The Bossticks - Actress & Director Tommy Dorfman On Owning Your Identity, Overcoming Bullying, & Learning From Different Perspectives

Episode Date: December 21, 2023

#638: Today we're sitting down with actress, writer, photographer, and director, Tommy Dorfman. Tommy graduated with a degree in acting from Fordham University in 2015. First known for her role as Ryan Shaver on 13 Reasons Why, Tommy has since worked in television, film, and theater - recently starring in Jeremy O. Harris' hit play Daddy at The Signature. In this episode Tommy shares here experience as a trans person and we discuss all things trans rights and perspectives. We dive into how to have an impactful conversation surrounding the LGBTQ community, how to be an ally and ask questions, and what people can do to support the trans community. We also dive into her experience in childhood, how she was bullied from a young age and hid her identity for years. struggled with substance abuse & how she finally decided to own her identity.  To connect with Tommy Dorfman click HERE To connect with Lauryn Evarts Bosstick click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE To subscribe to our YouTube Page click HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) This episode is brought to you by The Skinny Confidential. This episode is brought to you by Momentous Visit livemomentous.com/skinny and use code SKINNY at checkout for 15% off your first purchase. This episode is brought to you by HVMN Ketone-IQ™ is brain fuel. It's a clean energy boost without sugar or caffeine. Visit HVMN.com/SKINNY to receive 30% off your first subscription order of Ketone-IQ. This episode is brought to you by Nutrafol Nutrafol is the #1 dermatologist recommended hair growth supplement, clinically shown to improve your hair growth, thickness, and visible scalp coverage. Go to nutrafol.com and use code SKINNYHAIR to save $10 off your first month's subscription, plus free shipping. This episode is brought to you by Quince Get affordable luxury with Quince. Go to Quince.com/skinny to get free shipping and 365-day returns on your next order. This episode is brought to you by Beis Beis has thought of everything you could ever want in a piece of luggage...360 degree gliding wheels, a cushioned handle, built-in weight indicator, washable bags for your dirty clothes, and all the interior pockets you need to keep organized. Go to beistravel.com/skinny for 15% off your first purchase. Produced by Dear Media

The following podcast is a Dear Media production. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to the skinny confidential, him and her.

I had these other passion of acting and performing and storytelling and I was directing stuff in high school. also felt like I was really good at that and had a sort of like quality about me, if you will. I had a lot of people in my life be like, oh, you could totally be an actor. It also became kind of my ticket out of Atlanta. So I went to like an film acting camp in L.A., New York Film Academy for a summer in high school,

and it exposed me to Los Angeles. I made a bunch of friends, like met Nepo Babies for the first time as we've come to love and know them and realized how much bigger the world was. This episode with Tommy Dorfman blew my mind. The vulnerability in this episode is out of control. I really felt like I got a unique perspective of what it was like for Tommy to grow up. She revealed in an interview that she had been privately identifying and living as a woman for almost a year.

She chose to retain her birth name of Tommy, which she feels very connected to. And in this episode, you'll really see the behind the scenes of what she's been through. She was horribly bullied when she was young and it was really interesting to see through her eyes how it affected her. She also is a highly accomplished actress, writer, photographer, and director. And this interview is fascinating. I actually, like, loved it out of all the interviews we did in New York. This was my favorite. I think Tommy is living life on her own terms.

And I think it's really cool to see the evolution of it all. On that note, let's welcome Tommy Dorfman to the Him and Her show. This is the skinny confidential, him and her. Talk to us about your childhood. You told me you grew up in Georgia. Yeah, I grew up in Atlanta, Georgia. I'm the youngest of five siblings. Wow.

Two of which are half siblings, one's adopted. So kind of like a melting pot family dynamic, if you will. There's a 14-year age gap between me and my oldest brother. My parents worked in the car industry up until very recently. They both retired from that. And yeah, I grew up around like football, you know, go dogs, Georgia football. My dad played. I grew up, you know, in the suburbs briefly.

And then we moved into Midtown. And I was kind of, yeah, I was a weird kid. I was like a trans kid in the early 90s. my parents, while super liberal to an extent, as liberal as you can be in the South at a certain time period, right? Like very progressive and like growth mindset people and entrepreneurial and well-traveled enough that they understood that like the lived experience of Georgia and Alabama and like, you know, New Hampshire where my mom is from in Ohio, like was not the, I would say, the blueprint for the rest of the world. So they were really supportive of me expressing myself in a myriad of ways growing up.

And so, you know, I wore a lot of girls' clothes and expressed a really feminine side as a kid that while it was celebrated, I guess, at home in a lot of ways, it wasn't necessarily understood. So there wasn't language to support that. My parents didn't have resources. Media was in a completely different landscape. Queer representation was not super accessible beyond like willing grace or. terrible portrayals of queer people and trans people. So I think my parents just did the best of what they had. You know, like they really just tried to support me as a kid.

And I was an artsy kid. I was a ballet dancer. My whole childhood, I was like into Bikram Yoga. I was doing like musical theater, which segued into acting, directing as a kid, making little short weird videos. Just was kind of like all over the place with my interests, like super undiagnosed ADHD, ADHD, which I've recently. and diagnosed and starting to like find ways to treat.

But I think with expressing myself in a way that society didn't know how to handle as a kid, I was met with a lot of conflict and a lot of bullying and a lot of like things that could, I think, have dampened my individuality and certainly like put a filter on that. And like I learned how to contain parts of myself for safety. But it also gave me a certain amount of like tough skin. And I guess like street smarts to be a chameleon in my life. And like on one hand, that can be a great resource. And on the other hand, like I've had to relearn how to like who I am and who I want

to be in the world and not feel like I need to perform or present for people for safety or for acceptance. So it was an interesting childhood for sure. I mean, all of my siblings are like cis and straight, married kids, divorced kids, like living in Atlanta still to this day. And I was always, you know, black sheep, if you will, of the family. How did you process bullying at a young age? I've had to rely as an adult on the lived realities of other people in my life.

Trauma for me, my response is like, I don't remember. There are like gaps in my memory from childhood from abuse, whether it's, you know, verbal emotional abuse at school or as I got into my like mid teens early you know early adulthood I took to drugs and alcohol to kind of cope with the outside world and found myself in a lot of other situations sexual abuse other things so I kind of have a very blotchy memory of childhood and I've had to rediscover in my 20s and now I'm in my early 30s how I handled situations. And so from what I understand, I, and I have like weird little letters that I had written myself or like mantras that I'd written myself as a kid, just for strange thing to do now that you think about it. But I guess if you're like desperate for help or comfort or safety, like you look to different tools to find that. But I'm pretty, I was I was like a get back up kind of kid. I was like a fall down, push me down. I'm going to get back up. And where do you think that comes from?

