Catching Up with Coco Peru

A few years ago a publicist had a birthday party and invited Coco Peru to perform. Knowing Coco only from her roles in the films Trick (where she stole the movie as the cynical drag queen in the men's room with cum in her eye) and Girls Will Be Girls (the underrated drag comedy with Evie Harris and Varla Jean Merman), I was blown away by how fiercely funny her comedy was.

That isn't a minority opinion. A critic for LA Weekly wrote: "Hilarious, inebriating and elegant all at the same time... If there were an award for most girlish and glamorous, funniest, mouthiest diva/icon/trannie/comedian, the inimitable Miss Coco Peru would win hands down." "A composite of dozens of creamy homegrown femmes fatales," wrote the New York Times. And San Francisco's Bay Area Reporter summed Coco's comic gifts this way: "It is the brutal honesty behind the comic facade that makes Miss Coco Peru a special event."

Peru, the alter-ego of actor Clinton Leupp has written and performed eight shows over her nearly 20-year career, winning such honors as New York's MAC and Bistro Award for Miss Coco Peru: A Legend in Progress and a GLAAD Award for Miss Coco Peru is Undaunted. He has appeared on television in Arrested Development, Twins, Will and Grace, New York Undercover, Showtime's Rude Awakening, Bravo's Boy Meets Boy, Bravo's Sexiest Moments in Film, Bravo's Welcome to the Parker, and in an Orbitz commercial that was nominated for a 2005 GLAAD Media Award. Film roles include To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar, Nick and Jane, and Straight-Jacket. He also supplied the voice to the Mama Hippo in Disney's animated feature The Wild. Along with co-stars Jeffery Roberson and Jack Plotnick he shared the Best Actress Award at the 2003 HBO Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen as well as the Best Actor Award at 2003 Outfest Film Festival. Yet it was for his role as himself in Trick that he is best-known for a scene in which he bitterly utters the famous line: "You ever get cum in your eye Gabriel, HMM? It BURNS."

This Friday, April 30, 2010, Coco appears at the Miami Gay and Lesbian Film Festival in An Evening with Coco Peru at 8pm at the Playground Theatre (for more information visit . Then on May 1, 2010 Coco moves up to Fort Lauderdale for an appearance at The Manor Complex at 7pm. (). Come this summer, Coco returns to both Provincetown, Rehobeth Beach and Ogunquit; as well as an appearance in Long Beach over Labor Day weekend. (For more on these dates, visit her website.)

EDGE had the opportunity to have an email correspondence with Coco, this past week. Here's the interview.

Why Miami?

EDGE: You haven't a film in the festival, but they invited you to perform there. How did the Film Festival gig come about?

Coco Peru: I have a really wonderful relationship with the Miami LGBT Festival. They screened Girls Will Be Girls and I also hosted the festival's opening night another year, so we sort have an ongoing open relationship!

EDGE: Are you a big moviegoer?

Coco Peru: I used to be when I lived in NYC. Now that I am in LA, I am strangely more of DVD person. Also, I travel so much that when I do get to be home I love sitting on my couch. However, nothing beats sitting in a movie theater! I just wish people had better manners. I can't stand all the texting, the gum chewing, talking, and munching of popcorn.

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Watch these clips from Ugly Coco:

Serious drag

EDGE: Are you working on something new?

Coco Peru: I am writing a new solo show that I hope to stage next spring.

EDGE: You once said in an interview that gays don't take drag seriously as an art form. Is that still the case?

Coco Peru: I said that?!? I think what I meant is that often people tell me not to call myself a drag queen because they think that what I do is more theatre and they associate drag with lipsynching and bars. However, I have always been proud to be a part of the drag community and I have said that I think people need to broaden their ideas about what drag is and can be.

EDGE: Why do you think some segments of the gay community don't like drag?

Coco Peru: Fear of their softer side. When you grow up hearing that you need to butch up and you're still a slave to that type of thinking as an adult, I imagine drag might seem threatening. In fact, drag used to scare the hell out of me for that very same reason when I was young. Fortunately, I faced that fear and it changed my life. Of course, there are those days when my house looks like a drag queen exploded in it and I find, even myself, hating drag! But I've been very fortunate.

EDGE: Gays have made headway on television, but drag has not. Do you think a tv series ever will have a drag main character?

Coco Peru: Yes, and I hope it's me and I hope it's a well rounded character and not the usual clich�! But if it is a clich� and it pays well, I'd be happy to play it!

EDGE: What do you think of RuPaul's Drag Race?

Coco Peru: I enjoy the show and I am happy it's on TV. My only wish would be that instead of just lip-synching for their lives, the girls could have the opportunity to perform as they might in their live shows. If I was just starting out, I wouldn't be able to be on that show because I don't quite fit into that box. Still, it's a wonderful way to celebrate drag and for these younger drag queens to get their names out there.

EDGE: I think I heard a drag queen - could it have been Varla Jean Merman - say that to be a drag star today, you need to do your own singing. Do you think the days of lipsynching are gone for major drag artists?

Coco Peru: I really don't know. When I think I know it all, I am always proved wrong! In fact, I was just in the South and these queens were lip-synching and the crowd adored them and these queens were walking offstage with fistfuls of money. I had to wonder why the hell I struggle so hard to write shows!

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Watch this video reel of Coco Peru's career:

Watch this clip of scenes from Girls Will Be Girls:

More 'Girls'?

EDGE: Have you made any additional 'Girls Will Be Girls' videos?

Coco Peru: Sadly... no. I still can't believe LOGO didn't want to make it into a TV series.

EDGE: You've done these videos with the characters from the film, but has there been any thoughts for a sequel?

Coco Peru: Only in my fantasies!

EDGE: You married Rafael in Spain, and have been doing stints in Ptown. Have you given any thought to be married in Massachusetts?

Coco Peru: Our marriage in Spain is recognized in those places where gay marriage is legal so there would be no need to remarry. In fact, if we wanted to get married in Massachusetts, we would have to divorce in Spain first!

EDGE: I think you said once that you were reluctant to do Ptown because of the need to bark the shows on Commercial Street. How was it last summer? And did you have to bark?

Coco Peru: I only go to Ptown for a week during the summer and I do not bark. I admire those people that get out there and do that but my days of barking are over. This summer while I am out there doing my show I might actually hire Evie Harris to bark for me. She's desperate for work and enjoys barking. In fact, when passing hydrants she instinctively lifts her leg to pee.

EDGE: What are you new Logo shows about?

Coco Peru: Me.

EDGE: You wrote in your blog about your friendship with Beatrice Arthur. How did that friendship come about?

Coco Peru: We had mutual friends. She loved gay people, and she especially loved underdogs and I think she recognized the underdog in Coco Peru. She was my icon and the fact that we became friends never failed to amaze me. I mean, how amazing is it that Bea Arthur said to me one day, "You and me, we're Bosom Buddies."?

EDGE: Why is Coco so loved by her fans?

Coco Peru: Because I can't stop giving!

EDGE: If Clinton could ask Coco one question, what would that be?

Coco Peru: Clinton knows better than to ask Coco stupid questions. She just doesn't have the patience. In fact, that question you just asked is testing her patience right now.

EDGE: Have you thought of acting as Clinton, not Coco?

Coco Peru: Yes, Coco was initially going to be a way to get my name out there so that I could get more work as Clinton but she took over my life. She possessed my body! In fact, if anyone knows of a good drag exorcist, could you send me their number?

Watch Coco Peru's acceptance speech at the LA Gay Center in 2009:

Watch this interview with Coco Peru at Night of the 1000 Gowns in March 2010: