been touring with the cabaret show this summer and the spring because, obviously, there was the writers strike and everything. I have to use all the tools in the toolbox, of course, and they (54 Below) reached out to me and offered me these three nights, and I liked it because it is a nice time of year. People are getting ready for Halloween that weekend. I also like taking a title for a show and a theme and all of that kind of stuff that goes into it. It became really easier to kind of hone in on what I wanted my return to New York to feel like.

Tell tell me about the show.

I titled it 1000 Sweet Kisses, which is a lyric from the duet I would sing in RENT, it's called "I'll Cover You," which I am doing in the show. And each show will feature a surprise guest singer that people will recognize, and they'll duet with me on that song. I had this idea, I don't even know how came to me, but I was driving and I was thinking about the imagery and the artwork, and I passed the billboards for either the Bachelor or Bachelorette, and I thought "Oh, my gosh, how funny" because they had it on social media. I basically wanted that to be my imagery because I kind of knew that I wanted the show to tackle love, sex and intimacy - basically chronicling the lessons I've learned - and kind of drag myself a little bit for the mistakes I've made... and have some comedy and fun. Of course, I'm gonna give some behind the scenes television stories about some of my larger projects that people would kill me if I didn't talk about. But they kind of gave us a good starting point. 

Half a decade of what would have been my college years - those are my formative years, and I feel like the lessons I learned from New York City, and those veterans in the theater, and doing 8 shows a week in RENT groomed me into being the performer I am today. Today we're working in television. People are like, "Oh, you must do theatre, you're on time and you know your lines."

54 Below is scary because I thought, "Oh my gosh, I'm not in a Broadway show." I haven't been in New York in a while and I forget I used to have this long running cabaret show in this club called XL, back in the day. It was such a popular night and I was begging them, at that time, in 2001 I believe, to headline it and they said, "No, we only use pop women and Drag Queens."

I was like "What? Why don't you?"

"You guys can't get an audience!" 

I said, "Please just give me one night."

I did one night - I was in RENT at the time, you know, my one night off, two sets of 6 songs with an intermission, 3 background singers, and a full band, and it was packed, and the owners were like "We're booking you next week." And I did that show on and off for, like, 4 years. So it really kind of lit a fire under me for this sort of idea of postmodern cabaret world, where I could afford to do a musical theater song, but I could also easily, in the same venue, in the same night, do a Top 40 song that was currently on the radio. And it works. So you think that as sort of a theme. You know the show will include Broadway, Top 40 and, of course, some never before told stories. And I think a lot of people know me from television, but the younger folks..... No idea that I sing. 

That's what I was gonna ask you. A lot of people know you from Queer Eye and they know you from newer TV work, but they've got no clue that you're a singer and that you played Angel in Rent and Carmen Ghia in The Producers, and starred as Zanna in Zanna Don't. I mean, do you enjoy the stage work more or do you like the film work more?

There is a relationship, and you know this as a performer, that you have when you are on stage with an audience of back and forth, the timing that is strictly almost chewed up by the audience, that back and forth, you can't predict or even really fully plan what it's gonna feel like - that separates it from television. And the only other time I felt that was when I did a sitcom with Reba McEntire and Lily Tomlin on ABC with a live audience. That also felt similar but the stage will always have my heart, and for a long time I just didn't see a lot of guys who looked like me in a leading role. So I just really didn't believe it would be possible to build a path forward. So when television came calling in Los Angeles, I just kind of stayed here after coming here for a project which, coincidentally, was a singing show on Fox where I sang with people like Patti LaBelle and Taylor Dayne, and I thought that was gonna be the new chapter of my life, and scripted work just, you know, kind of consumed me in a good way. And especially regional things out here like In the Heights and working with Garry Marshall, and I felt connected to stage work. But there's nothing like performing on a New York City stage and having a New York City audience. And so I'm hoping that folks who saw me in RENT or Zanna or The Producers, well, even from XL will come out.

Like I said, I'm scared but I also know that, since I left Queer Eye, I have always had a cabaret show in my back pocket. And so some of the stories will be new to New York audiences. But you know, some of them I've been workshopping for years. So they're sharp and tight and they feel familiar. I have this great musical director, Drew Wutke.  As I started breaking down set lists, I said, "Listen," I was very loose and said, "Here's what I have, some of these are placeholders here." It was the stories that kind of lead into them.

