Healing Through Clean Slate

This is fresh air. I'm Tona Moseley, and my guest today is Laverne Cox Chances are, you met her the way most of the world did. A transgender woman in prison, doing hair and fighting for her right to gender affirming care in the Netflix series Orange is the New Black Listen, dooc, I need my dosage. given five years, eighty thousand dollars in my freedom For this. I'm finally who I'm supposed to be. Do you understand I can't go back. I'd like to help you. Unfortunately, you have elevated levels of AST and ALT, which could mean liver damage. Test. That can mean anything We're gonna take you off your hormones entirely. until we can schedule an ultrasound, get a clean and read But that could take months. I can offer you an antidepressant. That's Leaverne Cox as Soophia Bersette in twenty fourteen. The role made her the first openly transgender person nominated for a prrimetime Emmy in an acting category and put her on the cover of Time magazine next to the words, The transgender tipping pointint. for decade now. She's been one of the most visible trans women in America the woman on that magazine cover was carrying things she'd never told anyone Not even her therapist She's written a new memoir titled Transcendent. and it arrives at a moment when her right to simply exist is being debated in state houses across the country makes clear that for Cx, none of this is new. Long before she had the words for it, she was bullied for who she was. Her very existence, as she writes, was an affront to the order of things And she's been fighting for the right to simply be her entire life The Verncocks Welcome to Fresh air. It's such an honor to have you. Thank you so much for having me. I have not heard It's rare that I just hear the clip from Orange and it's been so long and I Gosh, it brings back memories and it's really Interesting is even out there. Often when I watch a scene that I've done, it's hard for me to have distance. I immediately am in the character again and I'm in the emotion of the scene and and and so I'm immediately like feeling what I was feeling When we shot this, this is twenty twelve that we shot it. So it was funny. I was just like Yeah, did you laugh? Why did it make you laugh? No, at the end I mean, the writing is so fantastic. maybe I can offer you an antidepressant It's hilarious. Well, Orange is the newew black was revolutionary for the time. And your character I was very surprised to learn from the book. that you weren't a regular reocurring character, you were a guest star. Yes. And I mean, that's really a contractual thing. So I was in, I think I don remember how many episodes I was in the first season, but I remember it was a day to day thing. I didn't have like a contract the first season. I was literally a day player, guest star, day player, but was kind of making day player rates. I wasn't making like guest star rates. The second season was my salary was like a guest star rate and I had like I think a seven episode guarantine and it ended up using me for nine episodes. So I was there a lot and they wrote generously for me. I think because that my backstory episode came it was the third episode of the show that people Felt like you were a cast member Yeah I think people think because so much of the work that you have done feel so true to life that so much of that show might be your life And I think it's part of what makes this book really eye opening because we're learning things about you that we didn't know I want to start with the beginning of your book. Okay because eight years old, you decide to start at a moment when you're eight years old. You are at a park near your family's apartment in Mobilee, Alabama. you're doing your kid thing and just playing out. and there are these boys that come up to you, the cararaway boys. And they begin teasing you and then it gets violent. canan I have you Pick up the story from there during one of these teasing sessions Why you talk like that One of the Cway boys shobbed me. I don't even remember which one interchangeably menacing figures This time, I couldn't keep my balance and found myself falling hating the gravel of the playground I scowled, annoyed at first. But then, looking up at them, I saw the switch flip in their eyes I saw that flicker of threat The way their stances shifted into those of aggression that made the hairs on my arms stand on end They were disgusted by me I was no longer a friend up here Someone to play with I was an easy target I was praying Their fist landed in unison on my face My chest You see this Look at this sissy, like a girl One of them sneered. half laughing in glee as they punched me. Their voices blended into one as they pelted me hurling every name they could think of. and my instinct fromrom as far back as the days of daycare bullying took over rolling me onto my side and into a ball. The words rang in my ears those from the past intermingling with those of the Caraway boys I'd heard these words before At first, I had not known what they meant But now after years of it I recognized them. worords that meant I was different from the other kids A girl when I should have acted like a boy Overn, thank you for reading that passage You go on to say that you curl up in a ball and it doesn't stop. They get energized. and finally, you're able to make it home. And you get into your apartment and Your mom sees you And she doesn't say what happened to you She She immediately says You let them beat you up like this What did you do to make them do this to you. H Why did you want to