I think it's just like an innate rule-breaking kind of fuck the patriarchy, like spirit that I have. I don't know how I mean, fuck the patriarchal. I feel like I sound like a bumper sticker right now and that's not the intention. But I just think I kind of became okay really early on that like I saw the world differently than other people around me. And I could, like I said, kind of adjust myself accordingly. And then, you know, puberty hits and, like, everyone's kind of going through weird shit. And so that's when I stopped presenting in more feminine ways in my childhood. Because I just honestly, like, I remember, the one thing I do remember is just being over it.

Like, I was over people making fun of me. I was over getting threatened. I was over getting, like, hit. I was over coming home. And from what I can remember, like, sobbing at the dining table with my family. We always ate family dinner together. Like, we're super, super tight knit. And then rinsing and repeating.

And I had to transfer schools in third grade as a result of... So this is early. So this is early adolescence, right? And then I went to like a more progressive school in Atlanta called Pidea, which preached a lot of things, but didn't necessarily practice that in the DNA, which is fine. But it was definitely a safer space for me to like explore myself and and be myself. And it made being gay really easy, honestly. Like that wasn't a problem in high school.

like when I kind of came out at 14 as like a gay boy. But at that point I had already like swallowed so much of my trans identity and like the girl in me, if you will. And like I went through like a very like nasty kind of straight boy period in middle school where I was like had like a bunch of girlfriends and like was having sex at a really young age and like smoking. You were having sex with with girls. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When I was like in my early teens and then when I was 14, I started dating guys. And I think I just, you know, I dealt with it in by keeping myself really busy, which is probably wild. Did you feel compelled to start having sex with women to kind of rebel against what people, either the people were bullying you or to prove people, like what? I really, being the youngest child, I really looked up to my siblings, especially like my brother, who's closest in age to me. And he was, he sort of was an early developed kid.

And so I thought there was kind of like a status quo I had to hit or a quote. if you will. So I felt like it gave me a certain amount of like protection to have like girlfriends and like have these like experiences at a really young age. And I was always watching like really mature television and film and like reading books that were well beyond what I should have been reading as a fifth grader and a sixth grader. And the internet was, you know, flourishing at that time for millennials like myself and we had access to things that like even my older siblings didn't have access to in high school. How old are you if you don't mind me actually? I'm 31. Okay. Yeah, so we're about five years older than you. Okay, so 87. Yeah, 87. My brothers. Yeah. We, I always say we're on

the cusp where like Lauren and I didn't get the full like iPhone experience until we got out of college. Like it was like I think it came out. We were the group that when you signed up for Facebook, you could only use it if you had a college email address. Right. And like everyone brought out a full digital camera and then uploaded the entire album that night the night of that's so like well yeah no no no i have i recently was going through my facebook download because i deleted my facebook when my first tv show came out that ended up being really successful so i was like oh fuck no like people can not see these photos and it's crazy that we would post like hundreds of photos at a time yeah but now we've post one and it has to be like the perfect one like once a week i want to know

you looking back as an adult now and seeing all of these young kids bullying you, why do you think that that happened? Do you think it's because that they were ingrained with that from their parents? Do you think people are just scared of seeing something different? When you reflect as an adult and look back at all those people, why do you think that they were bullying? I think people are really afraid of the unknown. And like the best way for me to speak about transphobia especially is just to say that like to be trans and like to transition in a public way and like own this part of yourself and to choose to embark on that journey. Because it's not a choice to be trans, but like there are things that we can do do to affirm our identity, whether it's medical or spiritual, so many different ways.

Right. Coming out in and of itself is stepping into the. that part of your identity, that kind of autonomy and like self-assuredness and clarity is so scary to people on like a global level. It's also interesting though, because even though you're talking about being bullied to me, there's a confidence that you were, that you were yourself no matter what people thought. So that's, it's interesting. It's, you don't sound like you were insecure about who you were. You sound super confident and self-assured.

And maybe that was something that the kids were insecure. hear about, if that makes sense? Oh, totally. I think, and I think that's kind of what I mean about this, like, practicing autonomy is in direct conflict with humanity who just does, like, what their parents did and what their dad's dad did, right? Like, we inherit our DNA and we inherit circumstance, right? And so I think for me to go against the grain, so I guess profoundly at that time was really challenging for people. It was challenging for my peers. It was challenging for my siblings at times. I'm sure. I know it was challenging for my people. I'm sure. I know it was challenging for my parents only because they were scared for me. There was a big fear around

like my safety from a really young age. Especially we have young kids and to think like our kid coming home and crying at the table and being bullied. I don't know how I don't know if I'd be able to contain myself. So I think like to your parents credit, that must have been hard. Very hard. Yeah. They have a really beautiful parenting style that I will not fully adopt but take pieces of as we all probably have from our families. But they really gave me the room. to make decisions for myself, probably younger than I maybe should have. But by nature of that, I developed a sense of self-assuredness and confidence, which has definitely propelled me in my career as an adult, this kind of dumb faith that I can just do whatever.

Yeah. And also, no fear of failure. I mean, I fail all the time. and as my public-facing stature has grown, my fear of failure has seeped in a little bit more. It's like if you learned how to ski when you're a kid, you can just bomb down the mountain as a kid, but then you get older and you're like, oh, wait, my knees kind of hurt. Oh, this is steep. I'm taller now.

Like, this looks steeper. As I've climbed trudged sort of up the mountain of Hollywood or whatever the fuck, I've developed new fears that I never had. before. I mean, I had, I was just like, dead set on being an actor and not just being an actor, but like being a famous actor and like building a life for myself and directing and making television shows. Like I was like, I had a really clear and then working in fact, like I just, and I was like, I can do all these things. Like there's no, there's no problem. And I think a lot of that stems from one, having entrepreneurial parents who understood what it meant to like try things out and like fall on your face and get back up and two, developing thick

skin from like having to combat, ignore, you know, I morphed into a lot of different versions of myself to protect myself, no doubt. What does that mean when you say that? You said that a couple times. You said you've been a chameleon. What is that? Like, give us an example. Yeah. I would, I mean, I literally only wore girls' clothes up until I was 11. And I don't know exactly what happened. But what I do know is I lit those clothes on fire in my driveway. What age did you start wearing women's clothes. As soon as I started dressing myself. Okay. What age is that? I don't, I have a three year old. What age is that? Like three, four. No,

I was very, very clear. I was like, and I would, and they'd be like, what do you want to be when you grow up? I'd be like, I'm a princess. Like, I'm going to be a princess. Like you always, I want to be a girl. Always. Yeah. No, and I just loved loved, you know, things that we would associate with girl. You know, like, I loved Barbie and like, all of the kind of like tropey, queer narratives. And you don't, you don't know why you burned your

clothes at 11. I know that I, I know, I know that I was fucking sick of being made fun of. And I was like sick of people asking me questions about what I was wearing and picking on me. And I was like, I was ready for a reinvention. At the time, so I have two younger siblings. Okay. Two younger sisters, actually. And as an older brother, like, I was very protective of them.

