All Hail the Butch Superhero
Lea DeLaria, commonly known as Big Boo from Orange Is The New Black, flew to Denver during Pride to party it up at the City Hall Amphitheater. She graciously gave OUT FRONT a few minutes of mic-time. The interview is as follows. Come along as Lea D. gets candid outside the clink.
You’ve been labeled a “butch superhero”
in the past.
A butch superhero? I haven’t heard that one but I love it! I get a picture of me standing on a hill with my arms akimbo, the breeze blowing through my cape. It’s like that shot from the original Superman series with George Reeves, where it always showed him with America behind him. The second thing I think of when I hear that is how much the community has changed in terms of its acceptance of butch dykes and nelly fags. I hope I had something to do with that.
Do you feel like you’re a good role model for the community?
No. I think if I’m a role model, then the community is in a lot of f*cking trouble. That’s what I think. People keep calling me a role model and I don’t know what to do with it. I mean my entire life, my career has been based on social commentary. And in order to be a good social commentator, you have to be a bit on the outside, if you know what I mean. So for people to suddenly start calling me a role model is sort of frightening. It’s like, “Oh my God, I’ve lost my edge!” I prefer dyk-on to role model.
I read you were excited about being the “fat, butch dyke with the c*ck strapped on” in Season 3. Why was that so exciting for you?
Are you kidding?! The reason I was excited was 1) they never show fat people having any sexuality whatsoever, so here’s a fat dyke having sex with a truly hot babe. In fact, Madison was so hot that I now know how men feel when they’re afraid they’re going to get a woody during a sex scene. Thankfully, my scene called for me to have a woody so it was all good. But you never see fat people having any sexuality, and you never see butches having any sexuality. You only see them drunk; you only see them beating their girlfriends; you only see them stupid. And in all of American television, The L Word included, this is a first—TV Guide pointed that out, which is awesome. This is the first time there’s ever been a lesbian sex scene with a c*ck strapped on the way it’s supposed to be. There have been dildos before, but never dyke sex with c*cks strapped on. So to be the first to do that was very, totally cool.
You’re a pioneer in the TV strap-on field.
Absolutely hilarious. I was the first openly gay comic to perform on television in America and that was 1993. So now, 22 years later, I’m the first actress to have dildo dyke sex [on television].
When you read the script, were you like, “Holy sh*t! This is gonna happen!”?
I asked Kate Mulgrew [who plays Red] about it because I’d never done a sex scene before. I asked if she had any tips, forgetting that Kate and I had been emailing each other over my phone. And you know how your phone will say “Sent from my iPad or sent from my iPhone” and people get creative with that? Mine says “Sent from my vagina.” She sends back, “Isn’t everything you send from your vagina?”
I mean, I was a tad nervous about it because I wanted it to be real. We had a conversation on set where they wanted me to strap the dildo on over my boxers. They wanted people to see what [the strap-on] was. I said, “Look. As a butch dyke, I can’t allow that. Nobody does that. Absolutely nobody does that. Nobody straps a c*ck on over their panties! It’s stupid.” But I understood what they wanted, so I said, “Let’s go naked,” which is what we did. They just thought I’d never go naked, which is why they suggested it in the first place. I’ll tell you right now: If there’s anybody comfortable in their skin, it’s me. I don’t give a f*ck. Once we got that cleared up it was good.
You were in Denver for Pride.
Yes! I had so much fun. Ridiculously great fun—[Girl Pride] was quite a party. And you know, I’m often not celebrating. I’m often doing very political things when I go to Prides. In fact, for a time I was kind of over Pride because all they seemed to be was a celebration when there was so much f*cking work that needed to be done. I felt like “Gay Pride Day? Sorry I don’t have enough pride to last the f*cking day.” I was so over all of it. It was only until recently, where the queer community has gotten their sh*t back. Those things, those desires. To borrow the hashtag, I’ve been using “refuse to be invisible.”
Now I’m really excited when I go to Pride. I spent a lot of time saying no. People would say, “Oh, come. It’s a great party.” Stop right there; I’d lose my f*cking mind. I was sick of every f*cking Pride having some assh*le talking about how we’re like everyone else and we’re exactly like straight people. That f*cking goes up my ass so far. We’re not like straight people. We have our own community and our own culture.
We can coexist peacefully within who we are without having to emulate anybody. The other thing is how religion seemed to take over every Pride I went to. I was like, “If I go to another Gay Pride and see another religious float, I’m going to personally go up to Heaven and bitch-slap Jesus.” With organized religion, there’s a history of the persecution of everybody—not just queer people—everybody throughout history. And some people need to own that sh*t. Don’t get me going here; I’ve got nothing against religious people if they respect my choice to be me, to be an atheist, and the fact that I was born a dyke. As long as they respect me, I’ll respect them. But the minute they show any derision for who I am, I’m in their face.