start the book off with that particular story I don't know, it was that was my life. I mean, I think that was like the The physical violence of the other children that I that was persistent throughout my childhood and then My mother finding out and instead of Having an impulse to protect me or care for me or ask if I was okay, she made it my fault. and It just in a way, it sort of epitomizes that kind of feeling of not feeling protected, not feeling safe u It sort of encapsulates a lot of A lot of the childhood. I'm, you know, reading that again. I have to say,'m It's still difficult to read. It's still difficult to Yeah. You grew up inside of people's reactions to you. An aeminate child, a gender nonconforming teenager, a trans woman, and everything that you received, it was like race, gender, and class converging into one person What really struck me from that very first story throughout the entire book is u The shame and hatred that people carried, they took it out on you and It even happened in your home Mhm Yes. I'm just trying to gather my resilience. and like I guess I'm like having there's like there's like reading that I'm just like I'm emotional. I'm angry. It's like it's hard to read that U obviously I lived it, but it's hard to read about it again I guess and understand as an adult like I'm angry at the boys, I'm angry at my mother. I'm I want to protect That little child, I'm just so I'm so angry and I think like Um Yeah, I don't know if I can be able to read excerpts from this book again. We'll see. I'm just I'm so pissed. I'm so angry and I'm so hurt and I'm so u What are the word what The anger comes from you having to experience it And it's it's um There's also like the anger of All the kids that I've met. who are trans or queer, who are still experiencing this And anger of knowing that in states that have passed Anti trans laws that the bullying percentage of bullying is like skyrocket in those states. You hear a lot of stories. great A a lot of stories but that's actually those are statistics, like those the anecdotes, but those stats from the Trevor proroject because they manufactured the consent to pass anti trans laws that would ban gender affirming care for kids And all the minutes of trans girls and sports, all like two of them. There's the rhetorical piece that happens in the media that is dehumanizing and stigmatizing trans people. and it creates a permission structure if like your you governor and your state legislators are doing, if your know your teachers and pundents on TV are doing it, then like of course, kids are emboldened to do it And that makes me so angry And You know, it's like the the sadness is like, you know It's just the loneliness and I couldn't process it fully as a child. I don't know. it just really sucked This was so It was torture to write this. And the reason I wrote it is to u to tell the truth. I like I just don't think it's It makes me sense to write a book and like to clean stuff up and to like not be honest and not be Raw, but it's just like What made you decide to write it now? especially because I know you probably had folks coming to you wanting you to write books at the time when you were on Orange is the New Black or you were on the cover of Time magazine, when magazines are fighting to have you on the cover. What made you decide to do it now Yeah, I don't know I have an impulse to want to apologize, but I'm not going to do that Am from my. emotion right now Um And the opportunity came along and when it did, I thought that I that I was had done enough therapy that I could get through it. I thought that the memories that were buried would stay buried. and I I came up with this device of when I would disassociate as a kid when traumatic things would happen, I would pretend I was Darcelle from Solid Gold, the elite Solid Gold dancer There was a TV show in the eighties called seventies and eighties called Solid Gold. They would count down the Our listeners will remember that you say I mean don't I mean there's so many, you know totally people who are way younger than me who have no idea. So I would go to these other places and I thought that I could use that device in writing the book to sort of protect myself. And then I found we start we use that device not as much as I wanted to. found that like memories I thought were buried came back And it was just it was harrowing. But so I thought I could handle it and it just fel it felt like the right time. I don't know why. I'm I'm in a new place with my mother. It just felt like the time to do it. and did come like a couple years ago and it was I think right after twenty I was it became very clear to me that we It tras people that lost the culture and that I think half the country it banned and affirming care for young people. I knew Um, and and and, um Laymen's parlence that we were screwed as trans people. I knew this was the beginning of a disaster in terms of policy, in terms of stigma scapegoating, and the dehumanization was so clear to me. And so I think I also thought Like Maybe one more human story out there can help I want to go back to your home and your mom and your decision to write all of this down because the majority of the book takes place in your childhood. Tell me about Mobile, Alabama and that home that you grew up in How would you describe it Mobile, it's interesting. I go back now and I find it quaint. and way too hot in the summer bit like Azaleas, There are lots of beautiful things about it in all these antebellum homes still exists on like government street and