He musical directs big shows and he also physically directs cabaret shows. So I felt like he had his finger on the pulse and after sending him a video of my most recent cabaret show he was like I got it. I got you. I can sense you know kind of your performance style - that is something I don't think I've had in awhile; I've hired accompanists in the past, but having a musical director and having time to build something sure feels new and different and like having it be custom-tailored to not just keys but song selection, and what parts of the song we focus again on, and do we really wanna rewrite this and what if it's a parody song and having options in that way. That's a whole new world to me that he really unlocked and I feel so cared for. And, in a way, that makes you kind of walk into this with a lot of confidence and excitement.

That's really an adventure, to curate all that stuff.

Yeah, you put your ideas out there, and I have.

Drew definitely introduced me to some things. I was like, "OK, that'll be a fun choice." So we've been working on this for a couple of months and having zooms, and that would be interesting too because the first time I actually, physically meet him will be when I have rehearsal tonight. 

What have you missed most about New York?

Oh god, I think, you know, after shows, somebody's always got something. You know, it might be you telling me, "Hey, after your show, I'm doing something at Birdland. You should come." Yeah, it doesn't really happen theatrically, here. I missed that. I miss the one person shows, I miss "You know someone's gonna be doing a bunch of songs at 54 Below, you should come."

Do your fans, especially your LGBTQ plus LatinX fans, look to you as a role model and how do you respond to that outreach?

It's fascinating because now we have social media. I wonder what the shape of that would have been, had we had ways to contact us directly while I was on a popular TV show every week, as opposed to now, where it's every few months you'll see me on something. I think, for me, it wasn't that I had so many LatinX folks that I could look up to. When I was younger, it was LGBTQ plus people. So when I first started, when I immediately latched on to all the older queer folks and wanted to sort of pick their brains as mentors and I found that. Even when I'm playing heavily populated Latin areas like Miami or San Diego, there's a certain subset of the community that know more about me than I could ever imagine. But I'm like, wait, why? They're so young. How? And then I'm like, oh yeah. For them, they see themselves reflected in me. And I saw that there were people who were guest stars on TV shows. There was this one actor named Paul Rodriguez starred on Golden Girls and a bunch of shows. That was the only Rodriguez I ever saw as a kid. The only one. I finally met him one day and gushed.

There's so many great people who reach out to me on the daily and use the word role model and the fascinating thing was it's not something you set out to be but it's quite profound, by you being your most authentic self and blazing a few trails by pure necessity, that the byproduct becomes people look up to you. I don't think I ever sought that out or thought that was something to chase. But you know it wasn't the easiest being queer at the time, even during Queer Eye, professionally. And it certainly was harder being queer and Latin. You know it was different kind of Latin that it was OK to be. You could be the Latin heartthrob. If you got a bunch of muscles...  there's a bunch of different things that archetypes were. It was conceived as acceptable but you know I was falling between the cracks of what a norm would be. So when these young kids are even older folks who happen to be Latin and said, "I really look up to you, I've been following you," I don't take that for granted. I get back to every single person who DM's me. I'm always in the DM's because I like to be accessible to folks. We don't have applause in television really. And in many ways that's their form of applause.

That's excellent. That's avery good way to put that. Now, just a little observation: you presented Beyoncé with her first VMA 20 years ago, yesterday. What was that like to you? Did you know you were presenting something to a woman who would become a role model for so many?

