Virginia Gay: ‘Shakespeare’s most overrated play? Hamlet. Too long’

‘I used to think I had to femme up all the time and, actually, the masc-ness of me is what makes me valuable’: Virginia Gay. Photograph: Jackson Gallagher/Guardian Australia

You’re directing Yve Blake’s new play Mackenzie, a Shakespeare reboot in which Lady Macbeth is a nightmare stage mum. Who’s your favourite fictional villain?

Ursula! From The Little Mermaid. Disney does villains really well: they’re fabulous and funny; all of them are queer coded, which is both fun and problematic. But Ursula is fabulous. She’s a strong female role model: she’s a business woman, she’s taking people’s voices and it’s a clear contract that she makes with Ariel; and she’s living by herself, under the sea, so she’s the master of her own time and beholden to nobody.