The actor also goes on to explain how coming out as impacted his career.

Spanning 12 seasons, CBS'The Big Bang Theory became one of television's most beloved sitcoms due in large part to the show's hilarious motley crew of nerdy, comedic talents, including Jim Parsons. Though Parsons' character, Sheldon Cooper, is one of the most memorable parts of the entire show and the role he is probably best known for (the character even got his own spin-off series), after 279 and episodes and being on the air for almost 12 years, there comes a time when you simply just have to move on. 

During a recent appearance on Doctor Who actor David Tennant's podcast, David Tennant Does a Podcast With…, Parsons talks about the emotional journey he took when deciding to finally stop doing The Big Bang Theory after more than a decade of filming.

"Our final contract was for the last two years, but no one knew when we signed it what that would mean. I kind of had a suspicion in my heart that that was going to be it for me when I did sign that contract, but you never say never and who knows," Parsons revealed. "I was exhausted, and I was really upset about, more than anything, one of our dogs was getting really at the end of his life around then."

Talking more about juggling his hectic schedule of filming Big Bang, starring in the Broadway production of The Boys in the Band, and coping with the loss of his beloved pet dog, he continued:

"It was the scariest moment for the next couple of days because I didn’t know — I felt like I was at the edge of a cliff, and I was teetering, and I saw something really dark below between the death of the dog, and I don’t know what they would have done if I couldn’t have gotten back on for the play."

Finally, Parsons' a-ha moment about his future on the series came when he realized that at the end of his final contract he would be 46 years old, only a few years younger than his father who passed away at 52.

"I had this moment of clarity that I think you’re very fortunate to get in a lot of ways, of going 'Don’t keep speeding by.' You know? 'Use this time to take a look around.' And I did," Parsons said. "This is what I said to Chuck Lorre and Steve Molaro when I talked to them when I went back to work next year. I said, 'If you told me that like my father, I had six years left to live, I think there’s other things I need to try and do.'"

Parsons also opened up to Tennant about his public coming out in 2012 in a New York Times interview about his role in Broadway's Larry Kramer drama The Normal Heart and his relationship with the press as a gay actor.

"That was my last hurdle coming out. The press," Parsons said when Tennant talks about queer actors being labeled "de facto an activists" by the media. "I knew that 'you’ll be a gay actor from here on out.'"

"Now, looking back, not only has it not been a bad thing for me, it’s been the opposite and a great thing for me."

Listen to Jim Parsons' full interview with David Tennant here.

RELATED | Jim Parsons Didn't Discuss Being Gay During 'Big Bang' Out of Fear

Jim Parsons Explains Why He Left 'The Big Bang Theory'

The director discusses the popularity of his gay-themed web series, which is taking YouTube by storm.

Boys' Love has a complicated history.

For those unfamiliar, the Asian genre (also known as "yaoi" in Japanese) is an umbrella term used to describe any media where the main narrative is focused on the romantic relationship between two men. By virtue of its existence, the genre can help push gay characters and narratives from Asian perspectives (BL has origins in Japan but is now popular in Thailand, Taiwan, and other Asian countries) to worldwide audiences, thus helping to further normalize gay relationships. But, oftentimes, BL titles aren't created by and for queer people, and often end up becoming nothing more than shallow, homoerotic fare that can borderline softcore porn. But Hello Stranger is hoping to help change all of that.

The series takes viewers on the whirlwind romance of high school students Xavier (Tony Labrusca) and Mico (JC Alcantara), two classmates who have been assigned to work together on a project that Xavier desperately needs to pass. Though the ongoing, worldwide pandemic has forced all of Xavier and Mico’s interactions to be done completely through Zoom, they still go through the typical phases many real-life couples go through when first getting to know each other (and that BL fans love to see): Indifference. Fondness. Friendship. Growing affection. And eventually, love.

Though the pair doesn't have much in common (Mico is a booksmart nerd who usually hangs out with his three best friends he affectionately calls the "Young Padawans," and Xavier is a jock with a girlfriend and a bustling social life), the two grow closer and closer the more they work together, and soon, their feelings for each other start to become painfully undeniable.

The brainchild of the ABS-CBN-owned film & TV production company Black Sheep, head writer Patrick Valencia, and director Petersen Vargas, Hello Stranger is the Filipino answer to the world's newfound demand of BL entertainment, telling a modern, post-pandemic story of two boys falling in love with each other online. What's remarkable with the show is that it comes without the weird, fetishized straight gaze fans may have become accustomed to. That is likely due, in part, to Vargas being gay.

"This generation of queer storytellers has been making a lot of waves in independent films," Vargas tells Out. "And from those films, we [now have] all these BL shows coming out online that are much more accessible, that can be streamed for free by anyone everywhere, anytime. That makes me more hopeful that more and more, the queer characters that we will see in Filipino content [will] be the characters that we aspire to, or that we will relate with, or that will really empower us at the end of the day.

"I think we're getting there and I'm living for it," he says.

With seven episodes of the series having already aired on YouTube (a highly-anticipated, final eighth episode is set to come out this week), and with millions of views amassed throughout its run, Hello Stranger has become a veritable internet phenomenon, complete with its own loyal fanbase that is ready to stan any and everything having to do with main romantic leads Xavier and Mico. But while the show centers queer Filipino people, because of how readily available it is to watch online, Hello Stranger's fanbase has gone global.

"The amount of support that we have, the amount of noise being created for the show is just so immense," Vargas says. "It's still so unbelievable that this kind of story could hold so much power, especially in these dark times. We're just so happy that finally, these stories are coming out as and people are embracing it — and not just here in the Philippines. It was such a painstaking process to define how we could Filipinize the genre, but at the end of the day, what we feel about Xavier and Mico could be felt by other audiences outside of the Philippines."

And speaking of the show's universality, one of the most relatable and heartfelt moments came towards the latter half of the series, when Mico finally found the courage to stop denying his feelings for Xavier and came out to his friends about it. Though everyone's coming out is different, and not many of us are as lucky to have loving, accepting friends like the Young Padawans in our lives, Vargas said he made it a point to include a coming-out scene in Hello Stranger.

"I think it's really important for us to still talk about coming out," he said. "We still have to positivize that experience and show it to viewers so that it could hopefully empower them."

"The specific ways we have our coming out, of course they're all different in these tiny details, but the feeling is all one and the same."

Of course, the popularity of Hello Stranger isn't just a singular occurrence. In fact, this year alone, the Philippines (which has its own complex, complicated history when it comes to LGBTQ+ acceptance and representation) has seen a rise in new queer-themed content available on streaming platforms like YouTube, with other popular notable titles like Gameboys, Sakristan, In Between, and My Day all making their own marks in the BL world.

