John Cameron Mitchellhas taken on the role “of a lifetime” with his upcoming portrayal ofTiger King’sJoseph “Joe Exotic” Maldonado-Passage.
The Golden Globe nominee, 58, opened up to PEOPLE about taking on the role of the eponymous troubled lead in the upcoming Peacock limited seriesJoe Exotic, likening the project to Shakespeare. (Mitchell spoke to PEOPLE while promoting his iconic film 2006Shortbus, which will be re-released in theaters with a new 4k restoration for its 15th anniversary. The film opens at the IFC Center in New York on January 26th, 2022 with a larger theatrical release to follow.)
“You see them battered as children. You see the homophobia. It honors the 15-year marriage he had, that this docuseries didn’t mention, with his husband dying of AIDS, and the homophobia forming him and making him into this harsh figure who is sympathetic in one way but megalomaniacal in another,” Mitchell said. “What a great role. It’s like playing Richard III crossed with, I don’t know, the other Shakespeare character who was… Pericles. He’s beaten all the way through his life.”
“So it is a chance of a lifetime,” he added. “I really had a blast.”
Joe Exotic.Netflix
Although they “only had one scene together,” Mitchell also raved about working with McKinnon, 37. “She doesn’t think of herself as a dramatic actress, but she totally is,” he said.
While Mitchell said both he and McKinnon stay true to their characters, he said their portrayal of Maldonado-Passage and Baskin was not an “impersonation.”
“Neither of us are doing an impersonation. We’re not copying every move and every vocal thing, because that can get cartoonish, right? You can get caught up in that,” he explained. “So we’re both doing our versions of them.”
Mitchellwas castin April as Maldonado-Passage, 58, the founder of an exotic animal park in Oklahoma who has been imprisoned for various crimes, including paying Allen Glover $3,000 to kill Baskin, 60, an animal rights activist and rival big cat enthusiast. The series is based on season 2 of Wondery’sOver My Dead Bodypodcast.
Maldonado-Passage and Baskin’s feud was documented in Netflix’sTiger King: Murder, Mayhem, and Madness, which premiered on the streaming service in March 2020, becoming an early pandemic hit. The seriesreached 34 million U.S. viewersin its first 10 days on the streaming platform. Season 2 ofTiger Kingpremieres later this month.
source: people.com
