Tony-winning actor Billy Porter visited The Wendy Williams Show November 1 to talk about his latest gig on Ryan Murphy’s American Horror Story, his regular series Pose, and more.
Best known as the original Lola in Broadway’s Kinky Boots, Porter looked back on the show by Harvey Fierstein and Cyndi Lauper now that it has announced its closing in 2019. “It’s the original dream,” he says of leading the hit musical. “I'm sitting here because somebody introduced me to the theatre. It allowed me to exist in a space outside myself, dream beyond my circumstance.
“My career has been long and varied,” he continued. “I've been in this business for 30 years and it's five or six years ago that this happened, so to achieve the original dream that I had almost moved on from [means everything].”
Now, Porter has found a second wind in television thanks to the FX series Pose. Porter stars as Pray Tell, a role Murphy wrote for him. “I auditioned for a different role and I spoke up and said, 'I think I might be better for something else,' and he agreed and he said, ‘Maybe we'll develop something for you,’ and so he developed Pray Tell.”
His work with the mega-producer led him to join the cast of this installment of the anthology series American Horror Story. “I'm not a huge horror person. The last horror movie I saw was Poltergeist,” said Porter. “But he said, 'No, you're going to be a good warlock. Once I got on the set...you have magical powers and it was fun.”
Despite hardships and the long road to his current success, Porter was full of pride, gratitude, and joy—especially when it comes to Kinky Boots. “My favorite memory is the Tony,” he said. “I keep it right on my wall with a custom shelf in my living room. I am proud of it. I'm not going to act like I don't want it. I want it and I like it.”