But you enjoyed Denver while you were here?
I was in Denver for less than 12 hours. I came to party and put my face out to say, “Happy Pride! What a f*cking amazing time to be queer!” I was there to do some dancing and have a few drinks; it was great.
Fangirl question for you: Is Lori Petty as rad in real life as most fangirls think she’d be?
Lori Petty is the raddest motherf*cker on the planet! It’s interesting that you should ask because you’ve probably seen on social media about a thousand pictures of me and Lori and often Taryn Manning [who plays Pensatucky]. The three of us hang a lot; we’re sort of the punk-ass bitches on the show.
Lori is the f*cking sh*t, man. She’s so cute. The first season we became friends pretty quickly. And she was like, “Yo, DeLaria! My sister’s coming to town with a girlfriend. You would make me a hero in their eyes if you would have dinner with us. They’re huge fans of yours and have been for a long time.” I f*cking love that about Lori; she was totally fangirling. It’s been a joy. Having Lori is one of the best gifts Orange has given me. She’s a rad-ass motherf*cker—love her. And she’s a great actor. She’s so good on the show, a great f*cking addition to the cast.
Who have you fangirled over in the past?
I don’t generally fangirl over celebrities. My demeanor is usually pretty cool. Having said that, I will say this: I met Lily Tomlin back in 1993 backstage at the GLAAD awards. I had just become the first openly gay comic on television that March, and this was the June GLAAD awards. So I was rubbing elbows with famous people and I’d never done that before. I saw Lily Tomlin backstage in the corner going over her script. She had her glasses on reading her script and I thought to myself, “I may never have the opportunity again to shake hands with Lily Tomlin. So I’m going to go over to say hi, and she looked up. I just wanted to say, “Excuse me, Ms. Tomlin, I would love just to be able to shake your hand. You’ve been a huge influence on me and my comedy.”
Before I could even say that, she looked up and smiled really big and said, “Oh, Lea DeLaria! What a pleasure to meet you! I am a huge fan.” And I just burst into tears! Like a f*cking little bitch. I was horrified! And I was like, “Oh, Lily, I’m so sorry. I don’t usually respond like this. It just means so much to me.” Interestingly enough, since then, almost every day now, someone bursts into tears when they meet me. So I have total empathy for them because the f*cking thing happened to me.
The other was when I first met Meryl Streep. This would’ve been somewhere around 1999. Mrs. Streep and I both worked for the public theater in NYC. I was playing Audrey in As You Like It, which starred Gwyneth Paltrow at the time. Gwyneth had just won her Academy Award, so every day was insanity. Every day, the stage manager would come back and tell you who was in the audience. And it became a joke; I mean it became ridiculous, names like Steven Spielberg. I remember one day the stage manager came back and was like, “We’ve got Kevin Kline and Meryl Streep.” So of course we all went crazy. And she came backstage to meet me and I kind of shook her hand and was really calm. And then I got down on my knees and did the “I’m not worthy! I’m not worthy!” thing to her. She was beautiful! She went, “You know that’s why I love your acting, Lea. You always make the small choices.”
The next time I saw her, we did a 50th anniversary show for public theater and it had God and everybody in it. And she sang “Sodomy” from Hair and I was going on after her. She had been nervous about it in rehearsals and when she came out, I told her, “See? I knew you would f*cking kill!” And she kissed me on the cheek; then she kissed me on the hand and let me tell you: I didn’t wash my face and my hand for a f*cking year!
What do you enjoy most when you’re on the road?
I generally tour with a trio if not a quartet and always intersperse music within my stand-up comedy. Because my comedy is so loud, so fast, and so vulgar, people get tired. You can only take it for so long. So, you know, after like five minutes they’re like, “Mom, make it stop!” In 1982, when I started doing dyke comedy, I did music as well because it worked. I would just sing some song [the crowd] knew, lull them into a false sense of security, then start screaming “f*ck!” and “dyke!” and “c*nt!” at them. And that’s been my format since 1982 and hasn’t changed. So, what do I like the most when I’m on the road? Finding strange p*ssy.
You’re hilarious. So let’s wrap this up by playing Marry, Murder, Screw. Your choices are Piper, Alex, and Pensatucky.
Piper, Alex, and Pensatucky? Oh, Lord. Are we talking Lea DeLaria or Big Boo?
We’re talking Lea DeLaria.
I would murder Pensatucky, screw Piper, and marry Alex. But Boo would murder Piper, screw Pensatucky, and marry Alex. Let me just say Boo is more understanding than Lea DeLaria. I would bitch-slap Pensatucky into next Tuesday; I’d never have the patience to deal with that bullsh*t. Boo is a much more patient and loving person than Lea DeLaria.
This article was originally published in OUT FRONT’s “Let’s Talk Ladies” issue in September 2015.