There's something quaint about parts of it. And there's just a lot of trauma though literally on the streets, particularly in the neighborhood where my mom still lives, there's trauma on those streets for me. Is that a heart of town? What part of town is it? We would call it down the Bay, down the Bay. And it's where most of the black people in Mobile live. and yeah, and it's downtown, it's downtown Mobile, which I think is fantastic. But because BeMfull Square and like the Mai Gras parades, Mardu Gas started in Mobile in this country, not in New Orleans, as some people might think And so the Migw pates are happen downtown. and love I love it. And you grew up with your mother and your twin brother? And my twin brother? Yes U Yeah, Mobile, though when I was growing up there, I was just I just desperate I needed to get out It was awful. it felt impressive and I just knew I needed to be the second I discovered there was New York, I knew I had to be there And so most of my childhood, I was in moobile, but I was in my imagination, I was in New York or I was on a TV screen, or I was on a movie screen or I was on a Broadway stage Yeah, it's interesting the book is called transcendent. and in a way It sounds like disisassociating was your way to transcend as a child. What were some of the ways that you would try to to transcend always had There was always music in my head, which was such a wonderful gift. And so I just The second I was walking, I was dancing and I was dancing, I danced everywhere and it just kind of like It just took me away. It took me away from like because because for me when I danced, it was the music, but then there was like a character. there was a person that I could play. So I was like in a character and then it would be a new setting. And so like all the times when we' be at the supermarket in the grocery store, I just loved pushing the grocery cart and then dancing with the grocery card as if it was like a partner. Did you have headphones on? A walkmen? No, darling, the music groove is in the heart A walkman. this is like I mean you know, I was five years old. It would have been nineteen seventy two. What nineteen seventy seven. Did Walkms even exist We couldn't afford one if it did. The music was in my head and the groove was in the heart. And actually, in the supermarkets they would play music. And I remember loving TV show themes. I would learn the wordage TV show themes and like sing along and dance to them. So there was always like a song and a rhythm and then a character and movement And it was u It was so amazing that I got to do that I had that, that I could go there. And then when I discovered that you could study dance, like, I want to take dance classes, I want to take dance classes at five years old And u and I won't give away that moment from the book. It's a little humorous moment about that. But finally in third grade I got to start studying dance and not really U that was The best thing ever for me This disassociation, this going to all of these different places. I mean, this would happen to you everywhere at home, at school and There's a particular moment in school where You've got your little fan and you're in your classroom and Something happens that kind of stays with you for the rest of your life Yeah. That was certainly a moment And so we had gone to six flags on a turch trip and I had some spending money. bought a handheill fan at the gift shop at S Flags and as the women in church would fan themselves in a scarlet o'Hara ban herself at Sing Galm at the wind onn television, it seemed like it was always on in Alabama Go figure. And I was having a sccarlet O'Hare moment, fanning myself in beginning of the day in third grade and my third grade teacher, Mr. Ridgeway says you there come here and bring that thing with you when she marches me down the hall to the fourth grade teacher. tells me to show her what I was doing with my fan. And so I proceed to fan myself the way I had in class and she tells me to stop and I wait and she had conferences with that teacher. and then she marches me down the hall the fifth grade teacher and tells me to do it again. and I was like, Well, maybe I didn't do it, know Maybe I didn't fully commit. so I committed more and really really dropped into Scarlet. And then later that day, my mother comes in and Riptoyle tells me She had gotten a call from the school from Ms. Ridgeway and Ms. Ridgeway said that that I would end up in New Orleans wearing a dress if we didn't get me into therapy right away. I understand now is what some people would refer to as conversion therapy. and I guess there's different kinds. but at the time after three sessions with a therapist. The solution or you know, the thing that they suggest what we do is to inject me with testosterone and the idea was that that was supposed to make me more masculine and I would not There was a hormone issue. This would have been nineteen eighty yeah. In nineteen eighty eighty one. And they were how old I was eight, nine years old years old and hadn't even started going through puberty let. So they were suggesting injecting an eight nine year old with testosterone which sounds insane to me. My mother, thank God, said no to that. And so it was I just felt relief that that didn't happen to me Our guest today is actor and transgender activist Laverne Cox. We'll be right back after a short break. I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air Hi, this is Molly CV Nsperg, digital producer at Fresh Air. And this is Terry Gross, host of the show. One of the things I