In fall of 2010, I created BLEEP Magazine, an online creative culture magazine that went on to read by more than a million readers in 150 countries. After 8 years of interviewing artists and actors and chefs and dancers and Olympians and even an astronaut, I decided it was time to chase new dreams. Below are a curated selection of interviews and features done between 2011 and 2018.
“I think it’s really interesting that you can come back to certain roles at different times in your life and there are other things to say and the production becomes something else.”
“The first time I sang ‘Downtown’ live on US TV, I walked out on stage and everyone was standing and cheering even before I started singing. New Yorkers had taken this song (and me) into their hearts.”
“It’s very rare that you honestly see colorblind casting or that you honestly see non-traditional casting. It’s time for us to let everyone tell stories and not have one look or one type be the standard for normalcy. We need to recognize people’s spirits and not their skin color. This show is a reflection of what people are asking for in life and specifically right now in the US. Being a part of work that reflects that on stage, no matter the medium, is the constant dream.”
“Working with Eugene [Levy] and Catherine [O’Hara] on a daily basis is so wonderful and humbling. I find myself paying so close attention to what they do that I sometimes forget my cues. That’s especially true with Catherine, who I’ve looked up to for so long. I’ve become more confident on set, which has a lot to do with the fact that now that we’ve done this for two seasons, we are comfortable together.”
“A lot of people think ‘Titus’ is like me. I don’t really think he’s that close to me. I’m certainly a silly person and will take most opportunities to make a joke, but there’s a desperation that ‘Titus’ has that I only had when I first got to the city. So I’m revisiting that place…I was broke for most of it and scared and I think a lot of ‘Titus’ humor and the way he looks at the world is fear based.”
“If someone comes up to me and tells me they loved ‘Lost’ and want to know what I’m doing now, I certainly tell them. Mainly, I’m just happy people are still watching ‘Lost,’ which a lot of people are. There are many people who just finished the show, who weren’t old enough to watch it when it aired originally and that’s exciting.”
“We never thought The Big Lebowski would become what it became,” she explains. “In the same way, we thought Josie and the Pussycats was going to be huge and it wasn’t. No one knew Van Wilder would become a cult movie either. It’s awesome that it did. We never thought Sharknado would be that way either.”
“The Sandlot was my first audition basically. I went in and read a scene that’s not even in the movie. It was full of references to the show The Honeymooners—I was shouting things like, ‘Pow! Right in the kisser!’ from behind home plate—and after I met the other eight guys, that was it. I was the last character cast for the film.”
“What’s cool about ‘Let It Go’ is that once the dress change happens, I get to just stand downstage and sing and share and watch the crying and the cheering from both the kids and the adults.”
I was actually nervous to meet Michelle Pfeiffer because she was a big star and I was 27 I think. It’s a costume that worked back in the day and I still think it stands. I did her cowl and the stitches, everything else was an S&M suit from West Hollywood.
“Growing up, I always felt like an other. I don’t want to have anyone else who looks like me feel that way. In order for that to happen, there has to be inclusion in shows like Hamilton, where yes, these are characters who were white, but we are going to tell the story and include what America looks like right now. Because of that, there isn’t a sense of ‘that’s not my history,’ because it’s all of our history. We are all Americans.”
“It’s very hard to capture in words the range of emotions that you feel the first time you see Earth from space. For me, the overwhelming emotion was the realization that my childhood dream had come true after a 25-year wait. Needless to say, it was a pretty powerful moment in my life!”
All information and quotes are attributed to BLEEP Magazine 2011-2018 and is therefore dated as such. All photos were used with permission upon initial publication and should not be copied or reproduced.
Ryan Brinson 