"I was already thinking of making a BL show even back in 2018. So I think all these queer storytellers were just waiting for the right time for producers to say, 'Okay, we're giving you the go signal.' It matters to me that we finally found that right moment and to strike while the iron is hot. And it's just proving that the audiences have been hungry," Vargas says about Hello Stranger being a part of this new, recent wave of gay Filipino series having an impact on audiences worldwide. "People have been wanting this kind of content. And I'm more than thankful for Black Sheep for trusting me to work on Hello Stranger with them. It means so much to me that I could tell younger Petersen back in high school that 'Yay, we achieved our dream.' And we hope that younger kids now could be attracted to the show and they shouldn't be ashamed of going physically to a store. They can just go to YouTube and watch it for themselves. And it's that easy!

"When I went to film school and I knew that I could be one of the people who could make the kind of films that I wanted to see back when I was younger, like Love of Siam, " he also continues,  referencing the beloved 2007 Thai romantic-drama film that prominently featured a gay couple. "That was actually the first time that I've seen a boy in high school falling in love with another boy. And it confirmed to me who I was. It's this power of seeing yourself in films; how films and these kinds of shows could make you feel less alone." 

As for the future of Hello Stranger, though the series finale is nigh, audiences aren't quite ready to part with #XavMi (Xavier and Mico's official ship name) and friends just yet. Vargas and Black Sheep both recently announced that a movie sequel is in the works for the show, and unlike the series (which was filmed mostly through video conferencing apps like Zoom because of quarantine and pandemic restrictions in the Philippines), the stars will actually get to physically be together and interact with each other.

"I hope they continue to inspire people," Vargas says of the couple. "I hope they continue to affect people in ways that could empower them to be their true selves or that could empower them to be better friends, better support systems for people who are in need of them. My hope for these characters is that they live long enough to outlive us all.

"That's the beauty of making films or making these characters," the producer continues. "They can really outlive the people who made these stories. I hope our small show can continue living on in the minds of people, in the hearts of people. That they can carry on the things that we wanted to leave with them when we were making and thinking of this show." 

The Hello Stranger finale airs Wednesday, August 19 on Black Sheep's YouTube channel.

RELATED | GLU Launches As the Philippines’ First Unabashedly Sex-Positive Queer Mag

Hello Stranger's Petersen Vargas Wants Queer Filipinos to Feel Seen

The Legends of Tomorrow actress, and highly-educated star, is going behind the camera. 

A lot of progress has been made when it comes to visibility on screen, but Hollywood still has a very long way to go in representation, especially when it comes to the people in charge of creating that media. The overwhelming majority of the entertainment industry is still very male, very straight, and very white. Although we’ve seen an increase of programming that centers narratives of women, people of color, queer people, and other often marginalized groups, the change taking over popular culture is still, for many, slow to come.

Maisie Richardson-Sellers, best known for playing not one but two roles in The CW’s cult favorite DC Comics series Legends of Tomorrow, hopes to correct that.

The queer, 28-year-old, Guyanese-British actress is out to change Hollywood by being the kind of creator it needs — one who is actively working to uplift and spotlight the voices that have been ignored for too long.

“We have to diversify Hollywood from the top down behind the camera before we will start to regularly see honest, complex, positive, diverse representation and storytelling,” says Richardson-Sellers, who holds two degrees from Oxford and grew up surrounded by the arts as the child of two actors.

Currently studying filmmaking, Richardson-Sellers just launched her own production company, Barefaced Productions, and spoke with Out about what she hopes to accomplish in the upcoming years as someone who also calls the shots behind the camera.

“The power of representation to inspire, heal, and challenge is endless,” she says.

Post-Legends of Tomorrow (don’t worry, she’s not giving up acting—in fact, she’s set to star in the sequel to Netflix’s hugely popular teen rom-com The Kissing Booth), Richardson-Sellers is using her platform for activism and becoming the kind of artist the next generation of aspiring creatives can look up to.

As a queer woman of color, how have you been interacting with the conversations surrounding injustice and inequality?

There is so much injustice, violence, and inequality being experienced by our global community, especially by Black trans individuals, so I have been trying to find the ways that I can best be of use.

How did you celebrate Pride?

I’ve been using Pride season to educate myself and listen to the experiences and needs of the most at-risk members of the LGBTQIA+ community. I have been financially supporting and learning from several incredible organizations that work tirelessly to fight for the equality and safety of our siblings across the U.S. and the U.K., as well as the Triangle Project in South Africa. It is easy to feel powerless when faced with such large-scale systematic injustice, but remember, every great social movement throughout history started with a small group of people deciding that enough was enough.

Your activism is a part of your online presence. Can you speak about using your platform as an actress and creator for important causes? More and more, fans expect celebrities to be vocal in advocating for social change.

To me it is a necessity. In my own life all I want to discuss is what is going on in the world. I don’t have an interest in small talk, and so I think that reflects in the way I interact [on] social media. To have the privilege of having a platform and then not using it to highlight topical issues and movements feels irresponsible. In the words of Toni Morrison, “The function of freedom is to free someone else.”

Besides being an accomplished actress, you also have multiple degrees from Oxford! Can you talk about your career trajectory, and how it has evolved since the days you were in school?

I have always been intrigued by the theatre. Both my parents are actors, so I spent much of my free time growing up in rehearsal spaces and dressing rooms, and I learned the power of storytelling from a young age. That seed was constantly watered by the plays I would see and read. Stepping into the shoes and skin of someone with a completely different life experience to you and bringing them to life in a way that can enable an audience to question and challenge preconceived notions is magical.

Simultaneously, I was lucky enough to go to a fantastic school where learning was an enriching, exciting experience. The moment I learned what anthropology and archeology were, I was hooked, and so I decided to study them at Oxford. Studying the evolution and diversity of human cultures from the dawn of humanity also feeds into the character work and ideas that I have when acting and directing. At Oxford, I performed in and directed several plays, and my agent happened to be in the audience for one of those, which led to the start of my professional acting career. The arts and education have always been intertwined for me, and I have a couple anthropological documentaries ideas up my sleeve, so the symbiosis shall continue!

When you were younger, did you ever think you would be doing what you’re doing now?

I always dreamed of using art as a tool to help heal the world. But when I was a child I also considered being a farmer, a vet, and then later, a human rights lawyer and an anthropological advisor to the U.N., so I always kept my options open!