I think about that moment so often. Because The Fab Five and Jimmy Fallon were presenters for Best Female Music Video 2003 on the VMA's. Everyone remembers those VMA's because Britney and Madonna kissed, so that's stuck in the pop culture zeitgeist. People probably don't necessarily remember that that was one of Beyoncé's first solo awards, out of Destiny's Child. That was like the beginning of award show season for the music industry. And her first album, I believe was Crazy in Love, was that summer time. It was the summer of Queer Eye that that dropped. And, so, you're on stage, and at this point I'm gonna say I'm like, look: if the Puerto Rican JLo wins, I'm gonna be thrilled. And Christina Aguilera the Latina wins, I'm gonna be thrilled no matter what. And then when Beyoncé won, I'm thinking, right here, like it's the same age bracket, and so I'm freaking out. I'm backstage. I'm gushing, "I'm such a big fan." We're having the back and forth. In my naivete, I really think four months of being on a big show, half a decade on Broadway, that we are peers. She and I are feeling, at the time, so I didn't know if you fear her or treat her any different. So I ran into her a bunch of times over the following years. I've always just treat her as a contemporary, and she did too. It was like this very easy, and natural ease, and she was just some lovely human being, but I didn't know that years later she would be sort of the Queen of Pop.

She really carries all kinds of genres and R and B to Soul and you know she really has paved the way for so many other people who are liking themselves to her high level performance. Not since people like, I would say, Tina Turner, have we seen that high level energy on stage, the artistry and the social justice issues. I never knew, at that time, that the girl that I had a poster of in my dressing room in RENT would go on to become this pop culture icon. And it's nice to know that, when she received that award, she was humbled, surprised and in shock. And I got to witness that. And it's always, all these years later, kept me humble, you know?

Without giving too much away, and I always ask this question because I've gotten some incredible answers from lots of different people. What is your favorite showbiz story that you experienced?

Oh my gosh, I have some really good ones. Stand by.

I think, well, I think the first time I experienced, like, celebrities and musicals was RENT. Yeah, so we had Mel B, we had Joey Fatone. You know, we had all these really fun huge names like Frenchie Davis. And it was fascinating to kind of learn, before I got on television, how these celebrities' work ethic was so much more heightened and under such scrutiny. Yeah, they, actually, oddly, came in more professional, almost, in some ways, than some theater veterans because they knew they were "out of their element" (in air quotes), that people would judge them more severely. So, they couldn't be good. They had to be the best. And coming later into television, having done Queer Eye, I can't just be a good actor. I have to be the best in the room because I carry a little stigma as, back in the day, I just came off that reality show. So he's a reality show star that's trying to act. And I thought back to those celebrities -Joey Fatone, did not miss a single day of RENT, for six months, except for two press days. One was the VMA's, that was sanctioned because he had an NSYNC commitment. So I think about those times, and it really taught me how to conduct yourself, when people might think something negative or people try to discredit you.

But I will say, in terms of celebrity moments, that on Zanna Don't's closing night, Liza Minnelli was there. And she came backstage and made us feel so incredibly special. So when I go see regional theatre, I see a play or something and there's people in the cast who might think it would be a big deal if I say I'm coming backstage, I'm spending time with them. There's a production of Zanna Don't that's playing here in Los Angeles at the moment. And I intend on going to see them and spending some time with them because I know, for them, they were listening to my voice on the album to learn the show, and it matters. And I remember the times of my life where people I admired just took a little extra time to make me feel seen. And it's just such a small little gesture that means so much and, as much as they're getting out of it, it warms my heart.

You wound up being the youngest person ever cast in RENT. Did you have your eyes set on Broadway from the get go?

I went to the Performing Arts High School, Long Island, that's now been renamed the Long Island Center for Performing Arts. At the time, it was an extension of a vocational school. So there were these vocational schools that would teach you a trade: carpentry, photography, things that, you know, you would do half days of  your regular classes. And they had a performing arts high school that followed the same model. It was a really incredible campus taught by working professionals. So the education I would have gotten freshmen and sophomore year in college for musical theater, music history, music theory, dancing and acting scene work, I got that in high school. So when I'm about to graduate high school, my mother says she's not gonna support me going to college. If I'm going to pursue anything that's gonna make me more "that way" (that was the language you used back then, and we have never had a talk - I'd never done anything with the boys but she knew and I was really stuck, I didn't know what to do). And a girl who graduated years before me from that school saw my end of year showcase and said, "I'm with this agency in New York called Abrams. They're really big. I'm on a sitcom. I feel if I call that agent she'll at least meet with you," and she certainly did, and she said, after I read some sides from a commercial script, "Can you sing?" And I said, yeah. I sang One Song Glory from RENT. In the middle of it she stopped me. She picked up the phone. She called the casting director, Bernard Telsey, and said, "I have a kid here. I know you're going today. Can you see one more person?" They said yes. I'm wearing my uncle's oversized suit because I thought, Agent... Fancy. I took that blazer off, I wrapped it around my waist like a little skirt. I go to Bernard Telsey's office and audition for the role of Angel and I get a call back. The agency signs me. The next day I go to the call back. I auditioned for Bernard Telsey. Himself.

