When you’re a drag queen, an essential part of the job is doing your own makeup. The queens who compete on “RuPaul’s Drag Race” spend hours each episode, layering their faces with foundation, eyeshadow, and blush to perfect their signature drag looks. It was “jarring,” then, for former “RuPaul’s Drag Race” contestant Brooke Lynn Hytes to arrive on a movie set where makeup artists were being paid to put her in drag.
“We did none of that,” said Hytes about doing her hair and makeup on the set of “Stop! That! Train!,” a comedy starring RuPaul that hits theaters on June 12. “We got to sit in the chair and get pampered.”
While Hytes certainly enjoyed the R&R, she felt trepidatious about director Adam Shankman’s plans for her face. “Adam had a very specific vision for the makeup, as in he didn’t want a lot of it, because we were supposed to be women,” Hytes, who plays Amber, a glamorous train stewardess in the film, said. “That was a jarring experience when it first happened, because as drag queens, we are self-made beings, and we have created our own personas, so to be put into this environment where they were telling us what to do and how to do it, and sometimes were actually doing it for us, was hard.”
Hytes, who nearly won Season 11 of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” before going on to host “Canada’s Drag Race,” is not one to be pushed around, though. “I definitely went back into my trailer and put on just a little more after [the makeup artists] were done,” she said. “And apparently [the producers] were too scared of me to say anything.”
Hytes is just one of many drag queens who appear (in minimal makeup) in “Stop! That! Train!,” the first film from the “RuPaul’s Drag Race” universe. Hytes, Season 13’s winner Symone, and Season 15’s Marcia Marcia Marcia, who is credited in the film by her real name Marty Lauter, play a trio of snobbish train attendants on the luxurious Glamazonian Hyper Speed Rail. Due to two last-minute callouts, Tess (“All Stars 10” winner Ginger Minj) and DeeDee (Season 2’s Jujubee), employees from the budget line, Stank Rail, nab shifts on Glamazonian as well. When a superstorm (or “stormaganza” as it’s called in this slapstick drag world) threatens to derail the train, the queens must band together to save the passengers.
While these five queens landed the lead roles, Shankman and producers asked “35 Drag Race” queens to audition for “Stop! That! Train!,” with each sending in tapes for multiple roles. Lauter, a trained actor who performed in “Kinky Boots” on Broadway and the national tour of “Hello, Dolly!” before competing on “Drag Race,” felt she deserved a spot.
“I was bugging [the producers],” she said, chatting on the morning of the film’s New York premiere at NewFest. “I was in ‘Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club’ on Broadway at the time, and I could see that we were gonna close soon. So I was like, ‘Am I doing this?’ I am one of the only queens that’s an actor, so I was like, ‘I think I could handle this.’”
“I had to audition twice,” said Jujubee about the casting process, joking, “My first audition was so good, they wanted to see it again.” The fan favorite, who has competed four times across the franchise, was asked to audition for both her role of DeeDee, but also Hytes’ role, Amber.
“I had a FaceTime meeting with Adam,” she said, “and I looked at him and said, ‘I don’t know why you’re having me read for Amber, because I am DeeDee. That is my role.’ Adam said, ‘Oh, you think so?’ and I said, ‘No, I know so. I just need you to approve this.’ Sometimes you have to show up for yourself and tell them what you need.”
The only queen, aside from RuPaul, of course, who was offered a part sans audition was Ginger Minj, who had previously worked with Shankman on “Hocus Pocus 2.” Minj, however, didn’t even realize what she was signing up for when she said yes.
Minj and Hytes had both previously worked on the VH1 TV movie “The B*tch Who Stole Christmas,” which Hytes shadily describes as “technically a film” in comparison to “Stop! That! Train!” “With ‘The B*itch Who Stole Christmas,’ we were in Skid Row for two weeks in an abandoned hotel, and then in the middle of the desert doing a night shoot,” she remembers, “So it was a very different experience.”
The writers of “The B*tch Who Stole Christmas,” Christina Friel and Connor Wright, also penned “Stop! That! Train!,” and so Minj assumed this would also be a low-budget TV movie.
“It wasn’t until a couple months after accepting the part that I heard Adam Shankman was directing it,” Minj said. “So I talked to the producers again. I was like, ‘I know I’ve already agreed to do this, but can you explain a little bit more?’ They’re like, ‘It’s a theatrical release.’ I went, ‘Oh, sh*t. I’m glad I said yes.’”