do is write the weekly newsletter. And I'm a newsletter fan. I read it every Saturday after breakfast. The newsletter includes all the week shows, staff recommendations, and Molly picks timely highlights from the archive. It's a fun read. It's also the only place where we tell you what's coming up N week and exclusive. So subscribe at whYY dot org slash fresh air and look for an email from Molly every Saturday morning. I'm thinking about that moment when your mother took you to this conversion therapy and You write so compassionately about your mom, but you also are un sparring in the way that She treated at you? as a child typically I don't encounter memorists who write this way unless they are estranged from their mother or their mother is dead. And that's neither case for you I'm sorry I'muing because it's like, it'srazy. haven't, She hasn't read the book yet. How would you describe the kind of mother your mother was to you How would I describe it? That's an interesting thing because was The way I approached the book is I was like, this is what happened and this is how it made me feel. But characterizing how my mother was to me. My mother Wise A disciplinarian She constantly corrected my grammar, which and my brother's grammar, which I'm insanely grateful for now, insanely grateful for U The biggest pet peeve is when people say less when they mean fewer Anyway, like it's just it's still great. So my mother was she was critical of appearance and overly concerned about how She appeared to the world. that was almost like a driving force to her her not being embarrassed and her people not talking about her. And in small towns, people quite a bit And so you that teacher calling to say that you were fanning in the classroom and this is a problem. I mean, that became a problem for her. She made it about her. She made it about what people were saying about her and that people were talking about her and that I was a bad reflection of her. And then this therapy thing too, was like, who's gonna to pay for it? isn you know, like there's no money. So I was all of a sudden a problem And I understood it being a big problem for me, but then even talking to my brother about it and him just sort of watching all of that happen. there was sort of a horror for him. You know I've tried not to speak for him in this book, but like just I think he won't mind me saying this because he's told me watching all of this policing and my gender expression in this like attention that I was getting that wasn't positive or affirming, like The message that was sent to him is that like I can't be anything like that. I have to like press the thing, anything that might Evoke kind of attention that Laverne is getting. And how did that affect your relationship? Because, you know We who are not twins have this idea of what twins are like. The closeness that you feel, you know, the I mean, there's a closeness now. It's healthier now than it's ever been with my brother. but I think the dynamic We were not a touchy Fy family. We weren' in a family that said, I love you. So like my brother and I, so we didn't do that. L we didn't like That wasn't our relationship. but what we did, we bonded most around music, art Um There were periods when I would be in dance class and he would come and watch and critique and he would give me his notes. And you know, and now it's like we talk a lot of politics, but then we also talk a lot of art Your brother actually was in Orange is the newew bllack Was that your idea? Was that his idea? How did that come about Technically, it was mine, I guess when it was determined that I wasn't butch enough to play my character free transition. And I think what's interesting about that now is They' I think Jodie, I think the writers. Jodie Foster, who was a guest director. Yes. Jodody directed my backstory episode and That episode got me my first Emy nomination. So it was my character's backstory. and The initial idea was that they needed to hire another actor to play me pre transition. And I was like, I'm an actor. I would you know. And Gin to her credit, said, I don't want to re traumatize you. And I was like, No, I'm an actor. I can do it. And so they weren't convinced. So we did a hair and makeup test for the character throughout her transition. and the end of the day we got to the butchist of the looks. I remember mache on me. I mean, I can't grow facial hair or anything, obviously. And I went to Jodie. She was in a meeting and I like really you know, I was like, you know, And she looked at me and she wass like, we're gonna have to hire someone. So then they started bringing in these very butch black male actors and they would stand them next to me and take a photo. And then I was like, whyy should she just do an audition And then asked my brother if he'd be open to it and he said, how much does it pay? And then he ended up going in for the audition, but he had an advantage because, you know, he kind of looks a little bit like me.. So he booked it and did it and he had regrets about it for a while because he has his own work and his own life and he, you know wants to be defined by his work and not mine.'s He's a of attention from it. Yeah. and people knew that work and they didn't know his work, But we're in a really great place around all that now. and he's in a great place with all that Your brother was the first person to tell you you were an actor. Yeah, not a dancer. Yeah, which is incredible and amazing. And I'm so grateful for that. And he genuinely genuinely proud of me and has an immense amount of