One's nine years younger than me. One's three years ago. You had older brothers. Oh, he was so protective. And so, and one of them, like when they see kids bullying you, how does that manifest with I mean, someone punched me with a school book, from what I remember, like, hit me with their backpack and the textbook, like, cut my eye when I was in kindergarten. My brother was the only overlap we had at a school was kindergarten and he was in fifth grade, about to go into sixth grade, which at that time was middle school in Georgia in our public school system. And I don't know exactly what happened, but I know that kid got fucked up for sure.

Okay, so your brothers were protective of... Very protective, worried for me. And so when I told my brother, I was like, so this is where we rewrite history. I thought my brother had done that. And I had this resentment towards my brother for lighting my clothes on fire. And he was like, no, you like, I think you were the one who did that. And you, you like, and I think in my vision of it, it's like, it was like a great mountain of clothing.

And it was like probably like a couple skirts or whatever. But I had this like idea that I could just rid myself of that version of myself and I could just reintroduce myself. And people do this. Like I have middle school. age nieces, nephews, kids in my family, who I've watched take on completely different personalities to assimilate. And so I think that's what I mean by chameleon. I just was like, and he and his friends, his like bros, stoner friends took me to Dillards or like Bloomingdale's

or something like at, I think we were at Linux Mall, maybe perimeter mall in Georgia and kind of like bought me this whole new wardrobe, like went to Paxon, like borrowed my brother's clothes And like the next, like literally, and I had a nanny at the time to my parents worked so much, Heather. And I asked her about this because as I was transitioning, I was trying to understand like, what the fuck happened? Like, when did I know? She was like, honestly, like, I saw you on a Friday and you were like the sweetest, loveliest, coolest kid. And on Monday, you were like the meanest boy teenager I'd ever met in my life. What's interesting to me is that Amanda Binds was in a movie where they dressed her like a boy.

Oh, she's the man. She's a man. Yeah, based off of her. She said that when she saw herself as a boy, it did something to her head. She wasn't used to seeing herself as a boy. Interesting. She said that there was a sort of like a switch that went off. I mean, she's obviously had a very tough time with her addiction.

Something happened when she saw herself like that. So the reason I'm asking is when you, you see yourself as a girl, but then your brothers take you to pack son. you dress up as a boy, when you are looking in the mirror and you see yourself as a boy, but you feel you're a girl. Was there, did that do something to your psyche? I think it, at that point, I had already like begun whatever subconscious process of like swallowing down whatever trans identity feelings I had. And I started, I was quick to affirm myself worth through the lens of the people around me. And the response to me assimilating into society and what was expected of like a boy was very positive. So you basically were living your life to make other people comfortable.

Yeah, I had girls. I mean, that's kind of, yeah, what queer people do in so many ways until we can't do it any longer. Yeah, completely. Made my life easier, made me more comfortable. I had girls flirting with me. I was flirting. You know, I started to become really popular in a way that I hadn't totally been before. And I was kind of, you know, I was like a lonely isolate. And I spent, I still would spend a lot of time alone because I like needed my alone time. You know, even dancing ballet was, is a very binary sport and art. Like, it's very, like, a lot of the boys in ballet are straight. Like, they're just like super like masculine, like machismo kind of guys and the girls are, you know, and all the pot-a-d-d-dos are male-female. I mean, things are changing. But even when I was in,

like, strict ballet world, you know, they would make me take my nail polish off. Like, I was only in class with boys. So even, there I was like assimilating into a certain type of like masculine performance and then I was getting rewarded for that I was getting better parts I was getting more attention I was commanding more space I'm really happy you came on the show we're having this discussion because I think a lot of people have a really tough time understanding and having this conversation a lot of straight people feel very scared like what what you ask what do you not ask and I think it gets very charged up and people get very angry and I think like a lot of this

So I remember at a very young age going to a gay wedding because my aunt was gay. Oh, cool. And so for me, like, I grew up with just like, okay, that's my aunt. Where did you grow up? San Diego. Okay, great. And she lived in an area called Hillcrest, which is a prominently gay area. Do you know Kelly Connor?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mark Rudici, Kelly Connor. Yeah. It's like my, I lived at Mark Goducci's house. Sorry, not to do. No, we could cut this out.

Yeah. I lived with him for a year. We could keep it in. My mom was best friends with his mom. I love Mark. Mark works at Vogue now. Really fabulous editor. He's so crazy. What he's done. Was under in Chief of Garage magazine for a long time. And also Taylor Nguyen. Gno. Does that name ring a bell? I don't know too. Taylor and Kelly and I know each other because I work with Tom Brown where she works now. Okay. And she used to work at Vogue. She used to work at Vogue.

We have to take a picture and send it to Barreys. We'll send it. Yeah. Tom Brown's dressing me for the ABT Gallag. Bring it back to ballet. I think it's next week or something. That's really cool. Yeah, we could totally, we need to text Mark. Oh my God. We have to text him. I guess like what I'm saying is I think a lot of people and I saw this big like, a lot of press going around when JVN went on Dax Shepherd's show and I think like that didn't that was didn't go well

or maybe we did go well but I think the thing is is I think a lot of people are scared to have the conversation scared to try and understand the perspective I think we're scared of asking the wrong question or stepping in the wrong direction and I think that's part of the problem because for me and why I brought up the wedding that I went to it was when I

got an understanding in a context it opened up my entire world. I understood it. I think a lot of this stuff and bullying and anger and hatred it comes from ignorance, right? Totally. A lack of understanding.

But I think with the way that the world is shaped right now, people are more scared about asking the wrong thing or saying the wrong thing than actually getting to an understanding. So when you're talking about these issues to people, what is something that you wish people would look at

or understand that maybe gets lost in the in the anger I wish people would just listen I think often these conversations get heated let to be clear like we're speaking about like not violent situations right like people who are really trying to understand one another in some capacity showing up like Dax JVN if you will that was more complex I think because they were really debating politics and policies and they were debating children and children and there was maybe more research could have been done on to access part before having a trans person. You know what I mean? Like if you're going to have that

conversation, be ready to have that conversation. I think for me, I'm not a super combative person and I, vulnerability is like the key to compassion for me and that's the key to like liberation and acceptance and understanding one another. So as you said, it's like you saw this example, right? Well, you know, JVN's been on this show and I think the difference sometimes is I felt in that conversation when I was talking to sometimes it was almost like I'm going to correct you and educate you which is okay but it made it it immediately made it harder for me and I think for us to get into the to get into the understanding

because I felt either insecure asking the question or I felt like I was going to say the wrong thing and it's like not trying to offend it's literally trying to present the information so that people can have a different perspective. Yeah I mean I commend them for even in having that conversation because I can't imagine what that would have felt like

in that moment. It's so complicated to be on the receiving end and you're literally in the hot seat, right? So it's just like the stakes are raised.