What can you tell me about your role, Chloe, in Netflix’s highly-anticipated sequel to The Kissing Booth?

Chloe has traveled the world living in countries such as Zimbabwe and Italy, and is confident, bubbly and a social butterfly. She lives for the moment, will whip anyone at pool—which meant daily pool lessons for me, a dream come true—and becomes best friends with Noah when they’re both studying at Harvard. Elle is instantly suspicious of their close relationship...but you’ll have to watch the film to see if her suspicions are warranted or not!

Were you a fan of the first movie? Why do you think it was one of the most watched and re-watched movies on Netflix?

When I first watched it, I remember my cheeks hurting because I had been smiling the whole way through. It is such a feel-good, nostalgic film that doesn’t lean as much into idealism as many other high school rom-coms do. Instead it celebrates quirky individualism and has such believable, relatable characters.

You played Amaya and Charlie (the pansexual, gender-fluid shapeshifter) in the popular Arrowverse TV series Legends of Tomorrow, which just wrapped its fifth season on The CW. Which parts of your characters are most like you in real life?

Amaya and Charlie could not be more different, which was such a gift to play on the same show. Both of them are extremes. Amaya is by the book with rock solid morals and puts her team before everything else, whereas Charlie is the eternal troublemaker who lives for chaos and individual expression. I’d say I share Amaya’s moral compass and passion for justice, but I also have a dash of Charlie’s wild spirit and have been known to be the instigator in my friendship groups—just sometimes.

You won’t be returning to Legends of Tomorrow for season 6. Can you talk about that decision, and how you came to it?

Legends has been such an incredible part of my life these past four years, and many of the cast and crew have become family. It was an extremely hard decision to make, but I want to pour my energy into directing and creating original content, and in the filming schedule there simply wasn’t enough time to do both. But if the team ever needs Charlie or Amaya’s help on a mission, I’ll be there in a heartbeat.

There’s been a lot of talk about LGBTQ+ visibility and representation on-screen, but in order for real change there also needs to be more equity and representation behind the camera as well.

Definitely. We have to diversify Hollywood from the top down behind the camera before we will start to regularly see honest, complex, positive, diverse representation and storytelling. I spent years combing through content trying to find stories that showed [people of color] and LGBTQ+ stories in powerful, intimate and unique ways, and eventually I got tired of how few and far between they were. I have been fortunate to travel a lot, and I have met people from such a range of backgrounds and with mind-blowing stories and experiences that we could learn so much from.

I decided to start up my production company, Barefaced Productions, to facilitate the creation of stories told by and about marginalized individuals. The power of representation to inspire, heal, and challenge is endless. We have a couple of very exciting projects in development, and we just finished our first short film, Sunday’s Child, which I am so proud of. It follows a queer Black woman along her journey to self-acceptance.

What kinds of projects do you want to work on? Who are some of your role models?

I love doing projects like The Kissing Booth and Legends that provide comfort and solace in this unpredictable and heavy world. But I also love creating and acting in projects that challenge the audience and the status quo. Barry Jenkins’s Moonlight, is one of my all-time favorite films. The cinematography, the script, the acting, the journey—it is simply breathtaking. Dee Rees is a queer Black director who I hugely admire. Her first feature, Pariah, taught me so much about the use of color and shadows as storytelling tools in filmmaking. I also learned a lot about script writing from what is left unsaid in her scripts. In the “feel-good” realm, I recently really enjoyed The Half of It on Netflix, directed by a queer woman of color, Alice Wu. My mother, Joy Richardson, is the pinnacle of my acting inspiration. She so completely and passionately embodies every character she plays. I learn so much from my mother every time I see her perform.

Do you remember the first time you saw yourself represented on-screen?

The first time I felt anywhere near to being represented was by Bette Porter on The L Word when I was 15. To see a biracial, proudly out woman with a loving family and a kick ass career was deeply impactful, and that show was hugely influential on my journey to self-acceptance.

It would be the greatest honor to be able to inspire self-acceptance in others and to enable them to know the strength of their differences and that they are worthy of achieving any of their dreams. I wholeheartedly believe in the power of diverse, positive, representation, both in enabling underrepresented individuals to know that their stories matter, and also to instill understanding and compassion in those who are not exposed to diversity in their day-to-day lives.

Do you feel like you’ve found your place in the world?

I think that is a lifelong journey! To be constantly evolving, growing, shedding, and challenging is what keeps me motivated. The more I know, the more I realize how little I know, and the more people I meet, the more humbled I am in my humanity. Growing up, my differences often made me feel inferior, but now I know that they are my greatest strengths. To be lucky enough to be a part of such vibrant, resilient communities fills me with immense pride daily.

Well then!

On American television, things get better. Generally at least.

As shows get renewed and gain popularity, season after season the budgets get a little bigger, the sets get a little more lavish, the writing a little more ambitious — we talk about the season one filter of RuPaul's Drag Race, and the improvement in Real Housewives wigs often. But apparently on Canadian television, what you get is what you've got.

In a new interview Schitt's Creek co-creator Dan Levy revealed that over the span of his hit show's six seasons, the budget pretty much stayed the same.

"I'm inherently a perfectionist, and the more people watched the show, I was aware that there was a certain level of expectation and that people were responding really positively to it," Levy told The Hollywood Reporter. "For me, it's like, 'How do we keep that momentum going and how do we continue to raise the bar, even though our budget never changed?' It went up in very small increments, year after year, but how do we communicate growth to our audience? They are expecting a more polished, glossy show from season to season, because that's just inherently how things tend to work in America."

And it's true. Though Schitt's Creek is a Canadian show, once it hit Netflix it slowly became a global phenomenon. In fact, the American fandom was such that the show was planning a 12-stop tour that was set to hit California, Florida, Connecticut, and New Jersey. That was canceled as the global pandemic spread but Schitt's still walked away with 15 Emmy nominations for its final season. So the expectations of the American market — and those who watch a lot of American television — understandably factored into Levy's conceptualizations of his own series.

"[In America if] you get four seasons of a show, you're working with a much bigger budget than you were in season one," Levy said. "For us, the budget stayed the same, so it was really about working extra hard to squeeze as much out of it as we possibly can. How do we keep expanding a small town when we don't have the budget for location shoots? The challenge just became harder and harder, but I think it was all the more rewarding. I have talked to people who just assumed that we just kept getting bigger and bigger budgets, and I have to kindly remind them that that's not how it works. We have a very small Canadian show."

Small show, huge impact!

The final season of Schitt's Creek is expected to drop on Netflix in September.