respect for me as I do for him And that is wonderful Um It has been dysfunctional. in some ways might still be, but there is an unconditional love that we have for each other It sounds like it was dysfunctional though, in part because This world ripped you guys apart It was the the world's reaction to you that caused a riff because as children, he had to navigate that and you had to navigate that. And we felt like as twins, people didn't think of us as individuals, like we were like one person, the twins. And so I was more quote unquote flamboyant and invisible, and I got attention because I just did. And so my expression and behavior sort of defined in a lot of ways how a lot of people saw us My brother has a you think a half a huge personality. My brother's personality is even bigger And he is very much himself and he like me has fought to be himself authentically. And so He does not want to be compared to someone else. and I and understand that. and it's yeah, it it's interesting because like, you know, he was just always into and it was very important for him to have his own identity. And I totally didn't understand that. And so he went about doing that. you know, we were in boarding school together and I felt abandoned Certainly. I just to let people know You and your brother applied to a prep boarding school, an art school outside of your city in Alabama for ninth grade, like the moment you all could you left home. Yeah. The first two years of freshman and sophomore year, we were both there and then he went back home to Mobile and finished high school there and I stayed And now I understand. And it was actually wonderful just to be it was a wonderful to be away from him. and I think it was wonderful for him to be away from me so we could just like not be twins anymore. We could like have our own identities. It was actually kind of glorious If you're just joining us, my guest is Laverne Cox. Her new memoir is called Transcendent more of our conversation after a short break This is fresh air After that childhood of being bullied from like K through eighth grade K through twelve K through twelve, Yeah Even at the arts school, like it got better duringior and senior year, but it was still there This is when you start to step into, we call it gender non conforming, but it was the Androgynous er for you. You were stepping into trying to figure out an identity Neing to it felt like at the time needing to express myself. you know, honestly after the conversion therapy, there was I had internalized so much transphobia and like ending up in New Orleans wearing a dress that was's presented to me is the absolute worst thing that could happen to me. and in my young mind, I imagined I would be on the street and I would be homeless and a person who needed to like Unfortunate things to surv. Yeah. So it just was presented as something that was the absolute opposite of like the straight a student that I was, the human being that I was who was determined to be successful. So didnt I didn't wear skirts and dresses until college because I was just like, well, I can't know I internalized, I can't wear a dress or skirt in high school. but I did start wearing girls clothes. that I would purchase from the thrift stores in Mobile and in Birmingham. And it was such a fun, wonderful exploration and it felt like It felt like an extension of remember I think it was it was in high school I had read about Ocar Wild You talked about creating yourself as a work of art, and I loved that as a concept, you know And I think was this also around the time when I mean, Androgynous musical artists were pretty big. Was this like the eighties? It was certainly the eighties. It was post like the heyday of Culturure Club. Culturure Club's first album came out in nineteen eighty three, so I would have been eleven years old and that was Boy George was pivotal for me in my childhood and any Linux and just the whole British new wave that was filled with androgyny and Gender bending and of all sorts. Even looking back at old episodes of Soul Train, there was some real gay stuff going on. The eighties like stuff that would never fly right now got through in the eighties. Germaine Stewart, who was a wonderful artist who we don't have to take our clothes off to have a good time. yeah. I don't know if he was openly gay. He unfortunately passed away in the late eighties or early nineties. He had HIV AIDS And then this song was sampled later by LMAFO, I think.. But like he had you know, his hair was pressed out and it was laid. The hair was laid. he had been a member of Salamar. Always wonder what chherry wine was though. neverever could figure out. Girl, okay, so you are my generation. You know Cherry wine, That's a deep cut girl. Yeah Yeah, I don't know what your your mind is either. but He was a queen on soul train, like just these were the people his li. But it was the Aias was so wonderful in that way. You made your way to New York You want it to be a dancer. You wanted to be an entertainer I always knew that I would transition to acting because dancers, you have a short shelf life And u And I you so I imagined musical theater and brought in Broadway and then film and televion was what I thought and I thought I would know maybe be in the course or something. But I could never book roles as a dancer when I would audition for things. And I remember the year before I moved to New York, I was at Indiana University. and every year I auditioned for the Grand Ole Opera because there were always auditions and regional auditions and wherever