But to answer your question, I would say listening, so key. I would say generally, for whatever reason, tips to talk to trans people. People really want to like ask medical questions,

which is just so inappropriate. Sure. Like you would never ask cis, straight people questions about their body in that way. Like, it's just not okay. But I think there's a lot of dehumanization that happens with the trans community. Really, like, slowing down in these conversations and showing up with a willingness and

an understanding that, like, you might not be right. I think that long-form content like this is really helpful because it gives context. I mean, I'm here because I know that your audience is not my audience, right? in so many ways. There's definitely overlap. You'd be surprised. No, no, no, no. There's definitely overlap, but you also reach a different demographic than I reach in my

algorithm, if you will, right? And it's important for me to show up to these spaces because we have a lot. I mean, we have mutual friends. Like, we could go have dinner after this. Like, we could go on a trip and probably, like, have a fucking great time. But what I'm getting at is like, there, you know, my cousin was the bachelorette, for example. her followers skew in a different direction politically than mine do.

And so just by nature of her being on a show that is viewed by a different type of person, right? So I think it's exciting for me to be a trans person coming into this space with people who are like calm and chill and like, you know, open and compassionate and loving and caring as I seem to be because it offers an opportunity for us to have a conversation. that's facilitated and then offered to the public so that there can be vulnerability and there can be compassion. There can be a different type of understanding. I mean, this is why I work in entertainment at the end of the day because, like, I know firsthand how seeing versions of myself on screen, off screen, in books, how like access to different types of stories help me better understand myself and has helped me better understand the world around me. When we moved to Texas, one of the things we committed to was just sleep better. In L.A., we just

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What stories and what things did you see when you were little that helped you? None. I'm kidding. I mean, but genuinely, like for trans stuff, none. Like there was nothing. So when you said you're reading all these, like, crazy books, like there was nothing that you found in any of them. Yes. No.

So I started reading like Augustine Burroughs and. David Sedaris books when I was younger than I probably should have been, for example, or even watching 13 weirdly, like that Evan Rachel Wood movie as like a young addict. That movie's heavy. It's heavy, but I felt like seen for the first time. Like, that was my euphoria. You know, I was like, right. There are, I'm not a total crazy person if I'm like doing the amount of drugs I'm doing and partying in this way. And it's not to, it's not to condone that or like approve that. It's just to say that, like, I'm not alone in like the struggle. One thing I won't ever understand and maybe I need to like, maybe I need to be educated on this.

I don't understand why anyone cares what someone else does. By the way, same. I really, that's always since I was little. Like when you say that someone made you take your nail polish off, like I look at a lens through that and I'm like, it doesn't affect anyone of you wearing nail polish. It's you expressing who you are. Like I don't, it doesn't affect me if you wear nail polish.

that's where it's I kind of I almost would want to interview someone that is like like someone who is like you can't wear nail polish or you have to dress like this I don't understand why people get so effective it doesn't affect them they read a lot of headlines and they think a lot of things especially that are happening politically are going to have a direct effect on their life or their family and that's where people dig in we're talking about such a small percentage of the population but I guess like what we try to do and thank you for recognizing this and coming in here is like I like the idea of As a content creator, I feel the easiest way to grow faster and build an audience is to pander to an echo chamber and give them the same kind of thing over and over and continue to reinforce the same kind of message. And I think a lot of people left right are really good at doing that. They find a cause. They dig in and they become that person.

I think it is much more challenging and builds much greater character to pivot and go different ways and share different perspectives. for example like we will have somebody on that maybe is you know believes something completely this way one week and the audience will get fired up or half the audience and then the next week we'll have somebody that's completely counter and they'll get upset and listen the idea is to stretch your mind yeah and and have you look at different perspectives so that you can understand a greater worldview does that make sense no that I mean that's also how I try to meet bigotry as much as possible which is not this is to be clear not meeting bigotry but I just to go back to the

the initial question that I think opened this portal of conversation up, if you will, around just like engaging with people that are different than you. I mean, you could really boil it down to that is exposing yourself to different narratives and different ways of living and different lived experiences, right? Because there's so much animosity that comes out of fear and there's so much violence that comes out of fear, fear of the unknown, fear of someone doing something differently with their lives, fear of like a boy wearing nail polish, like fear of so many things. And the only way to kind of work through that is to be willing to show up as either talent or content creator,

writer, filmmaker, what have you, or as viewer, consumer. What conversations are you having with trans children or your friends who are trans that you wish that the general population would know? I mean, I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not having conversations, I guess, so directly with trans kids, but I do know some trans kids who are really cool. I think understanding, I think to your point, I think it's, I think this, like, having conversations are like, just leave people alone. Like, this has nothing to do with you, right? But I think so often identities are wrapped up in institutions. They're wrapped up in community. They're wrapped up in God, but your version of God, not my. I believe in God. just probably of different God than, you know, Ronda Santis' God. We have different gods. Like,

we don't pray to the same altar, if you will. I try to provide resources to experts. That's kind of my go-to. So if I'm in a situation in which a parent of a trans kid or a trans kid, like whoever it is, I can go through my DM requests and I can get an overall theme without engaging with people directly because there's just safety issues there. And I can offer different supports, if necessary, right? Whether that's Trevor Project, if so, Dyer, or different, you know, queer accepting community centers or the Aliforne Center or, I mean, I like to give literature to adults especially. So I'll be like, oh, you should read Kate Bornstein's work.

She, Kate uses She They pronouns, who has many, it has had many different versions of a book about gender fluidity as the times have changed. and has continued to revise this. Or there's a book called a Girlhood that is a memoir, a letter from a mother to her transgender daughter who's now grown up, kind of in like this Tanaugosi-Cote's way,

they had to flee Florida because the community turned on them when her kid came out as trans. In this sort of like liberal blue community, this was years ago prior to everything that we're dealing with now. And they moved to the north to keep their child safe, right?

But this book really is a beautiful telling of like the lived experience of this from an allies perspective. And this is where allyship I think is so important and so key. It's like where it's why we have to show up for those who are more disenfranchised than us. That's why we have to, you know, learn different ways to advocate for our community members, our friends, our family, who are maybe different than ourselves. And I think resourcing yourself with knowledge and different, you know, types of podcast, things like that, is really the best way to expand your mind and also have like foundational key points that you can look at and use when you are perhaps in direct

conflict with a transphobic person or a xenophobic person or an anti-Semitic person, what have you. Like you can do a racist person. Like you can equip yourself with a comfortable amount, I think, of knowledge and challenge yourself so that you can facilitate conversations or direct people to resources. Because, I mean, that's the beauty of the internet too, right? Like, there are just so many different types of people online and like sharing stories and content creators that there's like, there's an avenue.

