Matt Rogers is on Fire

From senior high school prom king to writer, actor, singer, podcaster, and TV host, Matt Rogers has been killing it. Most recently in high profile projects like Showtime’s I Love That For You alongside Vanessa Bayer, Molly Shannon, and Jenifer Lewis and Hulu’s Fire Island with Margaret Cho and long time friend SNL’s Bowen Yang, his star is clearly on the rise…and we are here for it. Matt is as charming as he is talented and it’s easy to see why Hollywood is taking notice.

Matt’s obsession with Hollywood started early on and would be the result of a mix of genres that included epic motion pictures, reality TV, Lost, and awards shows.

When I was seven years old, that’s when Titanic fever was happening. I think it was that moment when Kate Winslet turned around in her hat and said, “It doesn’t look as big as the Mauretania.” I loved it. She was giving iconography, she was giving complaints, she was giving “poor little rich girl.” I wanted to know everything. I’m sure that like many other gay kids, I thought I had a “crush” on her but really I was just stanning. From there, I became obsessed with the Oscars and the awards glitz and glamor and the Oscar race.

And so, I was keyed into the entertainment industry at like seven or eight years old because I think, it just looked so different from the world that I was growing up in. Inherently, I knew that I was different from the rest of the kids. When I was around 12 years old, American Idol started, and began singing in my backyard, trying to get my riffs down. I think I voted for Kelly Clarkson like 250 times in a night once. (I was on the right side of history there.) Once I saw the show Lost when I was in high school, that was when I really decided I wanted to be in television and be someone that created TV. So, all of those shows together give you a good picture of who I am with a nice dose of being a lamb, a huge Mariah Carrie fan.

Despite his early entertainment obsessions, Matt was a sports kid. He was afraid of being outed and never pursued anything he wanted to do for fear of being perceived as gay. Coming out would not only fortify his personal life but would also spark his creative career.

I worked very hard at making myself an acceptable person in my high school of 270 kids per class on Long Island, which was pretty conservative. Then when I got to college and I was at NYU, it was like, oh, wow, now that’s not an acceptable archetype for me to be, because I think everyone around me knows it’s fake and knows it’s inauthentic. And suddenly there was this shift from when I was in high school growing up where you wanted to be like everyone else. And then suddenly there was this vibrant, diverse place, with so much value put on being an individual. I decided to commit to the things that I loved – acting and writing. So, I transferred schools internally, from journalism to dramatic writing, and I started to pursue sketch comedy. I came out of the closet and started to take steps to become who I really was for the first time. And honestly, I think it helped my acting and my imagination. It was a pretty easy transition for me, and I was immediately happier for saying my truth and starting to walk in it.

With Matt’s current boom in projects, it’s easy to forget the decade-plus that Matt has had in the industry, doing the hard work, serving as a staff writer for Comedy Central’s The Other Two, hosting game shows, appearing in a myriad of improv shows with the Upright Citizen’s Brigade. Looking back, what advice would he give to a newbie to the business, especially from his point of view seeing the changes in entertainment and, more specifically, the changes in LGBTQ visibility?

I really had to develop my own take on this because there was no one to give me advice. I ended up just throwing everything at the wall and seeing what stuck. I just made sure that I was prepared to do anything that I was asked in this business and to be able to be good enough at it so that I wasn’t nervous while it was happening, and I could have a good time and show my personality. I would say that it’s a very good idea to be well-rounded, so if there’s an area of your tool belt you feel is missing, try to cultivate that area. If you are interested in acting but you’ve never done that before, you need to put yourselves in a position where you’re getting on camera and you’re acting – whether that means taking classes, scripting your own work, or funding your own things.

It’s hard, but you really have to be scrappy in the beginning and surround yourself with people that you think are special and that make you laugh. Get like-minded people and commit to those friendships and relationships. Learn to be a good collaborator, which means listening, and knowing when to say, okay, we’re going to do your idea instead of mine. It’s understanding people’s points of view. I don’t know where I would be if I didn’t have those relationships that I started fostering when I was 19 in college.

Matt Rogers, Bowen Yang and Tomas Matos Photo by Jeong Park. Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures. © 2022 20th Century Studios

One of those relationships Matt has fostered is with his bestie, Bowen Yang. The two have become a comedic power force with the success of their podcast, Las Culturistas, and now appearing on screen together in Fire Island. They met as freshmen in college, cultivated that friendship throughout, and ultimately, became best friends.

That relationship is form and foundational to both of us creatively and comedically. It’s like that throughout the rest of my career as well. I always seem to know someone on the projects I’m doing whether it’s because I’ve worked with them before, they’re a friend, or I know them through someone. The longer that you’re around in this business, those relationships really end up mattering a lot. So be kind, really try to learn from each other. And when you feel a special feeling about someone, keep them close.

What started off as a fun chat time between Bowen and Matt has exploded into becoming one of the most popular podcasts around, being named as Top Podcast by Esquire, Vulture, Time Out New York, and more, and featuring some of the top names from the biz. Why does Matt think Las Culturistas has become such a hit?

