This season, former RuPaul's Drag Racecontestants Trixie Mattel and Katya head to Viceland with a new variety series, The Trixie & Katya Show, an outgrowth of the pair's popular YouTube program. (Think Lucy and Ethel, but R-rated and with eyebrow glue). Here, the wild co-hosts and comedy tag team sound off on a slew of hot topics.
On why Viceland is a great venue:
Katya: "The appeal of Viceland is that it's not, like, a gay, gay faggot homo thing. All of that was balanced by more perspectives--straight and otherwise--and the result was kinda magical."
Trixie: "We've found that it's like a Trojan Horse--people will watch the show because it's funny, and the fact that we're in drag is secondary."
Katya: "I see it as, 'Come for the costumes; stay for the idiocy.'"
On their rapport:
Katya: "You can't force a conjoined-twin relationship. It has to occur naturally--in the womb."
Trixie: "Most duos have the psycho and the straight man. Visually, I'm the psycho, but Katya's brain--"
Katya: "Everything makes sense to me."
Trixie: "Said Ted Bundy."
On the show's street-side Q&As:
Trixie: "We're out of drag and out of our minds."
Katya: "People want glamour and beauty, and here we're balancing that with eczema, psoriasis, and mental illness."
Trixie: "I honestly think that if we were in drag, it would have been harder to get real responses."
Katya: "Yeah. Out of drag, we receive a lot of pity. Even when most people are bee-lining away from us."
On devising episode themes:
Trixie: "I think it was all Viceland. They just presented all of these ideas, and most of them have been really good, which is surprising to us."
Katya: "We just don't trust straight people. The Holocaust happened and I'm never gonna forget it. We were very pleasantly surprised by them early on though, which made the experience a lot more pleasurable and smooth."
Trixie: "And I think Viceland was like, 'Wow, they can make anything funny. Let them do whatever.' "
Katya: "Yes. Season 2 is going to be all about genocide."
On their dream guests:
Katya: "I want a time-travel episode with Jodie Foster. I would honestly be happy with her just sending in a grainy, black and white video of her just giving us the finger. That would be fine."
Trixie: "I want Harvey Weinstein, jerking off into a potted plant while we watch. Or have the ghost of Larry Kramer doing double dutch."
OUT: "Larry Kramer is still alive."
Katya: "Even better!"
On inspirations:
Trixie: "I've just always loved those full-hour variety shows back in the day--with full-blown variety show moments. Like, we could have someone come up and do a high five and then have another celebrity guest come in and do a song. Maybe Jodie Foster."
Katya: "I was really inspired when I was in high school and I was taking acid and I turned on HBO and Sandra Bernhard was pregnant in a sheer white dress, giving a monologue in a one-woman show."
On the future of the show's drag looks, and reading OUT to filth:
Trixie: "What about the looks? Are you saying there's a problem with the looks?"
Katya: "Like, are you coming for us at this moment, Kurt? Interesting."
OUT: "No, no!"
Trixie: "I feel like we turned some great looks this season. I watched the trailer."
Katya: "I think we look really good. Obviously, they weren't for you, Kurt."
Trixie: "Yes, maybe you should just watch your tone for the rest of the interview."
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On breaking ground:
Trixie: "The last time a drag queen walked into a room and pitched a show and got an immediate yes, it was RuPaul, and RuPaul's Drag Race came out of that as one of the biggest shows on TV."
Katya: "Somebody paid us a compliment recently, and it was a queen who had a YouTube show of her own. She was like 'You and Trixie are paving the way.' Yeah, there's Drag Race, but I think for a long time we just assumed that that would be it. This is a nice little milestone. Two queens can survive without clinging to the hoop skirt of Mama Ru."
On the show's great escapism:
Trixie: "Drag itself is suspension of disbelief because nobody in a room believes that we are women, but we all just, for the fun of it, pretend that's our real hair and our real eyelashes. It's the ultra vacation from reality and I think people, no matter what they identify as, love a mini-vacation."
Katya: "Yeah. We're putting an elephant in the room, but what we're discovering is that the elephant is a pig and that pig is sexy as fuck."