While “Drag Race” queens have popped up briefly in films like “A Star Is Born,” “Happiest Season,” and “Dumplin’,” this is the first wide release to be helmed by “Ru Girls,” a fact that’s not lost on the cast, especially given the recent surge in anti-LGBTQ legislation in America.
“The movie itself, without us saying a word about it, is a form of protest,” said Hytes. “It’s a queer-led, drag queen-led mainstream, hopefully blockbuster movie that’s going to be in theaters. It says, ‘We are here, we are queer, and we are funny, talented artists.’”
Symone, who grew up in central Arkansas, found it especially moving that the film will play in her home state. “I love TV. Growing up, that was my escape, the way out of my surroundings,” she said. “I’m just so happy that whoever is queer like me has an opportunity to see themselves and know you can do whatever you want.”
Even as massive as “RuPaul’s Drag Race” has become, a movie starring drag queens will always be a bit of an underdog, something that producers Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato certainly understand. The whole film was shot in only 19 days, with the cast and crew putting in long hours to create a final product worthy of the fans.
“It was incredibly intense and focused work,” said Barbato, “because normally a film of this size would take twice the amount of time we had to shoot. It was like a military operation, and Adam ran a tight ship and a smart ship, getting all the coverage.”
“On ‘Hocus Pocus 2,’ I had two weeks to film one line,” said Minj for context. “Whereas here, we had 19 days to film the whole thing.”
“It’s not like there’s a lot of money,” added Bailey, “but there’s a lot of camaraderie and heart.”
While the “Stop! That! Train!” set may have been pared down when compared to “Hocus Pocus 2,” it was certainly a step up from the average drag show.
“You get treated like a princess in film,” said Lauter. “They’re like, ‘Do you need anything? Are you comfortable? Do you want food from the crafty table?’” That’s quite the upgrade from quick changes in the back closet of a Hell’s Kitchen gay bar and snatching soggy dollar bills while lip syncing to Whitney Houston at 1 a.m.
Ginger Minj has Jujubee to thank for plucking her from gay bar obscurity and setting her up on a national stage. The two met over a decade ago on a rainy night in Hoboken, where they were both performing at a charity event in a church. Jujubee was so impressed by Minj that she told her to audition for “Drag Race” and personally sent her tape to casting.
“She was a very big cheerleader for me,” said Minj, to which Jujubee immediately replies, “Big?”
Now the pair are headlining “Stop! That! Train!,” a “Hocus Pocus” Live tour this fall, and a “Wicked” parody residency, titled “Licked: For Gay,” in Atlanta and Provincetown this summer.
Of course, the highlight for all the “Drag Race” queens in “Stop! That! Train!” was acting opposite RuPaul, herself, who plays President of the United States Judy Gagwell in the film. While RuPaul presides over the queens on “Drag Race,” they don’t interact with her much on the TV show aside from during the judges’ critiques.
“Usually when we see RuPaul, she’s at the desk far away and sitting down,” said Hytes, who gets fake-slapped by RuPaul in the movie. “[Filming ‘Stop! That! Train!’], I was three feet from her face; she was in drag and just staring at me. It was such a surreal out-of-body experience.”
The thought of acting opposite RuPaul was “terrifying” to Jujubee and “intimidated” Ginger Minj, but the trio ultimately ended up having fun chatting on set.
“RuPaul is just a big nerd, and I don’t think people realize that,” said Jujubee.
“She’s such a pop culture junkie,” adds Ginger Minj, “She just wants to sit and talk about sh*t that happened 30 years ago, like ‘Did you see this Diane Sawyer interview from 1983?’ I’m like, ‘No, but I’ll go look it up tonight.’”
Ginger Minj and Jujubee agree that their favorite day on set was spent filming in the train’s cockpit with RuPaul.
“We were in there all day, and Adam was just like, ‘All right, now we’re underwater, now we’re this. Just play,’” said Ginger Minj. “So Jujubee starts making whale noises, so then I start making whale noises, and then the curtain behind us opens, and RuPaul comes out making whale noises.”
Unfortunately, cameras weren’t running during RuPaul’s whale noise symphony.
“That makes it more special,” said Ginger Minj, “Because that means she was just playing to play.”
“Stop! That! Train!” opens from Bleecker Street starting Friday, June 12.
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