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Love Connie, the alter ego of actor John Cantrell, is a drag icon. From her shows paying tribute to cult films like Halloween and Showgirls to her hilarious appearances on RuPaul’s Drag Race. She has had two web series on WOW Presents Plus: Connie-wood and Manhattan Cable and she’s out to take the podcast world by storm with a new series that is as unpredictable and funny as she is.
On I Feel Love Connie (available on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts), Connie and co-host Blake Jacobs talk about everything from pop culture to Chipotle with a lot of southern sass to spare. We had a chance to chat with Connie about the new show, as well as working on Drag Race, her dream guests and her new Christmas song all in our exclusive interview.
What inspired you to start your own podcast?
You know, I don’t even I never remember how these things get started. I’ve done a lot of podcasts, because podcasts do seem like that thing of where everyone and their mother and their first, second, and third cousins has a podcast, and sometimes I’ll be surfing on YouTube, and it just seems like everybody’s got a podcast.
So, I thought, well, maybe I should just do my own. I’m still affiliated with World of Wonder and all the Drag Race stuff. I like to equate World of Wonder for all of us, you know, gay, trans, drag, whoever, artists, LGBTQ, they are kind of like the old MGM. It’s kind of this little studio system over there where they have. a little bit of everything, you know, the pay network, which I’ve done stuff for and now this podcast thing. So, I’m just trying everything out.
What kind of topics are you planning on discussing on the show or are you just going to talk?
I had a framework, I wrote down a list, you know, because they were like, well, what do you want to talk about? I wrote down a list of different films and music artists and whatever and I thought, well, okay, let’s discuss things that I feel shaped me into becoming Love Connie, or where I am now as an artist with how I perform and tell stories and do things like that. It’s everything from The Poseidon Adventure to Jackie Brown to Bigfoot, slasher films, the church.
I’m also joined by another fellow Southerner. I’m from Northeast Louisiana, and I’m joined by a guy by the name of Blake Jacobs, and he’s from Arkansas. So, as you can kind of tell, every episode we have an intention to discuss something, but then we start talking about Chipotle and Jennifer Coolidge and who was here or there or remember that, oh, that reminds me of, well, wait, you know, and then it’s 30 minutes and it’s like, okay, that’s it.
Why 30 minutes?
I’m not a fan of long podcasts. I did want to keep them 30 to 40 minutes, just something that’s just like an amuse bouche compared to some other podcasts that literally go on forever. I think that’s all because it feels like a 90-minute episode in about 30 minutes because I’m telling you we are bouncing. Do you remember that game that video game Frogger? That’s how I look at the podcast.
I do tend to get off on tangents and I’m probably undiagnosed with ADHD or something like that. There are plenty of problems, but I’m from Louisiana and we’re not going to rehab. We’re not going to see the doctor and we’re not going to therapy. So, just crazy, but Blake is there as kind of a representative of the millennial Gen Z crowd to keep Mamaw on track. Don’t let her go off into too many Gen Z black holes or torrents. And, when we kind of wrap it up I like to do a little thing with him where I go, is there anything that I taught you today? And he will generally pick out some very random names that I’ve dropped and be like, who are you talking about?
So, it’s just cuckoo and, and I don’t know what to expect and I don’t know what people are going to think about it. You know, maybe I’ve broken every rule of podcasts and that I don’t have a theme, but I think people will listen, it’s just like old stories. I love old Southern stories about crazy people down South. I just think it’s funny. It’s just kind of rural and small-town humor. And again, we’re two big gay guys. So, there’s all of that and religion and parent drama. It’s very Steel Magnolias. Steel Magnolias meets Quentin Tarantino meets RuPaul’s Drag Race probably, you know, something like that.
Now, you had mentioned that Blake learned something on every episode. Did you learn anything while you were putting this podcast together?
That I need therapy, I need rehab, I need everything. You know, it’s weird because artists like me who aren’t really that well known, but we’re still artists and actors and we still create stuff. and we still have journeys that could be as interesting as Nicole Kidman’s journey or Tom Cruise, or maybe not someone that famous because we know a lot about them.
Just starting, knowing that I started off in sketch comedy in New York, where everything was written for me by two really brilliant Ivy Leaguers and then I took a character from that group the Nellie Olsens, where I started Connie. And then I had Connie not speak at all because I didn’t want to. I didn’t really feel confident writing dialogue or seeing Connie in that way. That was hard to get on RuPaul’s Drag Race, but anytime I performed live, I would create full, you know, 45-to-75-minute shows where there’s no dialogue. Everything is told through dance and through mime and through me reacting to stuff on screen that is usually pulled from a famous movie or something, and you want to kind of put a little satirical spin on that.