And this is stuff I've talked to with like younger queer family members in mind where I'm like, look, this creator is really cool. And like, they're a non-binary person from Texas who is now a poet. And like, you know what I mean? Like there's different ways to steer. friends and family in that direction. And I think when I come into contact with the youth, if you will, I mean, statistics are pretty clear. Like, Gen Z is very fluid. Like, the reality, it's five times more queer than that of millennials. And do you, or five, it's two times

of millennials, five times out of boomers. So all that to say, like, that's really the stat? Or do you think that is more people now just being comfortable? Like, what I'm saying is, do you think that me. No, I don't think there are more queer and trans people. I just think more queer and trans people are out. Are comfortable. That's what I'm asking you. So like it's not even coming out. A younger person in my family came. Didn't even come out to me just started talking about. Yeah. Like, they're like romantic partner who's non-buying. Coming out isn't like a Broadway show. It's just kind of like this is what it is. Yeah. These kids don't. That's cool. That's the question is like has it has the world and has the people really changed or is it now people are just feeling that they're an environment. where it doesn't have to be as big of an issue as it was maybe in our parents' generation. What there is is, is less shame. It all stems with shame because society shames people who are different. And right now, I feel like there's this hopefully momentum of less shame.

And when there's less shame, people feel more comfortable to be who they are. Yeah, I think so. And I think that's where film and television plays a huge role. I think that's where including diversifying casting and fashion and beauty and wellness. plays a huge role in offering the world, one, a viewpoint into different lived experiences, trans people, queer people, differently abled people. What I think it is this too. Like in the 60s with the civil rights movement, I think like a lot of issues around equality

got brought to the surface and the country got very charged. And I don't think that people didn't recognize that these were issues for a very long time. It just finally someone brought it to a head and said, hey, this isn't right and we're going to correct this. In society, some people decide to dig in on both sides. And I think what's happening now is this is becoming a louder. issue, not because it has not been an issue always, but because people have finally decided to take a stand and say, like, this is not okay anymore, right? And I think that, like, what I'm trying to get out here is

when you brought up the stats of people, you know, being more out or more open, it's like, maybe it's always this way, but people just feel they now have a community that will rally around them as before. Maybe they felt like if they, you know, brought these issues to light or came out or, you know. Well, I just think, I mean, nobody, just think about the difference in like the last few years. in having pronouns and bios, right? Like, that was just, like, not a thing that was practiced. And now massive corporations have that as part of their DNA, where it's like their email signatures are inclusive of pronouns.

And it's not because pronouns haven't always existed. It's just because it's a way to signal, like, oh, yeah, we are a place that, like, understands that people like to be identified in different ways and like to use different honorifics. So, yeah, I mean, I think it's two part, though, because I think the conflict really doesn't stem from queer people, right? which I can speak from that experience. It stems from the smaller population,

the smaller sort of like very vocal minority with a lot of power, specifically in this country, going against this evolution of humanity. And it just is that. I mean, because of, you know, because of people like Laverne Cox and Haring-Naf, like I could understand myself as like a trans woman.

And I felt, and because Elliot Page came out so publicly, I felt that I too could step into myself publicly. And, you know, we could trace that back my trans ancestry, you know, to the Marshby Johnson's of the world, to ancient times, if you will, right? Like, you could really keep going. And so media and storytelling and, you know, representation changes the landscape and it makes people feel safer. So it doesn't produce more queer and trans people. It just makes people feel safer to own themselves for exactly who they are, not feel that they need to hide or conform or stifle parts of themselves to succeed in this life, right?

And then that challenges policy. When you decided, not to, I think this is something's fascinating, but when you decided to pursue acting, yeah. What was the, like, how, coming from Georgia, trying to break into Hollywood per se, where do you even begin? Like, you know, because I think the avenues have obviously changed.

Like, did you have a social presence? No. No. No. No. Instagram didn't come until I was in college. Okay. And I had Facebook.

And Tumblr, existed, but I wasn't necessarily a Tumblr kid. And, you know, I had a MySpace and you could sort of become an influencer on MySpace. People were able to build these like, you know, Jeffrey Starr is an example of someone who's like started on MySpace. Mine was pastel pink. I had like stars raining down my MySpace. But no, I never found success on social media until after my acting career had kind of taken off. And, you know, having business-minded parents, and me being an artist, my brain's always kind of been split into. And so when I was in high school and my body was just like starting to really ache and be in pain

from classical ballet, I felt like I could go in two different directions and I could go the like try to be in a ballet company route and then probably have to retire at 30 and then figure out what I would do with the rest of my life and also not make a lot of money, frankly. Like that's just like the lived reality of being a ballet dancer. or I had these other passion of acting and performing and storytelling and I was directing stuff in high school. And I was also felt like I was really good at that and had a sort of like quality about me, if you will.

I had a lot of people in my life be like, oh, you should, you could totally be an actor. It also became kind of my ticket out of Atlanta because my grades were really bad. So because I was doing a lot of drugs in high school. So I went to like an film acting camp in L.A., New York film. for a summer in high school and it exposed me to Los Angeles. I got like a fake idea and was like going out to Teddy's and shit at like 14, 15, however old I was when I went to that camp. I made a bunch of friends like met Nepo babies for the first time as we've come to

love and know them and realized how much bigger the world was because I finally got to see kind of like behind the television screen for a second and be like, oh, whoa, like actors that I grew up watching that I like see now on the street are real people. could start to put those two, like two in, you know, two and two together. I ended up going to a college in Chicago called Columbia College, which is just like basically anyone can get in. Like there's like barely an application. It was essentially like a community arts college, but it is a four-year program. And like what's great about that is like it's a space in which you can, not to look, Kanye West went there, dropped out, but you know, college drop out. A lot of people have gone to Columbia

college and had found great success. But for me, I went there because I didn't, I just need to get out of Atlanta. And I knew that I wanted to study acting. And I started there. And then while I was there, I realized, like, I actually really wanted to be in New York because that's just where the type of theater I thought I would be doing was. It's just like home base. And I loved New York as a kid. I loved coming here. Always wanted to live here. So going to a community college gave me an opportunity to continue being a drug addict and to get really good grades so that no one had to look at my high school. When you say drug addicts, was this? I mean, I was like a daily cocaine user. Okay. When you first got into drugs was the drugs to suppress the feelings that you had from being

bullied? You know, I don't know. I just love doing drugs. To be honest. Like the minute I sipped from like my, you know, siblings bottle of pop pop or whatever the fuck I got my hands on. A little naughty light. I was like, yeah, not yeah. A little smear not. We did a lot of beer ponging in my house. Mike's hard lemonade. Mike's hard lemonade, a lot of icing. We did a lot of Smirnoff icing. Did you remember icing people? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So we would ice people. You know, I grew up like in the south on like a lake and like in Atlanta and like in Alabama and kind of like a country kid in a lot of ways too. And I just loved the feeling of being stoned. I love the feeling of being drunk. I love the feeling of both of those things together. I loved blocking out. I loved the feeling of not feeling, right? which is to say, I don't think it was like a conscious, like, oh, I'm doing this to like run away from my, my, whatever's going on.

