Robin de Jesús on ‘Camp’ memories, Chippendales dancers, and the movie kiss that changed his life
Camp—every theater kid’s favorite movie—and wowing us with his raw talent. To no one’s surprise, that was just the beginning.He’s since gone on to receive three Tony Award nominations: First, as part of the original cast of In The Heights, for his featured work in the Broadway revival of La Cage aux Folles, and, most recently, for The Boys In The Band.
He adapted that latter role for the screen in Ryan Murphy’s 2020 Netflix adaptation, and followed that up with an unforgettable turn in Lin Manuel-Miranda’s tick, tick..
BOOM! last year. It’s been a pretty dynamite few years for de Jesús.Next, he’ll star opposite Kumail Nanjiani and Murray Bartlett’s in Hulu’s buzzy true-crime series Welcome To Chippendales—whether or not he’ll get to bust out some Chippendales dance movies remains to be seen, but fingers crossed.In the meantime, we’re perfectly happy just listening to de Jesús, which you can do in his featured episode of the Love In Gravity podcast, described as “a collection of six original stories from the gay and queer Latinx and Afro-Latinx community.
From creator Dominic Colón, the star-studded audio series just had a splashy live read at Los Angeles’ Outfest—shortly after which, we caught up with de Jesús and made him the latest subject of our rapid-fire Q&A series, Dishin’ It.In the conversation below, de Jesús dishes on the on-screen kiss that changed him life, his dream movie-to-musical adaptation, and that time he and his Camp co-stars turned a quiet bar in upstate New York into “an episode of Sex And The City.”1.