What was your experience like on your second appearance of Drag Race (in season 15)?
Working on RuPaul’s Drag Race, there is no script and you kind of come in and it’s just like, all right, here’s the interview…go. They didn’t tell me what we’re going to talk about. So, it’s literally you trust the editors over there that they’re going to make something and not make you look bad or stupid, make you look funny, and they tend to. I find that they tend to not edit me at all. I watched the last season of Drag Race and I went, oh my god, it’s like, I don’t feel like they’re cutting anything that I’m saying, and I was just going on and on, but I find that that’s kind of like the podcast.
It’s kind of one of those things where, again, I’m playing without any rules, or whatever rules are for podcasts, like you, you know, ask me about topics. I don’t really know what they are, so I’m all for breaking them. Well, also I’m old and my knees are getting bad, so the dancing for 70 minutes, it’s just like, I’ve got to slow down, I’ve got to start talking, you know, coming up with some other ways.
So it’s also reinvention in yet another form, too. But I also watched how, especially with that last season of Drag Race where it was an interview thing, I tend to steamroll, and I can’t help myself. A lot of that I think is because of isolation. I do tend to isolate and I’m kind of a loner so I think that when I do get around people or if there’s a microphone or a camera, the floodgates just kind of come out, which I could probably hone that in a little better, but it is that, oh my god, I’ve been locked away in solitary confinement for all these years, and now I have a lot to say.
I’ve always been a big talker. I mean, I was kind of the loudmouth. I was always the kid that was getting sent out in the hall because I wouldn’t stop talking. I’ve had to just slowly introduce new things. So now that I’m on the other side of 50, I’ll start talking.
I know it’s just you and Blake on the podcast but If you did have guests, who would you like to have on the show?
Oh, well, I love people that love cinema because I feel like there is a part of our culture as far as gay men. Just strictly speaking about… gay men, you know, men that we lost to AIDS. There was that love of cinema. And even though I wasn’t a big Judy Garland or Barbra Streisand fan, I do love Joan Crawford. I love Bette Davis. I love Ann-Margret. I love Farrah Fawcett. I love Deborah Harry. And I feel like when we lost that chunk of guys that really celebrated that – because there was no social media back then, so you know what I mean, it’s like we were emulating cinema and I do that in every Connie show.
I always find that I’m emulating the masculine woman, or someone like Jamie Lee Curtis or Daryl Hannah or Laura Dern, they’re very feminine, beautiful women, but they’re also they have this kind of they’re either tall or like one of the Hemingway girls or something. But these kinds of formidable women. I also love that went on when I would get into drag and people would look at me and they’re like, she is a formidable woman.
As opposed to being a cartoon like a lot of the young queens, now they’re almost cartoonish in their drag, they’ve got the crazy costumes and everything. When I’m in drag, I just look like maybe close to a Vegas performer, some sequins, but I’m pretty stripped down. I’m more like a Terri Nunn or a Dale Bozzio, or Deborah Harry because my background is in music, so that’s how I visually see myself. I have totally gotten…see, this is my podcast…you asked me something that I can’t…oh, guests. So, anyone that has a love of cinema because I miss being able to quote lines from movies and people now, they just look at me and they’re like what?
And then someone over here will go, Connie, they have no idea what you’re talking about. And I’m like, well, I’m trying to teach them, you know, but I feel like it’s a lost art. I miss that kind of camp and I do talk about that a lot on my podcast, cinema icons, because I was as much as I’m an extrovert, I’m also an introvert and I would hole away in my bedroom. My dad was a furniture and electronics salesman, so there was a television in every room growing up. And we all just kind of, it was like, you know, social media before, but we were all in our own tubes, you know, with the television and yeah, that kind of permeates. I would love to talk to Quentin Tarantino. I would love to talk to Deborah Harry, Grace Jones. I mean, just I love those people, but we don’t have guests on my show.
I feel like the other thing about this podcast is when we started playing it back, because the conversation between me and Blake is so natural and so kind of southern, I started thinking about the Howard Stern show. Trust me, I’ve had to listen to the episodes several times and it I think it’s enjoyable because a lot of people film podcasts but it’s stagnant. You know what I mean? It’s like a Zoom call. It’s nice to see people. I do love nostalgia, and there’s something about just listening to it with earbuds like you’re listening to the radio, which no one seems to do anymore. So it is, does kind of have a radio show vibe to it.