It just gave me the safest, safest, coziest place to be. And were you still using drugs and alcohol when you started pursuing acting or at that point? Well, so I got to work when I was 21. So I. And was there like an epiphany moment or you just realized. I mean, my consequences to drinking and drug use for pretty immediate. Like, I was suspended from school in seventh grade for drinking at school. Like I was like very, when I say like, like I was driving drunk in high school all the time, like drinking before school.

Like I was a really, really like I was genuinely like a first thing in the morning. Oh yeah. At times. Yeah. Or going from a party to school in high school. Like I was like a very active drinker and drug user. And then when I was a senior in high school, my grades are really bad. I didn't get in.

Like those consequences came, became really clear. So I went to the school in Chicago where I was just party. every day. But like as I was saying, I was able to kind of transfer to a better school that I auditioned for Fordham in New York and, you know, convince them that I was like worthy of being accepted as very small acting program. And that was my first time really, I would say, like pursuing acting as a crap. Like it was the first time I really read plays. It was like Stanislavski-based program, you know, doing Chekhov and Shakespeare and clown work and studied in Moscow as my study abroad at like Moscow Art Theater School, which is like the

birthplace of Chekhov and Stanislovsky and like all these like foundational acting techniques that people still use today was doing plays and like writing monologues and started writing screenplays all the while like going out every night until five or six in the morning. And then at 21, it all kind of came crashing down right around my 21st birthday. And it was clear that like I wasn't going to be able to continue at school this way. They weren't really going to have me. I was like failing. I was going to take me like, it would have taken me a decade to graduate at the rate. I was going. I would just drop courses like right and left. And I was promoting and like working at restaurants and promoting at clubs. And when I, but at that point, I did really like still want to be an actor. I was like, I still want to be an actor. I really want to do like good meaningful theater. And I looked at the Fiona Shaw's of the world and the Patrick Stewart's of the world and the, um, Alan Cummings of the world and Patricia Clarkson. And I, I looked at the Fiona Shaw's of the world and I. I could just name, you know, tell this one and whatever. Like, Viola Davis, like, I looked at all these people who had these amazing, really interesting,

cool careers and was fascinated by that and wanted that for myself. But I knew at 21 that, like, I was going to die well before I could have ever made it in any career if I kept. Because at that point, I was, like, doing heroin. It sounds like the purpose kind of saved you. Like, I was, yeah, I mean, my last. Okay, you got heavy. Yeah. Well, yeah, it got heavy.

It was, like, not just party. Like I was like drinking and using drugs alone like most nights. Like I was it was dark. It was really bleak. And I just, I had like many versions of trying to get sober from like 19 to 21. Many like lost relationships, friendships, opportunities. And I literally woke up one morning and was done.

And I just like my cousin had just gotten out of a rehab that worked for her. And it was the first of many. And I was like, I called her. And I went, right, I just checked myself into rehab with my dad the next day. And what was rehab like? It was weird because you're like I was 21 and I felt like I'd made the biggest mistake by making, I was like, wait, why did I do this? Like, this is terrible being sober sucks.

Like I'm like, where is my youth? Like I had a lot of regret by making that call because I was like, shit, the jig is up. Like everyone knows. Fuck. Now I've told my family who already knew that this was a, I'd known that this was a problem. but also knew that like you can't force an alcoholic or a drug addict into sobriety. Like you really, it's a self-diagnosed disease at the end of the day. Like you as a individual need to like recognize it within yourself and make those decisions

with the help of other people. You know, a lot of people in my family suffer from similar ailments and diseases around alcohol and drugs that we had enough knowledge to that you can't force it. Right. And so my parents were really scared for me. but hopeful that I would eventually come to a place of, whether it's sobriety or, you know, Cali sobriety, whatever you want to, like, different versions of...

What's Cali sobriety? I think that's when you just smoke weed or something. Oh, okay. I'm just said, there's a lot of different, like now it's like a health thing, so it's like a lot of different people. You know, they're like, oh, I just microdose mushrooms, but I don't drink anymore, whatever.

You live, you've lived in California. I know, I know some of those people. Yeah, yeah, yeah, me too. And I just... But then part of why I love New York is, I got out of rehab and I kind of struck a deal with my dad to stay sober for a year. I didn't think I could be an actor sober. So I decided to start work.

I started working in retail. And like I was like, I'm going to climb up the fashion pyramid. And I was working at like Balenciaga in like two months and like selling like $700 sneakers in Soho. And then I was working at Dover Street Market, which is, have you ever been to Dover Street Market? It's like the best store in the world. It's like everything from Gucci to Nike, super well curated, owned.

by the brand Com de Garsohn. It's a really cool store. Yeah. Where is it? There's such a brat. There's Murray Hill here. 30th and Lex I think here. Yeah.

It's an amazing. Dover Street Market. It's incredible. They have like product Gucci, the Roe, Mu, Mu, but then also Nike, Supreme. Men and women. Men and women and like fluid, whatever. They have the best sneakers, the best shoes. It is a like hype, hype, hype.

Really cool, really good bakery, Rose Bakery. really good food. There's one in LA, Tokyo, Paris is more of like an art space and then it originated in London. Influenced. We just went on a tangent. You're influenced. So I was working at Derversie Market and while I was there at early sobriety, I got the like creative it, you know, and I was like, okay, wait, like this isn't sustainable. Like I, I can't. Like I was helping a lot of famous people. That's like when I was working in those stores, I would help a lot of actors and a lot of like influencers at the time or actually helped David Sedaris and I cried in the back. after I helped him buy like Comte Garsohn Koolots. Why does you cry? Because I felt like I met a hero of mine, you know? It's like I've never met him since, but I just remember that moment in my life. Or once Francis McDormant bought a bunch of like bought Canada goose jackets for me for

her kids when I worked at a store and I was like, I don't want to help Francis McDormit buy jackets. I want to be in movies with Francis. You know what I mean? I just like, which obviously I couldn't say that at the time and still don't, never met her. But I think I had this longing that went far beyond what like a corporate retail job would have provided me. It sounds like you knew your full potential and you were unsettled that you weren't.

