Jonathan Van Ness has a Gorgeously Queer Life

Jonathan Van Ness Gets Candid, and Curious

During COVID, while the rest of us were binge-watching guilty pleasure shows and ordering Postmates for the umpteenth time, Queer Eye’s Jonathan Van Ness was executive producing, filming, and hosting the television version of his hit podcast, Getting Curious for Netflix.

In this six-part series, Van Ness interviews a wide variety of colorful personalities about an even wider variety of subjects. Curious about everything since birth, Van Ness fuses his Emmy nominated personality with, at times, lighter fare (did you know dragonflies have two penises?) to hard-hitting issues such as homelessness and gender/binary labels. Even with Jonathan’s bigger-than-life personality, the show has some very intimate and touching moments with hard-to-believe facts that shock to activate. A very candid and thought-provoking episode features Jonathan in a round table exploration with activist and storyteller Geo Neptune, artist Joshua Allen, and performance artist Alok-Vaid Menon, challenging the norms that have been established by a conservative, binary society. Think you know your LGBTQ facts and history? Think again. But no matter your orientation or identification, there is something in the show for everyone, furthering the idea of LGBTQIA+ personalities as leaders in mainstream media. This is what the future of programming looks like.

There is no slowing Van Ness down. In addition to appearing in the sixth season of Queer Eye, he produced this show, recorded more episodes of his podcast, and will be releasing his second book, Love That Story: Observations From a Gorgeously Queer Life, all maintaining his relationship and that gorgeous mane of hair. What was supposed to be an exclusive GED Rapid Fire turned into a complex chat about the work that is still to be done within the LGBTQIA+ community, the very real danger of our political system, and dealing with personal struggles.

What were you most curious about while growing up?

Oh my gosh. So many things. My first earliest obsession was figure skating – it was definitely the hair and the costumes that had me!

Jonathan Van Ness photo by Danielle Levitt

What inspired you to add more to your plate in doing this show?

I love the podcast so much. I love learning. I love getting to explore both topics that I know nothing about and topics that I want to learn more about. I don’t think that that kind of journey of curiosity has ever been done, so I was eager to get to dive into this project and get to explore curiosity in a new way for myself.

What do you want audiences to walk away with most from watching the show?

I want them to walk away with curiosity, joy, and kind of just being a little bit less timid about seeking out information in their own life and kind of playing with curiosity that they possess.

What was the biggest surprise to learn while filming the show?

I had so many surprises to learn about. I loved Geo Neptune’s creation story, which was really beautiful and eye-opening. I think so many people in the U.S. come from such a Euro-Christian-centric perspective, and it was just really interesting to hear a totally different perspective. I also was pretty blown away by some of the statistics around people that are dealing with homelessness in New York City and that there are more vacant apartments than there are people who are dealing with homelessness in Manhattan.

How have you changed as a person from filming Getting Curious?

I definitely grew up like 20 years in this filming. I mean we got greenlit to do my first show and executive produce my first show during Corona Virus and having the health and safety of an entire crew on your shoulders and wanting to break into some of these topics that I wanted to break into. There is just so much feedback, so much negativity in the world so to put yourself out there in this way with the health and safety of 40-plus people on you, was a lot of pressure and I’m really proud of myself and our crew for creating what we did and keeping everyone safe and still creating such engaging television.

What was the most emotional part of filming the show for you?

Definitely at Stonewall. I think being there and sharing space with Geo Neptune, Joshua Allen, and Alok and being in Stonewall and being all gender non-conforming, or non-binary, or Two-Spirit people in Geo’s case, that just felt healing and earth-shattering to be in that space in such an important place for queer history. For us all to be together there on the shoulders of all our LGBTQIA+ ancestors who allowed us to be there in that space just felt really surreal.

GETTING CURIOUS WITH JONATHAN VAN NESS S1. (L to R). Nala Toussaint and Jonathan Van Ness in episode 6 of GETTING CURIOUS WITH JONATHAN VAN NESS S1. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2021

You have been a trailblazer in meshing the LGBTQ world with the mainstream world. Do you think understanding has gotten better since your time on TV?

I don’t know. I think we are really seeing this resurgence. We have been seeing hate crimes tic up steadily every single year for the last four years. So, in some ways, yes, in other ways, no. One thing we discuss in the Getting Curious in the gender/binary episode is that last year there were more anti-trans bills debated and passed in state legislatures than there were in history. So, generally, there are some better understandings, but I also think that we’re seeing increased violence, increased misunderstanding, increased misinformation, and increased vilification – especially of trans and gender-nonconforming people across the board right now. We have to be vigilant and continue to have conversations – openly, a lot – to continue to work towards LGBTQIA+ liberation.

How do you think we can best heal our relationship with the conservative side from our past political administration? Or do we even try?