RELATED | 14 Memorable 'Schitt's Creek' Moments Between David and Patrick

Gay Black triathlete Coree Aussem-Woltering hopes his example will inspire others.

As Coree Aussem-Woltering tells it, he wasn’t really into running long distances growing up.

“I was just a really bad distance runner when I started so I tended to like the sprinting stuff more, which is really funny because now I don’t do anything short anymore,” says the trail runner and triathlete who is now known around the world for his running ability.

Aussem-Woltering was fresh off setting the fastest known time at the 1,147-mile Ice Age Trail in Wisconsin when he spoke to Out, in fact. His posted time of 21 days, 13 hours, and 35 minutes beat the previous known best by over five hours.

In other words, the 29-year-old from Ottawa, Ill., has improved just a bit at running those longer distances and now he's helping to make history on Amazon Prime's World’s Toughest Race: Eco-Challenge Fiji. Looking back, Aussem-Woltering describes a “normal childhood” where he “played sports, family went to church, just all the typical normal things you’d expect in a smaller Midwestern town.”

When he finally decided to come out to friends and family, they were all supportive, in large part because everyone already knew.

“They were like, ‘Nah, we’ve known for a long time,’” he recalls. “So no big deal to them.”

Aussem-Woltering sees a larger purpose for taking on challenges outdoors like the Ice Age Trail and Amazon Prime’s World’s Toughest Race, in which he is a part Team Onyx, the first all-Black team in the franchise.

“I really do think it’s important to encourage kids, especially children of color to go out and explore the outdoors,” the ultrarunner who is known for wearing a Speedo says. “They’re always talking about how you don’t see a lot of people of color in trail running and it’s one of those things where if they don’t know about it, then how are they going to do it?”

Aussem-Woltering is hopeful his example at the World’s Toughest Race will inspire other gay and Black people to turn off the devices and head outdoors.

“I think it’s awesome to just kind of show that off,” he says. “And show there are Black people or people of color out there that really do enjoy the outdoors and these crazy things, and there are also gay people out there that also like to go out and get dirty and do these crazy things.”

There’s little time to relax these days for Aussem-Woltering. Even his family life is full of adventure.

“Yeah, so my husband, Tom, is a professional skydiver,” he says with a chuckle. “Welcome to our house.”

The reality star rightfully blasted their problematic nature.

In quarantine — honestly, this used to happen out of quarantine as well — at times culture can seem like all of Twitter bingeing one Netflix show after another. Tiger King, Love Is Blind, Selling Sunset, the list goes on. And while many of those shows have caused much discussion, an Indian Matchmaking star is critiquing some of the rhetoric around his appearance.

On Indian Matchmaking, professional matchmaking Sima Taparia helps (or tries to) young single Indians find someone to marry. And while the show has been criticized for classism as well as colorism, there was one round of commentary that was honestly just as problematic. On the series, 30-year-old designer Pradhyuman Maloo is a single bachelor who has turned down over 150 possible matches. the internet immediately began to posit that he was gay or otherwise queer. After a whole lot of online conversation, in late July Maloo addressed the speculation.

"And for those of you who are curious — I am not gay nor bisexual." he wrote to Instagram in a bit of a FAQ post. But the post did little to dampen the noise. Now, in a Humans of Bombay post, Maloo has spoken out about the problematic nature of the assumptions.

"Last year, when I got a call from Netflix about a matchmaking show that highlighted Indian culture, I took a leap of faith and agreed; I thought it'd be a different experience," he wrote after explaining how he developed and nurtured a love for all things creative working with his mom on her jewelry business. "But 80 hours of filming had been condensed into a 60-minute, predetermined, edited storyline, which ignited thousands of comments on the internet.

"Shortly after the show was released a friend alerted me that I was trending on Twitter, with hundreds of people debating my sexuality," Maloo continued. "Unsolicited comments assumed I was gay or bisexual & urged me to come out of the closet. I felt anger & resentment, but I gained my composure and questioned their reasoning. I tried to understand the mindset of a ‘hater’, only to realize that they’d based their assumptions on my interests in fashion, cooking, and the societal pressure of taking time to choose a life-partner. All I could think of was, ‘Are men not supposed to be creative?’, ‘Are men not supposed to like fashion?’, ‘Can men not cook?’, ‘Do only women belong in the kitchen?’"

And it's true. We have had many conversations about the gendering of nongendered acts. It's a toxic mentality that helps to fuel homophobia among other things. And while it can seem funny and cute for retweets, it's ultimately harmful to anyone who steps outside of the problematic and supposedly idealized norm.

"I’m straight, but I’m being stereotyped due to a deep-seeded mindset of Indian society," Maloo continued. "I even thought of the alternate scenario: What if the person in question really was gay? What if they’d been forced out of the closet with no consent of their own? That thought frightened me. Were these haters ready to take the blame for the consequences of their words? As a society we have belittled the LGBTQ community by using them as a tool of mockery." His point echoed one that Shawn Mendes previously made when he was beset by gay rumors.

"This last month has made me introspect on how the world perceives men," he wrote. "People will judge you for not being ‘manly’ enough, but I want other men to know that it’s okay to be who you are & do what you love. Stereotypical masculinity is not the rent we need to pay to exist in this world. I just have one question, ‘Can men not be beautiful?’”

So, of course, they renewed the show for another!

If you thought we had reached the point of RuPaul's Drag Race exhaustion, you thought wrong. The show has announced that it's 12th season is the most-watched in franchise history. Oh, and yes, they are bringing it back!

Featuring a slew of talented queens (as well as quite a bit of controversy) season 12 of RuPaul's Drag Race is the highest-rated yet and has walked away with 13 Emmy Award nominations. More than that, it came down to a top three that really and truly could have gone either way — but it was of course Jaida Essence Hall who won in the end. The popularity of the show, in fact, gave VH1 its highest-rated Friday night in 12 years. The stats come with an announcement of season 13 and the renewal of Drag Race's Untucked.

In addition to the regular season coming back, so will All Stars and the Untucked version for that series. 

“Drag queens have been on the frontlines of many challenging times in our history,” said four-time Emmy award-winning host and Executive Producer RuPaul Charles said in a release.  “RuPaul’s Drag Race 13, All Stars 6 and new seasons of Untucked will offer more opportunities for our queens to rise to the occasion and spread the love.”  

While it hasn't been confirmed, both are expected to air next year. Reports online by alum of the show indicate that All Stars 6 has already begun production, and eagle-eyed fans speculate that Drag Race season 13 already has as well. 

If you count them up that's four Drag Race shows happening Stateside in 2021. Add to that RuPaul's Drag Race UK season 2 which was announced in late 2019. Whether this latter show will still happen given travel restrictions related to the ongoing global pandemic — Ru would need to get to Europe which is currently restricted — is to b determined. Before we get there though, we still have RuPaul's Drag Race: Vegas Revue which begins airing tomorrow. 

The Book of Mormon star also revealed he's one serious spitter on stage.

Ben Platt guest hosted Jimmy Kimmel Live Wednesday and the award-winning singer, actor, and writer did not disappoint. During the opening monologue he debuted a hilarious quarantine parody album, and also read tweets confirming that Platt could be a super spreader of the ongoing global pandemic as he is a serious spitter while singing on stage.

“Like everyone else in this time, I’ve been hunkered down at home over the past months,” Platt revealed. “But I’ve been keeping busy.

After admitting he has spent most of his time in quarantine watching RuPaul's Drag Race, the star of Book of Mormon and Dear Evan Hanson revealed he has also been busy working on his next album.

“No work of art has been more personal to my being,” said Platt, who can be seen on Netflix’s hit series The Politician, insisting that he only agreed to host the show if the producers played a commercial for the album entitled “Quaran-Tunes.”

Billed as “The Perfect Soundtrack for ‘The New Normal,’” he debuted two cuts from the album. The first song, "Poison," revealed Platt’s personal struggles with the intersectional dangers of face masks and halitosis.

“Why does my breath smell like poison inside my mask?” the singer asked.

After lamenting how he must endure his rancid breath inside his mask all day, he did express thanks that nobody else had to “smell the decay.” (hint: they can smell it, Ben.)

He followed up this soulful ballad with a peppy song of virtual resistance, the new webchat anthem "Zoom" featuring the stirring call to action with which we can all identify, “I don’t want to Zoom anymore.”

Platt, who came out to his parents at the age of 12 but only publicly revealed he was gay last year, had earlier warned viewers about the dangers of seeing him perform live, as he might just be a danger to anyone within spitting distance in the audience.

“They say singers can be super spreaders of the virus because when you sing, you’re breathing really deeply and in some cases you even expel saliva or mucous, and by you I mean me,” Platt confessed. “I’ve been known to shower audiences with both love and liquids.”

He then proceeded to read some tweets from just a few of his many victims.

“Can’t believe it’s been a year since I saw @BenSPLATT’s spit and boogers flying all over the DEH state,” read one.

While Platt may be a danger to others, he did his best to keep everything in perspective.

“So sure. I may be spreading the virus, but I’m also spreading joy and isn’t that what counts?” he asked, before being told through his earpiece that no, that is not what counts.

You can check out Platt's complete monologue below.

RELATED | Ben Platt Is Dating Noah Galvin — Yes, They Played the Same Role

The move follow's RuPaul's own deactivation and Michelle Visage's timeline cleanse.

Sometime over the weekend Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman, one of a multi-pronged hosting panel for the debut season of Canada's Drag Race, deactivated his Twitter account. The move comes after Bowyer-Chapman was widely criticized for his critiques on the show.

Mostly through its first season, Canada's Drag Race is the latest expansion of the RuPaul's Drag Race franchise. It is the third iteration of the season that doesn't boast the empire's namesake as host. Instead, CraveTV chose to name a trio of judges who also function as hosts, while also bringing on a guest host every week. Bowyer-Chapman, a model and actor, is joined by Brooke Lynn Hytes and Stacey McKenzie as weekly judges.

As the show has aired, the judges have quickly become the most criticized of the series. Fans have lambasted them for what they call either unfair, unequal, or unfounded critiques. In Bowyer-Chapman's case, fans have zeroed in on what many have criticized as a mean-spiritedness. And while his intention may be to give a Simon Cowell-esque dose of tough love, and take that to an extreme for a compelling television character, it has brought out the anger of fans who have called him a bully, demanded that he be fired, and tweeted insults to the star directly.

While Bowyer-Chapman certainly could use a lesson in delivery — in a particularly nasty but made for television moment, when Jimbo explains that she couldn't paint her whole body because of time, Bowyer-Chapman points out that all of the competitors have the same amount of time and she should "use it better maybe"— it's curious that a large part of the critiques leveled at him are based on him not having been a drag performer. For the history of Drag Race, the lion's share of judges, both on  the permanent panel and off of it, have not been drag performers. The judges have a healthy knowledge of drag, and have their expertise from elsewhere in the entertainment industry, judging the queens on a combination of the two as Drag Race has functioned as a stepping stone for performers to come out of the clubs and into mainstream entertainment. His history as an actor certainly speaks to that.

Bowyer-Chapman joins RuPaul in having completely deactivated his Twitter. The show's namesake also wiped his Instagram. Michelle Visage, who will appear as a guest host on Canada's Drag Race's next episode also recently wiped all of her tweets from her Twitter account though it remains available. While Bowyer-Chapman's Instagram account remains available, weeks ago he limited who could respond to his posts. Drag Race season six contestant Vivacious recently spoke out about it.

"The bullying has to stop," she wrote. "Imagine if straight Christians woke up everyday to target you with hateful words and threats."

Rachel Crowl had previously retired from her career, but now she's back with renewed vigor.

“I got into acting because I was doing too much cocaine after I graduated high school,” says actress Rachel Crowl with refreshing frankness. The multi-talented performer (she’s also a photographer and musician) exudes a cool confidence and quick wit that is immediately disarming and endearing. This woman knows exactly who she is — and knows how to have fun with it.

“I graduated high school in the ’80s, and I was supposed to go to college because I was an upper-middle class white kid, and that was the expectation,” continues Crowl, a woman of transgender experience, on how she got her start on the stage. “But I was not having it because I was over it…. And I saw the college theater course and I’m like, Oh, I can take that and I’ll build sets and do blow, and that’d be fine.”

However, she explains, her plan to breeze through school as high as a kite was slightly derailed when she learned you actually had to act in theater class.

“And then I realized that I was really good at pretending to be other people, and that there was something about pretending to be other people that was deeply meaningful to me,” says Crowl, recalling the liberation she felt at the discovery of her hidden talents. “It was a reminder of what it’s like to be 6 years old in the sandbox with just your toys and your imagination. And I was so thrilled to get that feeling back, even though I was a fuck-up during my college years.”

Crowl says after “I dropped out because I was an idiot,” she was feeling a bit lost and needed to “get out of Florida.” She ended up in upstate New York, apprenticing at a local professional theater for five years. “I did everything under the sun there, including getting paid. Let’s just say I’m one of the few actors I know who’s consistently only ever been paid to work.”

