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“I try not to focus on the day-to-day, but let’s face it, Asian men are treated differently than White men, gay men are treated differently than straight men, and Asian gay men are treated differently as well.
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“Are they coming to me because I’m gay, or because I’m Asian, or because I’m gay and Asian? It’s a very complicated calculus you have to do everyday,” he said. “When you exist at the intersection of a lot of different identities, like I do, you’re always trying to triangulate. In past interviews, he’s joked that he knew he was gay before he knew he was Asian, but that, he said in a serious tone, wasn’t without its challenges. All that, and much more from his life, informs his comedy - a style he’s described as part autobiographical, part commentary on classism and racism in the gay community. The juxtaposition of a conservative upbringing in a White family led the young Booster to a lifelong search for identity, especially for an adopted Korean boy who just happens to be gay. I was the kid who asked the questions you weren’t supposed to ask because I really didn’t know any better. I didn’t know what was appropriate to say and what wasn’t appropriate to say. “But I guess part of what made me funny was my bluntness. “I was homeschooled until I was in high school,” raised in what he’s called a “conservative, White, Evangelical Christian family” in Plainfield. “It’s funny, I don’t know if growing up, people would have called me funny,” he said. His upbringing, he admitted, would surprise many, mainly because it wasn’t the kind of environment that would have typically nurtured a comedian. Joel Alexander Kim Booster was born in 1988 in South Korea and was adopted as a baby by an American couple. So without that during lockdown, I wasn’t able to develop a lot of material. To me, it’s all about that collaboration with the audience. “I’m not one of those comedians who writes stuff and repeats them verbatim from one show to the next. “It was really tough for me during lockdown because so much of what I talk about and write comes out of my interaction with the audience,” he said. For one, things are finally opening back up, and for a performer, that’s been a god-send.
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There were a lot of panels to attend, and a lot of drag queens to see, so the fact they showed up to hear about our film, I’m grateful.”īooster has a lot to be thankful for. I was grateful that people came to our panel. It’s billed as a “convention that celebrates the art of drag, queer culture and self-expression for all.” Think Comic-Con, but more sequins and stilettos. appeared at RuPaul’s DragCon in Los Angeles. So it’s really exciting for me to able to work out some new stuff and work in some of the greatest hits.”ĭays before this interview, Booster and Co. “I’ve been building new material, so it’s great to get that out there.”Īudiences can expect “kind of a half and half - with some old material and some new, never-before-heard material that I’ve been workshopping in L.A. “It’s really exciting to come to San Diego days before my special comes out,” Booster said. On a recent Tuesday morning, Booster beamed with excitement about being back on the stand-up circuit.
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In the case of “Fire Island,” the cast includes some of the industry’s top queer actors, Asian or otherwise, including Booster, “SNL’s” Bowen Yang, TV actor Conrad Ricamora (“How to Get Away with Murder”), theater actor Nick Adams (“Priscilla, Queen of the Desert” and the Lincoln Center revival of “Falsettos”) and one Margaret Cho.
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30 release.īesides being that cinematic rainbow-hued unicorn, “Fire Island,” much like “Bros,” is that other rarity: a queer romantic comedy with queer actors. Another high-profile gay rom-com, Universal Pictures’ “Bros” - directed by Nicholas Stoller and written by Stoller and Billy Eichner - is set for a Sept. “Fire Island,” a reference to the iconic gay-friendly vacation destination off of New York’s Long Island, is one of the rare gay-themed rom-coms from a major studio, in this case Searchlight Pictures. After all, the queer rom-com, which begins streaming on Hulu this Friday, has been generating a lot of buzz for many reasons - and the right kind of buzz at that. It’s probably not fair to ask Booster - who both wrote the film and stars as the main character, Noah - to reduce “Fire Island” to a two-sentence pitch. “It’s about a group of friends who go to a fantastical gay island trying as hard as they can to fall in love and get laid. These days, if you end up on an elevator with comedian Joel Kim Booster, he might give you this elevator pitch for his new film, “Fire Island.”