They say in the 12-step program it is attraction rather than promotion. We really need to unify our own base and unifying Democrats from the more centrist and progressive side. Republicans have been so great at scapegoating people, creating these false dichotomies, and vilifying people for so long that it’s turned us against each other. People that are hardcore conservatives, we are probably not going to change their minds. I think that reaching across in our own party and making sure that we are really active and engaged, leading into 2022, is really important.

There has just been so much disappointment in the Democratic party at how this first year has gone, and I understand the disappointment. I think a lot of stuff we hoped would happen, did not happen. But, we did not send a clear and blazing progressive majority, we sent the slimmest majority in the House in a long time. We are tied in the Senate. I love progressives, but to say we have the House, Senate, and White House, “let’s go balls to the wall.” So did Republicans in 2017, they had the House, Senate, and White House, and look what happened in 2018. They lost it, and they had a bigger majority then than what we have now. So, we really need to stop attacking people in our own party. Are Manchin and Sinema so obnoxious? Yes, but we cannot keep biting people from within our own party, at least not till November, because we have to figure out how to expand these majorities and get accomplished what we want to accomplish.

If we haven’t noticed, these Republicans are gaining steam and they’re not fucking around, and we have to have a long game. If we feel burnt, if we do not turn out again in November, we are setting up our most vulnerable people for an absolute blood bath heading into ‘24. And last time Mitch McConnell had the Senate, we could not get a Supreme Court nominee through in nine months then he, in 2016, turned around and got Amy Coney Barrett through in two weeks. We cannot trust these Republicans to not stack our Supreme Court and the consequences have never been higher. So, it’s just like 2020, except with two more years at animus. So, we must stick together and just stop being so mad at each other.

GETTING CURIOUS WITH JONATHAN VAN NESS S1. Jonathan Van Ness in episode 5 of GETTING CURIOUS WITH JONATHAN VAN NESS S1. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2022

How do you manage the pressure of always being in the public eye, as a spokesperson for the LGBTQ community?

Some days are better than others. It’s hard having so many opinions hurled at you, and especially if you disappoint people or let people down, it definitely hurts. Ultimately, I’m just trying to do the best I can. I think everything in our life prepares us for the next kind of thing that we are doing. So, hopefully, I’m well prepared and I’m always trying to do right by these opportunities that I’ve been given and help to amplify other voices and just work towards a better world.

How is Jonathan Van Ness the person most different than Van Ness the person we see on camera?

There is sometimes just a knee-jerk reaction to paint me as like an effervescent eternal, like a forever positive person. When my cat vomits on the carpet, if I’m like 30 minutes late for something, which does in fact happen sometimes, I’m not always the most beacon of sunshine. I am a real person. I have hard days just like anyone else. I have a lot of personal struggles, believe it or not, that I have not shared openly and publicly, whether it’s within family, friends, whatever. We always have hardships in our lives, and I think that we never know what’s going on with someone else. I am myself and I am true to who you see on Queer Eye and on Getting Curious, but there is obviously always a lot more to someone than what you see on TV.

How do you maintain a healthy relationship while so busy with all your attention pulled in so many different ways?

A good therapist. I talk to her twice a week.

What are some other themes that you are curious about that you would like to see on your show?

I’m obsessed with trees; I’m obsessed with ping pong. Like, how do you train for ping pong? I’m obsessed with transportation and like, what’s the future of transportation? Solar energy – how does it work? I’m also really into history. Hopefully, if we got a season two, we would be able to like travel and do a little bit more since in season one it was COVID. We had to really stay in Manhattan, in the Northeast corridor. So, it would be fun to be able to get curious with other animals and other historical topics that you would just need to travel around a little bit more for.

We know that some reboots don’t always work, why do you think the new Queer Eye has been such a tremendous success?

Well, I do think that it’s an amazingly fun format. I also think that Netflix has really given the creators of the show, and all five of us, a lot of space to grow and learn. It had to be modernized for this world, the first one was from 2003 to 2007, and they really mainly focused on straight men. We have more heroes and more diverse heroes and because this one is on Netflix, it’s streaming, there are fewer boundaries and more things we can talk about. There are more things we can do with less input in the kitchen. I think we have just been allowed a little bit more creativity and that’s why it’s been able to stay so current.

The image of what an LGBTQ persona is has certainly changed over the years… it is’nt just pretty boys representing the gay community. What advice would you give to someone from our community wanting to get into the biz?

You must be so resilient to shame because you’re going to hear “no” so many times. People will get in your head be like, “why would you want this? You’re crazy. It’s not gonna happen, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.”  You also need to find your people, the people in your life with whom you can cultivate a sincere friendship. Find your community and ask for support, because you’re going to need both of those.

And finally, do dragonflies really have two penises?

They do, in fact, have two penises. It’s a large world out there.

You can watch Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness on Netflix and check out the podcast version of the show wherever you listen to pods.