Billy Porter and Kay Cannon on the set of CINDERELLA
Photo: Kerry Brown
© 2021 Amazon Content Services LLC
If anyone ever denies that Billy Porter has magic about him… well, they’re dead wrong.
Emmy-winning actor, activist, fashion icon, innovator and badass, Porter takes up the Fairy Godmother’s magic wand in the new movie Cinderella, which debuts on Amazon Prime Video on September 3 .
In other words, Billy is magical and has the wand to prove it.
Porter, of course, became a superstar starting with his Tony Award-winning turn in the Broadway musical version of Kinky Boots. He has since been the head of the groundbreaking Pose as Pray Tell series, the New York Ballroom stage master of ceremonies. The role – and his work in it – drew Porter an Emmy into the process, making him the first openly gay African-American actor to win the Best Actor in a Drama Series Emmy Award.
Cinderella puts Porter in the iconic role of the Fairy Godmother (also known as Fab G) in a reimagining of the classic fairy tale. This new version uses contemporary pop songs to imagine Cinderella as Ella (Camilla Cabello), an aspiring seamstress living with her stern stepmother (Idina Menzel). When the King and Queen of the Kingdom (Pierce Brosnan and Minnie Driver) launch a search to marry their lazy son Prince Robert (Nicholas Galitzine), Ella receives a little help from her Fab G and must choose between a life of royalty. , and a life of aspiration and independence.
We caught up with the ever-enchanting Porter to talk about his fluid character, career, and the changing landscape of queer inclusion. Cinderella is coming to Amazon Prime Video on September 3.
So by looking for this I think you are the second male to play the fairy godmother.
Who was the first?
Ed Wynn, the comedian. He voiced the Mad Hatter in the Disney Alice in Wonderland.
Oh. When did it happen?
1960 in Cinderella with Jerry Lewis in the lead. It was a gender swap version of the story.
Oh.
Camila Cabello and Billy Porter starring in CINDERELLA
Photo: Kerry Brown
© 2021 Amazon Content Services LLC
So it’s a big deal that you take on the role. Part of what makes Fairy Godmother Fab G so cool is that he’s a totally fluid character. Is that how the role was presented to you?
Well, Kay Cannon, the writer / director of this version, had me in mind from the start. I only discovered it a few days ago. She wrote it with me in mind. Which makes a lot of sense; when i read the script i felt like me.
Yes.
So I said yes to the whole trip. She understood that fairy tales – the classics – are problematic and need to be reinterpreted. From the start, Cinderella was empowered by being CEO of her own destiny, as an entrepreneur. To make Fab G a man was the original intention. For it to be specifically me, where I, Billy Porter am in my life right now, and for art to mimic life, and what I stand for in the air in general… there is increased energy in me.
Yes there is.
So Fairy Godmother, Fab G, he / she / they / them / ze… it’s magic. Magic has no gender. This is sort of what I found as I started to dive into it. And I think we succeeded.
And he’s also a stage thief character by nature. You follow Ed Wynn, Celeste Holm, Helena Bonham Carter, Whitney Houston in the role. It is also a Star part. When you take on an iconic role, how does that inform your choices as an actor? Is there any responsibility for that in a way? Pressure?
It’s interesting. The only real connection I had to anything fairytale, especially this one, was the Brandy / Whitney Houston version of that story. My 14 year old homo wanted to be Whitney Houston. So when I got that call, it was all I could think of. I have the role of Whitney Houston! So it was already a dream come true.
Billy Porter stars in CINDERELLA
Photo: Kerry Brown
© 2021 Amazon Content Services LLC
Impressive.
In terms of pressure, I don’t approach it that way. It is not my process. My process begins from a place of presence and where we are right now. How is it now, how is it written? How to honor this in the present? So it was less about what had happened before and just being present at the mission today.
Related: Ryan Murphy Pays Beautiful Tribute To Billy Porter After Revealing His HIV Status
It makes sense. Songs always inform the characters and performers of musicals. Here we have pop songs. And you cover Earth Wind & Fire. How does singing an already popular song – which already has meaning in popular consciousness – inform the character?
Well, you’ve answered your own question. So historically musical theater, the original golden age in the 1950s, popular music – music on the radio – was musical music.
Absoutely.
Cole Porter. Harold Arlen. Rodgers & Hart, Rogers & Hammerstein, it was all on the radio. So going back to the original infrastructure of a musical and using today’s pop music to tell the story is going back in time. Let’s be clear: we are going back to the original concept of the Golden Age.
Law.
So we have all this popular music that wasn’t written for it. What it brings is collective history. These are songs that everyone knows. These are the soundtracks of our lives. So when they show up in stories like this, there’s a different kind of story and an individual story for everyone who’s watching. So it deepens the relationship, the bond between the audience and the characters. It really is special.
Billy Porter and Camila Cabello to star in CINDERELLA
Photo: Kerry Brown
© 2021 Amazon Content Services LLC
Yes.
As for “Shining Star”, for me, when I read the first script, the song was “Sweet Dreams”.
Interesting.
Eurythmia / Annie Lennox. It’s a very different version [of the character] that when I read the script for the shoot and the song became “Shining Star.” I immediately understood what they were trying to do with the character. It’s like you want me to kill all day? i got you.
[Laughter]
I have been sold. “Sweet Dreams” was the subtle version. If there is such a thing with me.
I like this. When you and I have chatted before, we talked a lot about how you were treated early in your career, how you were categorized. I would be remiss if I did not point out that this has changed. You are a man on fire, one of the biggest stars in the world. You are an LGBTQ institution. An African American icon. You play in movies. You lead. And the thing that’s so interesting – a lot of the things you said kept you from being chosen for so long now is making you work. When people hire you, they want everything you have.
Correct.
How justified is this? Does this mean that the culture has changed? Or would you have been so popular 30 years ago if someone had given you the opportunity?
The world has caught up. The world was not ready for me. I want to stress this.
Please.
In times of deep movement and change, it is very easy to focus on the negative. It’s easy to focus on what’s not event, not to talk about what happened and what is happening. When I started in this business in the 80s, me, Billy Porter, it was not possible. The way you see me and receive me now, today, was an impossibility. There was nothing like Pose or Pray Tell. There was nothing like it, no space, no context for me to dream of playing the Fairy Godperson in anything. This is not what happened.
Law.
So thank you for highlighting how much has changed. Because they have. We have a long way to go, but they have changed. And I am the result of that.
And we’re all better at it.
Cinderella debuts on Amazon Prime Video on September 3.