I was deeply unsettled. I was like I didn't. And then it became sort of a like, okay, well, I'm sober. I have this like second lease on life. Like, fuck it. So then I entered this phase of like, fuck it. I'm going to go back to school. And like, I'm going to take an insane amount of credits.

And I'm going to fight to graduate in a year and not two years, which they tried to sort of delay. Anyway, I just like, I just was like, I didn't. I went into summer school. So after I got a year of sobriety, I like went straight into summer school, went back to Fordham, like, finished my acting degree, tried to go to grad school for acting, didn't get in. And I set really clear goals for myself when I, at this point, a little over a year of sobriety and I went back to acting schools. I was like, okay, in five years, I'm going to land a guest star on a TV show. So by the time I am 27, I will have done at least one episode of television. television and I will have done like at least one play and I will not work for free or trade.

Like I set these like really clear because I had a teacher, Kenny Leon, who taught my acting class, who was like a very successful director in film and theater especially. And he was the one who sort of came in and he would have guests come in like Spike Lee and Denzel Washington came into our class, like people who like had built beautiful. And he, he imparted on me the knowledge that you can be an artist. and have financial stability. You just have to, like, set boundaries and parameters for yourself. And I took that.

And I, like, like a sponge, I was like, okay, right. If that's the case, then, like, I can't work for a Metro card. Like, I'll work at Baz Bagels in the Lower East Side and, like, make some money that way while I audition. And I will, like, take classes with casting directors. And I will just, like, hustle and, like, only take acting jobs. that pay me money and like defining myself worth that early as an artist was so key. And it's terrifying because I saw all my friends doing really cool that I went to college with doing really cool theater and like really experimental things like going to fringe festivals or like,

you know, going to the Guthrie in Minnesota and doing a play there or going to Yale and Juilliard for grad school. And I didn't get into grad school. And so I was like, okay, well, I'm going to just put my, like, I made little index cards that I still do this today with goals. And one of them was like guest star on a TV show. get an agent, get a manager, do a play in New York. I didn't really want to do a tour or regional thing. I really wanted to do a play at like a reputable theater in New York and become SAG and become equity as an actor. I am all about a good classic basic and I recently found this site. It has the chicest cashmere cruneck sweater you've ever seen and it comes in all different colors.

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at just thrivehealth.com code skinny 90. We also have our old code active too. You can use code skinny for 15% off site wide. So either skinny 90 or code skinny for 15% off. Enjoy. You know, it's interesting to hear you say that we read, Lauren and I both read Arnold Schwarzenegger's biography, which is like different tangent, but he was talking about when he wanted to become an actor and that he was able to kind of be selective and do the things that he really wanted to do because he was working and kind of like figuring out a way to give himself a living besides that. And he was saying that he saw a lot of his friends that were pursuing the same career, but they were like either not taking it seriously or they were taking gigs or doing things that they didn't really

want to be doing. And like one of, you know, this is obviously not a pursuit of mine acting, but he was, if you're going into that pursuit, like you need to figure a way to be your point to be financially solvent and then also be smart about the things you actually attach yourself. Yeah, you need to be focused. Like my dad would call all those like opportunities I could have done that like didn't really have value except for instant gratification like shiny things. Yep. And often my dad still to the stay, I would be like, why are you getting distracted by the shiny things? Like very, I remember I heard Oprah once say on a podcast like a decade ago or whatever it was talk show, who knows, but just this analogy of like a horse race where you're like,

horses don't win races by looking at other horses. So really early on as I was like embarking on a career in the arts, which is to say a career in myself, I learned that like comparing myself to others is fucking irrelevant because humans are so different. So even if I look exactly like somebody else, what we do with a character in the context of this story in relationship to the other actors that are hired is never going to be the same. And so once I let go of this idea that like there are people who are better than me in this way, like no one's better at being the type of actor I am than me because I'm the only person who can act in this way.

Right? Like in this, it's not just that there are a million other people who could do this job. There are actors who are way more talented than me. Sure. But like when you find the role that is supposed to be your role or the story that you're supposed to tell, like, I'm uniquely qualified to do that. And I started owning that from like a really, really young age and like just being really not and not being afraid to fail. Right. And having that kind of mindset and setting these like really clear tangible goals for myself. And then within a year, you know, and we do this thing called senior. showcase where when you're graduating a conservatory program, agents and managers come and they sign you from showcase, like, didn't get a single call, didn't get a single message, like, crickets for me. And I was mortified for like a week. And then I was like, okay, well, fuck it.

Like, how do I figure this out? And at some point in, and it's ears open, it's like, I'm a fucking bumper sticker today. Opportunity meets preparation, guys. I don't know if you heard that before. Opportunity means preparation. I had moved into a shared house with my boyfriend, fiance at the time, and a friend from college, and he had an agent. And this is less than a year after graduating college, he was reading the script for 13 reasons why. And he was auditioning for a role. And I was helping him with his audition. And he was like, you should try to get an audition. I think they're seeing like a wide range of people for this. And they were. They were doing like these bigger open calls.

And I figured out who was casting. And I saw that the casting associate was teaching a workshop. And I signed up for the workshop. All right. And I had pretty much no representation. I had sort of like, I got like very, very, very entry level agents who like barely picked up the phone, you know, like, okay. Well, sure.

And then I had a manager, but he was. like working out of his apartment in like Jersey City and I met him because his girlfriend worked at Equinox and she and I would like hang out together and he had no other client like I'm genuinely like barrel and so I went and took this class and he put on like his managerial front like character because he hadn't really been a manager before he would hate to hear that I don't talk to him anymore sorry but that's because he ended up not being a great guy but anyway I And that's what I did. And I walked up to the associate after and schmused a little, you know, like told him I'd heard

about this thing. And by way of me taking that class and my manager at the time calling and saying like, hey, like Tommy took this class. Like, I hear you're seeing a bunch of different people. And he was like, oh, yeah, we're doing like open calls, whatever. Like, you know, Tommy can come in. Here are the sides. That's how I got my first audition, which was for 13 reasons why.

Which is the show I booked. So then three months. four or five, six months, however long of auditioning later, I was, I graduated in May of 2015 and in June of 2016 I was on set. Wow. You know what's a common denominator about a lot of successful people who have come on this show? They all set very specific goals. And I'm not talking about like, do a play. You were like, do a play in New York City, where I'm getting paid. Right. Like it's like it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, so detailed of what it was. It wasn't just like being a play. It was like a play in New York City.

