Speaking to Michaela Jaé Rodriguez is surreal.
Anyone who has seen Pose, the Ryan Murphy-directed drama which boasts the largest cast of transgender actors in a series, will have fallen for her character Blanca Evangelista. The role earned Rodriguez the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Television Series in 2022, making her the first trans person to receive one. And the viral acceptance speech? Didn’t happen.
The event was not televised last year due to a diversity boycott (Hollywood stars refused to attend after it was revealed the Golden Globes committee had no black members). At the 2023 ceremony this January, director Murphy rectified this. He opened his monologue to collect the Carol Burnett TV Achievement award by asking Rodriguez to stand and receive the room’s belated applause.
“When you finally get the ovation that you have really wanted, it makes you feel more seen,” she says over Zoom, speaking fast with a New Jersey twang. “I felt happy for myself as an individual, but also being a trans woman of colour, it’s automatically going to be for everyone else.”
In Pose, Rodriguez plays a fighter. A black, Latina, HIV positive, trans woman who takes on the role of a house mother in New York’s 1980s/1990s ballroom scene — an underground world of pageantry and voguing. She adopts disaffected, queer teens rejected by their families and by the country.
Speaking to Rodriguez is surreal not only because she moves and sounds just like Blanca, but because she is battling the same points her character was 40 years ago. “There’s a lot of backlash towards trans people, and specifically trans youth,” she says today. “I’ve seen a lot of things that are very derogatory and discriminative in the press. It puts a lot of trans people in the line of fire — and also in the line of violence.”
In the face of hardship, Rodriguez knows her visibility as a role model is paramount. “I won’t let any of this stop or hinder me from being in the public eye. I am here to show what it looks like to be happy, proud, out and trans,” she says. “I’m someone who watches all this stuff. It does get me down. But I always say to myself, honey, I’m gonna keep on pumping no matter what. I can’t let people who can’t deal with me affect me.”
She is buoyant, optimistic and confident. “That’s because I had a great upbringing,” she says. “I was raised with my mom and my dad and they loved me.” She has recounted her track through the toils of gender identity: praying to be female at seven, telling her parents she was bisexual/gay at 14, before coming out as trans at 24. Rodriguez was accepted but knows that is not everyone’s experience. Now 32, she is in a position to affect change for the next generation.
Pose, which ran between 2018 and 2021, has already cut fresh ground in this respect. “It influenced a lot of people, not just of the trans walk of life, but people all around the world, to see what it’s like to walk in our shoes,” she says. “There is that juxtaposition between the underground ballroom scene, so extravagant in colour and light and exuberance, and the regular world, where trans women have to fight every single day of their lives.”
For Rodriguez, it was only the springboard. She has since had roles in Apple TV series Loot, counting Maya Rudolph as her co-star, and in Hamilton writer Lin-Manuel Miranda’s film Tick, Tick... Boom!. Most recently, she has become the face of Charlotte Tilbury’s Pillow Talk beauty campaign, which will see her on billboards and alongside Kate Moss, Jourdan Dunn and Twiggy in advertisements. Rodriguez hopes this celebration of trans excellence can help galvanise a movement.
“It is a diverse campaign, and we are trying to change the world,” she says. “It represents a tremendous amount of change for me and all trans people globally. It’s also an inclusive group of women gathering together. We’re trying to lift up as many women out there — to make them feel comfortable in their skin.”
Rodriguez is also launching her career as a pop R&B singer, having graduated from Berklee College of Music with a major in songwriting and performance. “That’s my passion,” she says. “I like to call myself an artist. When you call yourself just an actress, or you call yourself just a musician, you limit yourself.”
But limitations have never been the issue — Rodriguez has broken down many doors. “I want to make sure people remember me, and what I’ve done for the community,” she says. “But I don’t want to just be the first. And I don’t want to be the last. I want every one of my sisters to have an allotted space in this community and this industry.”