Though she eventually managed to kick her coke habit and was happily working in theater, Crowl says there still was one major issue in her life that she was avoiding—the fact that she identified as female.

“At some point I knew I needed to deal with the gender stuff, because it was always there,” she says. “I was like, I’m going to move to New York City because that’s where even more theater is, but also, that’s where the queers are.”

Living in NYC in the 1990s was an amazing and transformative time for Crowl. It’s when everything changed for the better.

“I immediately got work and…I met my future soon-to-be wife and did off-Broadway theater up until about 2003, 2004, when I decided it was time to transition,” she recalls.

By that time, Crowl’s wife, author Helen Boyd, had written her first memoir, My Husband Betty: Love, Sex, and Life with a Crossdresser, about the couple’s transitioning relationship.

“I was already out in the world and doing stuff, and I was already giving up on the gendered look of a leading man,” Crowl admits.

Though she was discovering a new sense of self and freedom in starting to live her truth openly, Crowl says she basically felt forced to quit acting in order to transition.

“My eyebrows were getting thinner and my nails were longer,” she says, explaining that although ’00s New York City was progressive, it still wasn’t that progressive when it came to trans folks. “I cofounded a theater with a group of friends and I finally just told them, ‘Guys, I’ve got to do this,’ and decided to retire from acting because it was 2005—and that was a really different world.”

“I made a deal with the universe,” she says. It was a clear-cut choice at the time: acting or transitioning. “I was like, ‘You can have my acting career if I can have a decent quality of life.’”

After eventually relocating to Appleton, Wis., when her wife got a job teaching gender studies at Lawrence University, Crowl says she slowly transitioned into a much less glamorous but content life working in a well-paying 9-to-5 position in the communications department at the school. Twelve years passed without acting. She explains her absence from the artform isn’t as sad as it seems, but rather a necessary step in her new life.

“I knew that I didn’t have enough lived experience in the world where I was going to go out and successfully play women,” she says. “It’d be like two layers of acting at that point. So I knew I needed to, at the very least, just spend some time in the world as a woman so that I could have some points of reference for character.”

Luckily for the world of stage and screen, Crowl eventually started acting again. She explains that after a while, the 9-to-5 life began to grow stale and admits she grew a bit envious watching her wife’s career skyrocket while not pursuing her own passions. Not only had her wife written a second successful memoir (She’s Not the Man I Married: My Life with a Transgender Husband), Boyd was also flying off to do things like meet with the Obama administration to discuss college-related LGBTQ+ issues.

“I was like, This is some bullshit,” she quips. When Crowl did eventually dip her toe back into the acting waters, she was surprised to find that she was being cast in lead roles. Remembering her cosmic pact when she quit acting over a decade before, she says, “It looks like the universe has renegotiated the deal…. I [thought],Oh my God, I’m an actor. I can be an actor again. The world has changed.”

Since then, the dynamic performer has been wowing audiences with exciting roles on both stage and screen, including playing the romantic lead in the 2017 drama, And Then There Was Eve. (She’s also got some big upcoming TV and film projects in the works that, as of press time, she couldn’t quite talk about yet.)

Crowl has also been noticed for her work with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. There she was able to show her wide range as an actor—in a single play she portrayed 12 different roles of varying genders. The show was Between Two Knees, the critically acclaimed dark comedy about the traumatic history between Native Americans and European settlers, in which Crowl played “all the bad white people.”

“It was literally like getting to be Kate McKinnon in a really good episode of Saturday Night Live,” she says. “I played a massacring soldier at Wounded Knee, a pedophile priest, a new age wedding guru, an army soldier, a deer, and a North Dakota TV reporter.”

On playing outside her gender, Crowl says she actually enjoys the challenge—plus, it was something she says she already had lots of experience in.

“There’s no mystery to it. There’s nothing scary about getting on stage and pretending to be a man,” she says bluntly. “I’ve done that. I know how to do that. And I’m old enough that I don’t particularly care…. I know non-trans people need to hear these stories, and they need to see how people like themselves react to somebody being trans in their midst, which is what I think is the value of the transition story—not so much the trans person, it’s how their immediate world reacts.”

Anthony Rapp, Samira Wiley, Isis King, and more are cast for the four part series. 

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And yes, he answers that question!

In the latest installment in the RuPaul's Drag Race Universe, the queens go to Vegas. In a new series VH1 takes us inside RuPaul's Drag Race: Live, the enterprise's Vegas residency. And while we certainly get rehearsal footage and backstage drama from that, the new series also gives a glimpse into the personal lives of the queens that we didn't anticipate.

If you ever wanted a Real Housewives of RuPaul's Drag Race, RuPaul's Drag Race: Vegas Revue is as close as you're going to get for now. When the featured queens —that's Kameron Michaels, Asia O'Hara, Vanessa Vanjie Matteo, Yvie Oddly, Derrick Barry, and Naomi Smalls — aren't rehearsing, they are communing with and talking about their boos. And while for Michaels that means being on Facetime to talk with her New York man Andre (not boyfriend, just man as the two haven't settled on a title yet) for Barry it's giving IRL vibes. Barry, and her two partners, all live in Las Vegas. In a new bonus clip from the show posted to social media, we get to know the group a little more ... intimately.

While on the series the throuple is involved with a little drama, in the new clip it's all love. Barry opens up about how she met her partners: first came Nick San Pedro who he met in 2005, a year after moving to Vegas for An Evening a La Cage, and then came Mackenzie Claude, known to some as Nebraska Thunderf*ck. Before you ask, yes, Claude is the drag daughter of Alaska, who put him into drag for the makeover challenge on season five of Drag Race. Collectively, the triad has been together for eight years.

"I love my life and I think my life is pretty cool," Barry says in the bonus clip. "Throuples are the new thing!"

In the clip, her Drag Race sisters quiz her about the details — specifically the bedroom details. What we've learned? It helps to be flexible!

RELATED | 'Canada's Drag Race's Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman Deletes Twitter Account

At least when it was first being conceptualized.

Earlier this year, Netflix debuted the series Hollywood, a cotton-candy coated revisionist history of Tinsletown's Golden Era. In it, Ryan Murphy questioned the possibilities of the entertainment industry if it had centered and promoted marginalized folks, allowing them to live openly as themselves, and to obtain power while doing so. For it, Murphy revisited the tales of the largely closeted queer folks of years passed and gave them alternate endings.

The series was well-received with many immediately asking for a second season. Originally, Hollywood was billed as a limited series. Now, actress Holland Taylor, who was a part of the cast, is saying that as far as she knew, the original plan was for the project to have multiple seasons. 