Make sure I'm getting paid. Make sure that it's like this way. And you like wrote it out and you look at it. And I think that's really a good takeaway for the audience. It's like if you want to make something happen, you have to get so precise of what that is. Like it can't just be like make money. How much money? And you didn't just go into acting like I'm doing anything just to take any role. Yeah, no. Yeah, I think. I was really clear. I was. It's like I, and I remember that first year, pretty much all of my cards were done. Like I got a new, I got real agents. I got a real manager, like people who are really, when I say, when I say real, I mean, people

who are like actually in the industry, not sort of like running rampant and XYZ city, like, taking on vulnerable young actors because there's a lot of, there are a lot of like scary areas of every industry, Hollywood especially. so you have to be really careful when you're approaching work as a young actor and like situations. Yeah, you can put yourself in really weird situations. Yeah, apart from like the occasional workshop that was really low lift or whatever in that year, I just was like really, really, really dead set. And you know what I did is I knew I wanted to go into film and television.

So when I was a senior of finishing college, I was doing student films to build a reel. What is on your cards now? What are you working on that's coming up? I can't say. Okay, but what are things that have transpired that you're working on now? Be careful. Lauren gets anyone to tell her anything. I mean, I'm obsessed with you.

Both of you. Okay, so what can I tell you? Directing a movie. Okay. Which I just did, starring Alexander DeGario and Corey Polkampanus and Cole Sprouse. Quickly, what's the difference between acting and directing? What? I know that, no, I know specifically what the difference is.

What part of my brain? Yeah, what, like, I mean, like. It is a different part of my brain. It is a different part. For sure. Okay. But I think being a good actor and having worked as an actor professionally, although not that extensively, helped me be the best director possible.

Yeah, because you're a practitioner of it. You understand that is and out. And I'm an operational person too. And I like being more of like a creative visionary and I'm a good communicator. So for me, just like directing is being good at hiring, being a good judge of people, being a good judge of character, writing a story that needs to be told, having a clear, very, I'm a very, very, very prepared person. So I had like a hundred page plus lookbook for my department heads. So for those of you who don't work in the industry, department heads are cinematographers,

production designers, costume designers, casting, et cetera. I had very, very clear visions for all of these things. And down to, you know, screen grabs from, stills from other movies as references to palette references, tonal references, actors, tiered from. like the dream person to like would love to explore this or need to discover this role. Here's why. Here's why we haven't seen this person. Before this person, we have to find the person to play this role, which is I feel really passionate about because I was sort of plucked from obscurity for a hit Netflix show that

we didn't know would be a hit, right? But a lot of us, that was our first job, like first big job, especially, but for first job, period. Directing requires a certain amount of vulnerability, but it also requires a certain amount of boundaries. So when I am directing, writing, producing, I am really stern about the boundaries I set and how I communicate with people. I try to be a cheerleader for people, which I kind of have in my life anyway, but especially in that situation, I really try to like affirm. My goal as a director is to always service the story and service who I'm working with.

It's smart. So if you're a production designer, like, I want you to be the best at what you can do as a production designer. I don't want to force you to do what I think you should do. So if I did a good job hiring, it means I believe in you and I trust your vision. And I don't need to babysit you every step of the way. I just need to continue to sort of guide you and lift you up. And that's the same with everyone that I work with.

And I think as an actor, I'm like mush. I don't even know what. Like when I have like actor brain on, like I don't look at my phone really. I'm like not, I'm like in a completely, I'm like very vulnerable,

very sensitive, not like, it's sort of just, I allow, I allow myself to kind of go into baby brain. Are you working on anything with acting right now? Yeah. I'm, it's been interesting. I took a break from acting when I started transitioning because it was pandemic. Although I did do like a weird pandemic television show because I like needed insurance. And it is what it is. You know, I needed money.

I need insurance. Took the job. Job came in, took the job. And as I was transitioning those first few years, I was just really, really focused during the pandemic, career-wise, career-wise on producing writing, like acquiring IP, investing in stories that, like, I really believed in. And so some of those are things that, like, if they come to fruition, I'll be acting in. And you're also launched your podcast. And I launched my podcast my first time. And Curran, which has been sort of like a startup to platform other queer artists, right?

Because at the end of the day, like that's, as we've talked about, more diverse groupings of LGBTQ people in the ether, like more understanding, more compassion, more empathy, right? It can be fostered from that. Yeah, I mean, as an actor, I'm just starting to like pursue new acting opportunities. Well, I'm really excited to watch everything that you're doing. I think that you are a very multifaceted person and you've got a lot of layers and I think your podcast is going to crush it. Podcasts was on my index card. Probably so specific. Curran was on my index card.

Yeah, I really wanted to have like a talk show format where I got to like tell, have specific stories be told to me by people, which is what my podcast is. Everyone should go on Amazon and buy some index cards. I'm going to go buy some. Where can everyone find you, find what you're working on, pimp yourself out. Pimp me out. Hi, at tommy. Dot Dorfman.

I think on every social platform I'm on. So primarily Instagram, but I guess I'm also on thread. in Tech Talk or Clubcurrent.com and that's where you can find written work. I have a book coming out with Harper Collins next fall. My movie, I Wish You All The Best is coming out at the end of next year. So you can get information about all these things. And my podcast is streaming everywhere. Love it. Spotify, Apple, Amazon. It's called My First Time. Patrick Stewart is on this week's episode. Dylan Mulvaney was last week's episode. Julia Fox is coming up. I've got really great people. Her book, I just finished it.

Oh, I know. Is she coming on? I want her to come on. Her book was. So Julia and I have been friends since I was 21. I was literally going to ask you, the way that you talked about your experience in New York, paralleled hers. I was going to ask you if you guys were friends. Yeah.

Because a lot of the things you talked about were things that she themes in her book. Yeah. And I photographed her for Paper Magazine with Pete Davidson. I made them Barbie and Ken in 2019 before Uncut Gems came out. That's so cool. Cool. Yeah. And I remember them being like, oh, I don't know.

Maybe, maybe not. I was like, I'm telling you Julia Fox is it. Like, she's the one. She's a vibe. They agreed to do it. And I was shooting Pete and I sort of infamously removed his penis and made him a Ken doll on the cover of this magazine. How big did you have to crop to remove his penis? We had him in really tight underwear.

You'll say if you go, you can Google it. Like we just took the body of a Ken doll and sort of like super. imposed it and like put these pieces together in post. Maybe you can shoot our next podcast art and you can take Michael's dick off. Ah, that would be really funny. That would be a plot twist. You're going to be dickless? Yeah.

That's actually the transmission, right? Like that's why I'm here. Thank you Tommy. Oh my gosh. Thank you so much. Two things before you go. You can watch us now on YouTube. So you can go on YouTube, search the Skinny Confidential and watch our entire episodes on your

computer or TV. Also, you should know Michael and I are doing a him and her newsletter. So basically, it's a him and her tip of the day, five days a week. And the tips are very specific, as you can imagine. And then we also have a monthly favorites. So basically, we collect all our monthly favorites, everything we've bought and used and tried and put it in one monthly newsletter for you. To sign up for that, go to shopskin confidential.com and sign up for the newsletter. Thank you. much for listening and we'll see you next time.