I was. And that year I remember the dance captain asking me to show the other because I learned picked up the choreography quickly. she asked me to show the choreography to the other people auditioning and I was just like, oh, maybe this means I I'm finally gonna to get the job and I didn't get it that year. And I got to New York and I did tons of open calls and never booked anything as a dancer. And I you know, and I was never masculine enough By that time I had gotten a very good technique as a dancer. Maybe you know, I wasn't the best dancer, but I was very I was technical. I could pick up choreography. You know I could do six pirouettes and I had technique, but I didn't have an ideal dance or body and I never figured out how to appear masculine while I was dancing. And so butch it out with the was the subtext of it all It's so fascinating to read about your early days in New York and It Sounds like you were pretty discerning about what scenes you were part of Because you didn't see yourself fitting into the drag quueen world. You understood and appreciated what they did. And you understood what these other groups, like there were all these other groups and you were part of a club kid group I was so there was a very like in the early nineties there was kind of there was the downtown kids, there were the uptown kids. like I was a downtown girl. I was East Village, Really East Village because the gender nonc conforming the androgynous thing that I was doing when I moved New York in nineteen ninety three fit better in the East Village By the time I made it to New York, I was wearing dresses, lots of vintage things.ember I had a black Lemet vintage dress that I would wear. and then I would incorporate dance wear so I could go out and dance and really my things. So a good chunky heel, platform heel and my head was shaved and I shaved my brows and drew them on. and a lot of people and I Grace Jones because look his look was very androgynous The drag scene I wasn't in, but I also like I had u I had internalized transphobia, and like for me there was because by this time, by the time I made to New York, I'd also read Bell Hooks. And so I had and I'd read other feminist writers who were very skeptical of drag and this performance of womanhood that was sort of seen as mockery by some feminist. And so I was sort of contending with that and trying to like navigate my newfound feminist politics with like my gender and not wanting to sort of like feed into some sort of retrograde idea of womanhood. So there was also that was introduced in college, but underneath all of that was like a deep, deep transphobia that I internalized. That read as discernment, but really it was. It was a lot of it was like I was terrified of ending up in new oness wearing a dress.. Becauseuse I think in my mind too, if I embraced the womanhood, the girlhood that I knew I was. and in my mind I thought that like On top of like you know, all the stigma that you are a degenerate or something, that I think I internalize about trans people, it's also that I didn't think I could be smart, even though I loved smart women. was I think there was just something about I was never presented with images of drag performers or trans women on television. if I ever even saw trans women on television at the time that were articulate and intellectual. And even as I entered the club scene there were so many really, really smart performers who were just brilliant artists But I needed time to like let all that stuff go. I'd se a time Let's take a short break. We'll continue our conversation with Laverne Cox in just a moment. Her new memoir is called Transcendent This is fresh air In twenty twenty five, you co created this series and starred it's on Pime video called Clean Slate. And you play Desiree, a trans woman who comes home to Mobile, Alabama after more than twenty years away to a father been estranged from her played by a comedian George Wallace. Um It was one of the last things the legendary Norman Lear made before he died. and Here iss a scene of Desareree with her father trying to find their way back to each other, and Wallace speaks first Look at us, picking up right where we left off whole eas is. Well, there will be a process. What's going to be a process? You know, unpacking All our stuff. Well you a't droping one soup, right? U My therapist says that our past and our presence are linked Like with me, I have a pattern of choosing emotionally unavailable men and that is linked to my past and to well You know the first emotionally unavailable man in my life. Well, who the hell is he Does it live around here? Do we need to go pay him a visit Okay, u Let's try something. Are you open to writing a letter to me as a ten year old girl I always was, but you were unable to see? So one there doctor Vera Rishi Guerrera says, doctor Wh? My therapist. Have y'all been up there talking about me behind my back? Maybe I need to write his answer let. She's a she. Well, maybe I need to write her anwer let. So I think I'm just gonna retire to what I imagine is my completely unchanged childhood bedroom. That's where you got it wrong. I put in a ceiling pair That was my guest La Vverncox with the George Wallace in the Prime video series, Cleed Slate. And it's so funny. It's a great series. But you have so much compassion in it in the same way that I see the way you write about your mother. There's compassion there while also just showing the truth, you know What a joy. I've never it's interesting. I've never just listened to that scene. I've watched it, but