"There was talk of it right from the beginning," Taylor told Deadline in a recent interview. " I think the original plan was — I have no idea, so I’m talking out of school somewhat — but the original conversation was that there would be a series about Hollywood. It would be an anthology, the same way that Horror Story is. It’ll be the same cast, but it would be a different story. It would be Hollywood, but it would be different characters."

The idea is one that has been previously floated by Janet Mock, who was an executive producer on the project. Mock said that doing it as an anthology series was a "similar vision" to hers. But Murphy has gone on the record to say that wasn't his original idea. 

 I’ve done these anthology shows like American Horror Story and American Crime Story, and this was not designed like that," he told The Hollywood Reporter. "This was designed to be seven episodes. That’s kind of what it is." Still, he's later said on social media "who knows? I sure do love this cast though," due to the show's popularity and nagging questions from fans. 

Still, even if that was a road he wanted to go down it could take a while to happen. 

"Obviously, Ryan is doing a number of shows at once, and now there’s the whole question of when productions can even happen," Taylor said. "The pandemic is determining so much, and getting into production for any show within this time period is going to be an amazing and major challenge. They have to break a lot of ground, and they have to figure out an awful lot of things. So, Hollywood wouldn’t even be going back into production. I have no answer for you."

The two Pose alum will be part of a star-studded cast that includes Jharrel Jerome, Yara Shahidi, Angela Bassett, and more!

We're about to see even more of our favorite house mother Blanca on our TV screens in the near future.

Mj Rodriguez, who is most known for heading the House of Evangelista on FX's trans-inclusive, ballroom-themed drama series Pose, is officially joining Pose writer/producer Janet Mock in an upcoming HBO special adapted from author Ta-Nehisi Coates' Between the World and Me. 

According to a report from Variety, Rodriguez and Mock are the latest additions to an already star-studded cast that includes the likes of Emmy-winning When They See Us and Moonlight star Jharrel Jerome, Grown-ish's Yara Shahidi, screen legends Angela Bassett and Phylicia Rashad, Oprah Winfrey, and many more. 

For those unfamiliar, Between the World and Me was originally published by Coates in 2015 as a long letter to his son recounting the experiences and realities of life as a Black person in America. After topping the New York Times' nonfiction bestseller list, the book was adapted into a stage production for the Apollo Theater in 2018. In the same style of the book, HBO's forthcoming special starring Rodriguez and Mock (whose roles haven't been announced yet) will follow, explore, and question what it means to be a Black American, and will borrow elements from the Apollo production of Between the World and Me while also incorporating documentary footage and animation, Variety is reporting. 

Between the World and Me is currently in production and is set to premiere on HBO and the HBO Max streaming platform sometime in the fall of this year.

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Mj Rodriguez & Janet Mock Are Joining This Upcoming HBO Special

The model, who is living with HIV, wants you to know that if you have questions, he has answers — or will find them.

The debut season of Canada's Drag Race is drawing to a close this week. We've seen 12 drag performers compete for the first-ever title of Canada's First Drag Superstar and a cash prize of $100,000 CAD (that's about $70,000 USD for those that are counting) and a year of holiday stays with Hilton. Throughout it all we've seen some amazing lip syncs, spot-on runway looks, and more than a few underwear-clad boys. Yes, we're talking about the Pit Crew.

The Pit Crew in the North made headlines earlier this season when they debuted Mina Gerges, a member that wasn't the ab-toting body type the series is known for. Now, another member of the Crew is speaking out about he hopes to use the platform he's built for himself that has been fortified by the show.

In an as-told-to feature for Plus magazine, Travis L'Henaff spoke about how he hopes to use the privileges he has been afforded to help others who are living with HIV. This comes as a result of all the help that he received after first learning his status.

"The first thing I did after I found out my status — after I told my partner — was I reached out to every person living with HIV that I was close with," L'Henaff who is also a model and nightlife personality in Canada told me in a story for Plus. "They helped me get some of the best help in the country. That ended up being another thing where I was sort of like, something has to come of this when I’m ready. I have to pay this forward." Though he wasn't ready to pay it forward then, in October 2018, a year later he was.

In November 2019, L'Henaff, who is also known as Frankie on social media and in nightlife, appeared in a U=U campaign in Canada alongside his partner Gabriel McCrae who is the founder and CEO of Coyote Jocks Inc. "People living with HIV on effective treatment can't pass it on to a partner," the ad read. In an Instagram post, L'Henaff revealed to his followers that he was living with HIV but that he was surrounded by "a supportive partner/family and tons of friends who are openly positive that were incredible sources of knowledge."

"Here is me being my most vulnerable and sharing something you don’t need to know in hopes that it contributes to the expansion of knowledge and understanding on the matter and fights the stigma," he wrote at the time. And while fighting stigma was important, so was showing himself as a point of contact to any of his followers who might need information.

"Part of me doing the campaign was so I could post it publicly and let people know that I am willing to go with them to their appointments if they need — and I’ve done so for people in Toronto," he told Plus, going on to tell me that fans could DM him with any concerns.  "I’m also just there to give advice, and I’ll ask other people I know if there’s something I don’t know. I want that to be a part of my life moving forward. It’s just helpful to have someone in your corner who knows a little bit when you’re trying to navigate the healthcare system."

Welcome actors Ian Alexander and Blu Del Barrio.

Looks like Star Trek: Discover is looking to make history once again. After introducing the first openly gay character with Anthony Rapp's Lieutenant Stamets, and then airing the franchise's first kiss when Stamets kissed Dr. Hugh Culber played by Wilson Cruz all in 2017, they are ready to add more representation. Yes, they are boldly going where no other Star Trek series has gone before.

The third season of Star Trek: Discover is set to feature the first characters who are nonbinary or transgender. Gray, who is Trill "planning to be a host for a symbiotic alien species that lives in different hosts over its lifetime," is being portrayed by Ian Alexander, a trans actor. Variety broke the news this week.

Adira, another new character, identifies as nonbinary and is played by Blue del Barrio, who also identifies as nonbinary. The role is del Barrio's first major gig according to an interview with GLAAD. Alexander is known for his roles in The OA and The Last of Us Part II.

"I will try and say anything I can!" del Barrio said in an interview. "Adira is a wonderfully complex character. Mainly because of this duality they have within them: they're astonishingly intelligent and yet they're still a kid. They experience their emotions at a heightened level, like most teenagers. That's what makes them so fun to play"

Adira will bond with Stamets and Culber.