At the end of my audition, I'll never forget this, he says to me. "Where have you been?"

Where have you been? And I, sort of rambling, "Well, I don't have an agent or headshots or anything...."

"I would have cast you without an agent."

And just like everybody else, you work your way up. Choreographer, Jonathan Larson's parents, the entire producing team. And they offered me, you could understudy on Broadway or you could create the role of Angel in Canada for a year. And so I chose the second. I created the role in a new cast. And then, when that run was done, after a year and change, I moved to Broadway into the show and I was there for four years. 

That's amazing. So, you wound up just basically walking into it and and then they they put you through the paces.

Yeah. RENT was like a family that had an open door policy, and if they loved you, they were fine with you going off to do other projects. I would go do a play at Lincoln Center and go back. I took six months off. You're gonna die. I took six months off of RENT to do Zanna Don't. So my plan is that I'll do Zanna for six months. Then someone will replace me and I'll go back to RENT because you can't live in the city, for I think we're making $400.00 a week or something like that. Yeah, like when I tell you I moved apartments so I could afford to do this play. I stayed in a friend's guest room, so small that when I opened the door I would hit the bed. 

During Zanna, I get a call to audition for a new show where I was asked to be a nightlife expert. I said, oh, I know that life. I have a night club act. So it's fine. Part of me was you know, I could do this. It was Queer Eye, but no one really knew what genre was or how they identify it. I auditioned for Queer Eye. I ended up booking Queer Eye while I'm in Zanna. So I'm Platinum White Hair. I'm doing basically, you know, Queer Eye.

They'd dye my hair and I got up at like 5:00 in the morning, get to work at six, work from 6:00 AM to 7:00 PM. The driver would then take me to the theater. They would hold the curtain as long as 8:15 for me to be Zanna. And if I was gonna be later, they would put my standby on. And I did that for about two months, shooting Queer Eye, and then doing Zanna at the same time, until I couldn't anymore. So, I put in my notice at Zanna. And then I ultimately closed the show. So I completed the run. But when Queer Eye aired after Zanna was closed and my whole life changed. And it was not in the cards. When Queer Eye was airing, by the way, I was still in that tiny bedroom when I was on the cover of Entertainment Weekly. I was still in that tiny bedroom that I opened the door and hit the bed.

It's amazing. I mean, humility.

And you guys had no idea what you had at that time, right?

Michael, I tell you this, the wrap party, we were like, "It was so nice to meet you. I hope to see you again" to each other, as a cast.

We thought the run was over, you know? It was on Bravo. No one watched Bravo at the time. It was inside The Actors Studio and old Tom Cruise movies. And, you know, here's the behind the scenes of these actors with James Lipton. It didn't really have original programming until Queer Eye and Project Runway came along. Yeah, all these other shows that really branded Bravo to be a lifestyle network, aspirational living, and we were part of that, you know, early on before social media, before, you know, residuals or anything.

Thank you so much and really appreciate you doing this because I think any of us who are musical theater people who are gig workers and somebody else is sort of affected by the strike and stuff are are so nervous. Are people gonna come and see live music? Are people gonna come and support someone like me that, you know, have this really amazing history in New York City so long ago, Will they ever remember me? It's our own anxiety and fear. And I've got so many lovely messages for people who say they plan on going so to that I say please get your tickets so I can stress out less.  Well, I'm excited because I feel like New York City got to know Baby Jai. Time for them to get to meet me as a grown up.  

Daddy Jai.

Exactly. Papi Jai.

Thank you, Jai! Best of luck with the show!

Jai Rodriguez will appear in A Thousand Sweet Kisses at 54 Below October 26-28 at 7PM. Tickets are available at 54below.com/JAI

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