I've never just listened to it. What a joy it was working with George. I just go back to like how incredibly funny he was, but also how sensitive he was and how Um Oh just It was glorious and it's very, very loosely based on my life. And with the sort of question is like, what if Laverne never became famous? had a father and went back home to moobile Is that healing to write from that place Be you write in great detail about the truth about your father, which for many years, you had told a different story, that you had never met him, that he had died. and The truth is, you did meet him and it was a pretty traumatic thing. And so watching this series, it kind of feels like It feeles like a writing of the truth, but a rewriting in a way that kind of takes back something. was the writing of it, the creating of this series, like first with Dan Ewing, our co showrunner and co creator, and then with George. like for years before we you know got a deal, that part was fun, comoming up with storylines and episodes and pulling things for my life, that was fun. But when it was time to actually act it and relive it I was triggered trigger. I was triggered a lot because we added a lot of things for my life. and we gave George a lot of the characteristics that my mother has. My I mean my mother's funny, but she's not that funny. so Oh, George is hilarious. And so yeah, I never obviously had a father in my life. We had to endow that, but there was something interesting happened by the end where I felt this very dysfunctional But sort of paternal relationship with George that in the moment of the show felt strangely healing in a way that I didn't expect particularly in the last episode. I What do you mean what? Yeah? was there's a scene where I just where I needed my dad and he was there and It was everything that Desarei needed as a child that she was able to finally get from him as an adult u, care and feeling seen by him and feeling protected in a way that he had not done when she was a child There was sometimes when it's the character and then sometimes it's just you. and yeah, that's certainly what I needed as a child. And so there was a moment I there moment I just start c I cry and in head like he's holding me and it just like It just wasn't acting anymore. It was George and me, was I don't know. It was I can't like I don't have words for it, but it was It was really beautiful, a beautiful experience for me as an actor It's a scene I can't watch. like I probably need like three more years to be able to watch it with some perspective. But How wonderful because I mean, Deorge is like an icon As a comedian and and there's The comedy in this show is wonderful, but there's a lot of drama in clelean slate. And he was just so dialed into that huge heart and that love and that generosity. And it was such an honor to receive all of that love that he has inside that he surrender to the character and our circumstances as father and daughter Do you ever have a desire You know, you are, u You are sitting in who you are And you are representing who you are in this lane as a trans woman Do you ever want to branch out and do other types of roles that I already have'veent. Do you feel like it's there for you, that material? It may not exist yet, but I know that there are artists out there who I maybe haven't met yet who will who are writing it You know, Shonda Rimes asked me to play Kasey Duke, who is a real life human being and a brilliant woman who I got to meet and she's not transgender. and inventing Anna. I'm not fully clear if the character I played in Pomised Young Woman is trans or it doesn't suggest that she's trans. so the audience can make the decision. And I always have wondered if with Casey, it's explicit that she's not trans, but if the character iss not written as trans, well like if the character's not written as black and I play her, the character becomes black If the character's not written as trans, does she become trans because I'm playing her? And I think in some cases maybe, and in some cases, maybe not. It depends on if they're source material if I'm playing a real person And so For me, it's really about the complicated the character is, how challenging she is to play and less about like whether she's trans or not I certainly don I don't see any limitations around what I can play as an actor. And I think What I'm most excited about is if people feel that that's a limitation, I look forward to proving them wrong. I'm very excited about that Laverne Cox, it's been such a pleasure to meet you and thank you for this conversation Thank you. This has really been wonderful Laverne Cox's new memoir is called Tanscendent Tomorrow on fresh air, actor Wendell Peers. You know him as Bunk in the wire, and now he's taking on one of Shakespeare's giants, Othello But it was playing Willie Lowan on Broadway that took him somewhere personal, drawing on his own father to build that role Piers talks with us about his father and the men he plays. I hope you can join us To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at NPR Fresh air You can also subscribe and watch some of our interviews on our YouTube page. This is Fresh Air Fresh's execive producer is Sam Briger. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myyers, An Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krinel Theresa Madden, Onique Nazareth Tha Challener, Susan Nakundi, Anna Bauman, and Nico Gonzalez Whistler Our digital media producer is Molly CV Nesper Roberta Shirock directs the show withith Terry Gross. I'm Tanya Moseley.