I think the podcast resonates with people because when we started it, we genuinely thought no one would listen to it – truly. I mean, we were not doing it for anyone other than each other. And because that’s the tone, we started the podcast with that and that’s what the podcast is and has always remained. And so, when people tell me that the podcast resonates with them, I really get the feeling that what they mean is that it feels like they’re a part of a conversation. It brings out authenticity in our guests. And I honestly think that there wasn’t really an effort ever to be a “podcast.” Like we’re not talking in what I call podcast voice, you know what I mean? We’re not up on the mic whispering and like saying our ideas and then giving a whole beat before someone else responds. It sounds like a conversation. I think that’s what people respond to. It started as a play-date between Bowen and I for 90 minutes a week, and that it has remained that. And now it feels like a playful, fun, you know, cultural experience for us and everyone listening, and bottom line, we just don’t take ourselves too seriously. You can’t!

Matt’s turn on I Love That For You, features him as a senior associate for Jenifer Lewis, the head of a major shopping network. In today’s age, we have different expectations of what we expect to see from gay characters on TV. The Jack Trope from Will & Grace now seems hollow. In creating his character, Matt had to add layers to his role. He wasn’t just the funny, sassy office gay.

The character I play is Darcy and he is not sassy period. Like he is NOT. I don’t think he’s ever snapped his fingers in his life. I think he would look at that as dated. He takes himself extremely seriously. And so outside of his sexual orientation, which really is not a part of the show, to be honest with you, he is an authentically gay person, but he is not struggling with his sexuality. He is not held back because of his sexuality. His sexuality is not a hurdle going forward in the show. He has other things on his plate, and he has other conflicts in his show, which do not have to do with A) his sexuality or B) conflicts that you see often when a character is this sexuality in sitcoms. I would immediately balk at that personally, as an actor, if I got a script and it was, “miss thing comes in and says, ‘mama slay,’ and ‘where can I put this juice down sister queen?’” I just would not do it. When I got the audition for this show, the character was described as dry, ambitious, and well dressed. And I loved that immediately. I really got excited about the character of Darcy in that I was going to employ in the performance this skill that I’ve had my entire life, this skill of code-switching. Darcy must be different people in this environment in order to survive. He expresses his goals. He drops his guard. He smiles. These were all little things that I thought about when I was playing the character. How does this person appear to different people in this toxic work environment to survive it and stay at the top of it? I am really, really grateful to be able to portray him because when you see him at the end of the season, he is in a completely different space than he is in the first episode. And it’s just really exciting to play an arc with what could have been an archetype.

Matt Rogers, Zane Phillips and Tomas Matos in the film FIRE ISLAND. Photo by Jeong Park. Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures. © 2022 20th Century Studios

Filming Fire Island was a dream for Matt. Not only was he surrounded by cast and crew that he’s known for over a decade, but he made new friends off the screen. Fire Island is a skillfully crafted adaption of Pride and Prejudice. At first glance, it’s a fun romp about gays hanging out on the infamous island; but there is more to the film.

I hope that it makes the community really think about the ways in which we exclude each other and how we contribute to the sort of hierarchy in the community without even thinking about it. This movie is very much in the spirit of Jane Austin, it is about social class and the desire to be mobile within a social group. And I think it’s an extremely smart adaptation in that it does not shy away from the harsh realities of why some people are going to be more accepted than others. This movie shines a very harsh light on the racism in the community, the classism in the community, and the hierarchy in terms of body type. We have a very powerful, diverse ensemble, and every single character has a very unique experience and no matter who you are, you’re going to identify with something or see yourself in some way. And I am excited to hear what people’s pulls are from the movie based on all of its very smart social commentary, because while it’s a really fun splashy funny movie, it’s also very thoughtful and intuitive and real.

Matt’s character Luke is dealing with his own insecurities. There is a pivot in the film that challenged Matt, who has stated that it is probably the most challenging thing he’s done as an actor.

The role was written for me by Joel (Kim Booster) who is my dear friend. And so, when I got the script, I really could feel myself in it and I could also feel the areas where I would improvise and where I would riff and where it would be really fun to sort of do certain things. And then there is a dramatic twist in the story that my character is integral and I think that it was the drama of that scene and the shock of what happens in that plot point that was difficult for me to play because, to be honest with you, we hadn’t had many conversations about how it would be played. I even thought it would be one way and then when I was actually doing it, it ended up being a whole other emotion that was coming out. It was extremely difficult to do this scene because it’s just a hard place to revisit and there were two days we were shooting that scene and that material, and I don’t think you know how emotional you’re going to get about doing something until you do it. I think having to access that vulnerability and bring it to the screen is very different for me. And it was the first time I’d ever been asked to do that. But I think that the way it plays out in the movie is really responsible and lovely.

From singing Kelly Clarkson in his backyard to becoming part of LGBTQ representation, Matt has stayed grounded and down to earth. Talking to him is like talking to a friend, there are no airs and there is no pomp and circumstance when he talks about being a role model in our community.

I’m a person that’s grown and changed a lot over the 13 years, I’ve been trying to do this. And now that I feel like things are paying off a little bit, I just want to make sure that the person that I am presenting to the world is someone that I like and that I stand by. I think I’m doing that right now. That’s really, all you can do is try to be – not even use the word role model, but, you know – I know there are people that enjoy and watch what I do. I just want to make them proud and make myself proud ultimately, and keep working and keep discovering new elements of myself. And if I look back in 10 years on everything I’ve done and said at this period in my life and think, wow, cringe, whatever – at this time in my life, I’m doing my best. And all you can do is your best.

Fire Island is streaming on Hulu, I Love That For You is available on Showtime.

Check out our in-depth chat with Matt on our GED podcast, U.S. of Gay.

Follow Matt on IG: @MattRogersTho