Do you listen to podcasts? Like, what kind of podcasts do you listen to?
Um, I don’t. I watch a lot of TCM and when Ben Mankiewicz starts doing the Jackie, the Pam Grier pod, I sit there and I go, Oh, God. Oh, I bet this is so good. And then there was the one with Melanie Griffith about the making of the Bonfire of Vanities, that Tom Hanks movie that was a huge flop by Brian De Palma, like that stuff. But then, you know, I’ve also already read those books and I was kind of naive, like, people would go, hey, listen to my podcast, and I would see that little icon on the iTunes and I’m like, is that it? And then I would kind of click and…I’m really bad. I’m telling you, I’m like a 90-year-old when it comes to learning anything new about social media, like the link tree. It’s just a little too much.
So, I haven’t really listened to any podcasts. Except I’ve done a lot. I know that World of Wonder, in addition to me, they’re also doing Daniel Franzese’s “Yass, Jesus!” podcast, which is kind of about his faith. And I was on that, they asked me to pray, which totally threw me off. I haven’t prayed since I was in Southern Baptist College. There are tons of them that I follow on Instagram. So even if I don’t listen to the podcast because I’m following and like I say, even if I certain movies that I don’t see, I’m informed on them because I still read a lot and I would much rather, you know, let me read about your podcast and what you’re talking about.
I also love, which I hope I can do with mine is, I like to then go on to their pages and in the comments ask further questions. And I think that’s something that I hope people do because like I say, we’re talking about so much random shit and loose ends that I’m hoping people come back and go, you had mentioned something and I’m like, Oh, yes. And then I’ll get to expand on it on Instagram or something like that. So, I guess I’m looking for friends and people to talk to. So hopefully this will be a good thing because I don’t talk to anybody in LA anymore. Drag is a gift because… you know, I can get into drag and then when you go out in drag, you know, people can’t help but notice you and I feel like I get all of that human interaction there and then the drag comes off and it’s like, you know, I have to get out of bed.
I watched Connie-wood, which I loved, and I loved Manhattan Cable. Are you planning on doing any more streaming shows?
I mean, I get more requests about Manhattan Cable and World of Wonder must have tons of footage. So, I’m there. I keep asking them and I ask them all the time. It seems like they have so much going on. It seems like there are a lot more original shows coming on the streaming network. So, fingers crossed we’ll have more from Connie on WOW Presents Plus. Definitely Manhattan Cable. I think I scared them a little too much with Connie-wood.
Even though I did pitch a second season of Connie-wood. Connie is looking for a roommate and she finds like a another one of those signs and it turns out to be Joan Crawford, and Connie is then kept captive in this kind of Mommie Dearest type situation where she’s writing notes and trying to throw them out a crack in the window. I have a friend of mine that does a really funny Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford in Mommie Dearest, but you only use lines from that film and we used to do that back in the day and that just always, again, that type of camp where you just speak in lines from movies is something that I tend to do and it causes people to really look at me sideways. And I just get the biggest kick out of it because they don’t know the reference. So therefore, they think it’s just me. And I’m like, no, I’m doing Bette Davis. It’s stupid, but I get a kick out of baffling the kids. I may have baffled them a little too much with Connie-wood. I did not know what I was doing at all. And it wasn’t until toward the end where I’m like, oh, I think I can do this. And then they’re like, we’re not doing this anymore.
What’s next for you?
Well, you know, I’m doing a Christmas show and I’ve been procrastinating. It’s coming up in a couple of weeks and – speaking of pop culture – there has been a song that I’m wondering if you’ve heard of that I have been wanting to put in a Christmas show, and I finally sent it out to this really good looking dancer, and I was like, so there’s this song from the TV show Knight Rider called “The Night That Kitt Saved Christmas”, and it’s David Hasselhoff, and it’s about the car saving Christmas And I’m like, would you do it? It could be a rap or a lip sync or a dance or a strip or all of the above. And he goes, I’m in. This song, you’ve got to hear it. It’s very Miami Vice and it’s David Hasselhoff. “The Night That Kitt Saved Christmas”. Look, I’m getting chills as if I’ve seen Beyoncé, but it’s not, it’s David Hasselhoff.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Cz4Z77fye6A/Check out I Feel Love Connie on your favorite platform. Watch Connie-wood and Manhattan Cable on WOW Presents Plus and get the latest on all things Love Connie on Instagram or via this link.
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