What's her name?!

And that's it ladies and gentlemen. The debut season of Canada's Drag Race has now come to a close. And for the queen who is taking home the title of Canada's Next Drag Superstar? What's her name?

PRIYANKA!

Priyanka, who has only been doing drag for two years and was most known in Canada for doing children's television, beat out Scarlett Bobo and Rita Baga in the finale. The three were asked to write their own verses to RuPaul's "U Wear It Well" and perform a supercut onstage.

For the final runway, queens were expected to turn out "Coronation Eleganza"— in other words, their best drag. They were then greeted in the Werk Room by the eliminated queens while the judges deliberated. When they returned to the runway, instead of narrowing the trio down to two, judges Brooke Lynn Hytes, Stacey McKenzie, and Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman, as well as resident Squirrel Friend Traci Melchor, decided to have all three finalists compete in a head-to-head lip sync.

Priyanka has won the title of Canada's Next Drag Superstar, $100,000 CAD, and a year's worth of holiday stays at Hilton. Of the reigning queens of the Drag Race franchise, she becomes the fourth queen of color to be crowned in 2020: Heidi N. Closet was crowned Miss Congeniality for Drag Race 12, Jaida Essence Hall was crowned the winner of Drag Race 12, and Shea Coulee was crowned the winner of All Stars 5. This comes after Yvie Oddly, who is currently appearing on RuPaul's Drag Race: Vegas Revue, won Drag Race 11 and Monet X Change split the top prize for All Stars 4 with Trinity the Tuck.

The Vivienne won the debut season of RuPaul's Drag Race U.K. which aired in 2019. Season 2 is currently on pause.

Throughout the season, Priyanka showed herself to be a true star both in and out of drag. She was both caring and charismatic, with a penchant for extreme dramatics and comedy. She wove that into her performance at every level and though she did have some off moments — namely playing Miss Cleo in Drag Race's famed Snatch Game — ends the competition having won two Maxi Challenges. She also, alongside Rita Baga, made a reputation for herself as a strong lip-sync performer, possibly the lip-sync assassin of the season. 

On the show, Priyanka revealed that the venture would pose as her coming out to her Guyanese father. Previously, when asked who she was dating, the performer had told her dad that she was dating someone named Priyanka. Now, on national television, her father can finally meet Priyanka.

Throughout the series Priyanka had a running tagline of asking "What's my name?" As she revealed in the finale she chose her name to provide visibility to people of color, particularly of her heritage, even by name alone. Speaking for and to people of color became another aspect of what she brought to the show, though there were other queens of color including Tynomi Banks, Kyne, Kiara, and Anastarzia Anaquway — Ilona Verley is of First Nations heritage and also was the first two-spirt contestant. Though speaking about diversity was sometimes serious, at other times it was woven into jokes like when she called apres-ski parties "white people behavior." She celebrated her heritage in her final look on the series, wearing a lehenga.

“I’m living proof that hard work pays off, and that even when you make mistakes, you can still be a winner,” she said as she accepted her crown and scepter. “To the kids who are watching, I know you used to watch me somewhere else, but now I’m home. I’m Canada’s first-ever Drag Superstar! I’m rich! And I get to represent the country all around the world. I’m so thankful, I’m so proud to be Canadian. I’m going to make this country so proud.”

RELATED | Drag Race' Pit Crew's Travis Says You Can Slide In His DMs

Back, back, back, back, back, back ... back .... back again.

Well, one season of RuPaul's Drag Race ends and another one ends filming it seems. Last night Canada's Drag Racefinished its first season crowning a truly stunner of a queen, and this comes right after filming ended on a season for next year. This according to a new report.

Variety reports that the 13th season wrapped last week, while the world was still in the midst of the ongoing global pandemic. Following local, state, and federal safety requirements, queens were brought in with all crew members wearing masks. Everyone interacting with the performers was tested every three weeks and queens were sequestered (as they are every season) for the duration of filming.

"The production has altered the main stage set in order to incorporate concerns over social distancing, expanding the judges' table and placing glass panels between each judge," Variety reported. whether or not this includes guest judges is unknown but hopefully!

This news won't come as a surprise to superfans who track social media activity. Over the past few weeks, drag performers who were on the show would not have been able to post, inadvertently exposing them as members of the cast. 

If the season has been filming over the last few weeks then RuPaul may have given a small preview — of one of her looks of course. As the show rolled out its Emmys campaign, a video was released by the Television Academy explaining what makes Drag Race so special. In it, Ru is sitting at the main stage judging table in a look that hasn't appeared on any Drag Race episode. It's likely that this was filmed on set of season 13.

There's no rest for the weary though. According to Variety, the show is filming Drag Race 13 and All Stars 6 back to back and has already begun on that. Jaremi Carey, the performer who cerated Drag Race's Phi Phi O'Hara, confirmed this weeks ago. 

RELATED | This Is 'Canada's Drag Race's First-Ever Winner

Sarah Paulson plays the chic and chilling role to perfection.

Ryan Murphy's latest Netflix series,Ratched, debuts on September 18 and today its released its second and final trailer. A suspenseful drama centered on Nurse Mildred Ratched, it contains all the chilling, eery, and chic energy we expected from the first.

Inspired by the character Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Ratched is an origin story. It is set in 1947 where Mildred, played by Sarah Paulson, arrives in Northern California looking for a job. She lands one at a psychiatric hospital where they are experimenting on new "treatments" for the ailments of the day. But, as evidenced by the new trailer, some of the things they were trying to "fix" weren't ailments at all. 

"Juvenile distraction, lesbianism, mania, all of these maladies can be reversed," Dr. Richard Hanover, played by Jon Jon Briones, says in the trailer. 

"But then, aren't we playing God?" Gwendolyn Briggs, played by Cynthia Nixon, asks later. "Aren't we saying there's one feeling there's right and another feeling that's wrong?"

The project receives the same lush treatment we've come to expect from Murphy projects but has within it the darkness of any American Horror Story season. The cast is rounded out by Judy Davis playing Nurse Betsy Bucket, Sharron Stone playing Lenore Osgood, Finn Wittrock playing Edmund Tolleson, Charlie Carver playing Huck, Alice Englert playing Dolly, Amanda Plummer as Louise, Sophie Okonedo playing Charlotte Wells, Corey Stoll playing Charles Wainwright, Brandon Flynn playing Henry Osgood, Annie Starke playing Lily Cartwright, and Vincent D'Onofrio playing Governor George Wilburn.

RELATED | Here's the First Look at Ryan Murphy's 'The Prom's Iconic Cast