With the premiere of RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under Season 2 just around the corner, the queen’s engines are firing up for a wild ride.
The cast was recently announced online, sparking excitement from fans across Australia and New Zealand. Beverly Kills, 21, is not only the youngest drag artist to compete this season – she’s also the first queen from Meanjin (Brisbane) to appear on the show.
Beverly first cartwheeled her way into the drag world with her whip tricks, burlesque and sideshow skills. Now, she’s a mainstay in the scene and performs weekly at Cloudland as a ‘Fluffy All Star’ alongside Brisbane drag royalty.
I sat down with Bev to chat all things Drag Race and get to the bottom of whose outfit was really horrible.
Hey Bev! Thanks for taking the time to chat with me. How are you feeling about the premiere this week?
I would describe the opening week of the Drag Race premiere as truly insane and ridiculous. Have you ever been so excited about something that you can’t even think straight – you kind of just have to let life happen to you and take it as it comes?
I mean, I’d hope you’re not thinking straight.
Yeah, I’m thinking incredibly gay. But the thing is, there’s so much exciting and amazing stuff happening that sometimes I don’t even have time to react to it. You just have to go like “There’s a new thing,” and then you just pop it in your brain and it’s just part of your life now. I remember when I first got announced, I was so overwhelmed with love and excitement, especially from Brisbane. There were so many people in Brisbane just dying to see some Brissy representation, so it’s exciting to be able to do that.
Yeah for sure! I think for Season 1 of Drag Race Down Under, a lot of us around Queensland were a little disappointed that there was no one representing us. So I remember starting to get pretty excited in January when you had COVID for a little too long…
Well you can’t announce that you’re taking time off – you just have to as subtly and quietly as you can remove yourself. But the beautiful thing is that when we were in our isolation is when Omicron happened. So I was able to sort of dip out and no one really clocked it. And I was like “Brilliant!” I went into Drag Race thinking “people don’t really know I’m here – this is so cool!” I felt like a bit of a secret agent.
What was it like having to keep it from the people you see all the time?
Drag Race is such a part of the drag culture now. People sort of know when it might be happening, when it might be filming, things like that – so the rumours go around. But we’re trained very well to divert any conversations. I’d had this happen to me so many times now that before people even ask about it I’d clue on and I would just find a way to get out of the conversation or change the topic before they’d even ask.
This experience has taught me so many skills about media. Most people don’t know this, but I have a Bachelors Degree in Journalism and I finished it two weeks before I got on Drag Race. So it’s funny that I’ve ended up on the other side of it as the interviewee. It’s been so interesting to be able to cultivate these skills of knowing where to draw the line. I’m getting very good at having the same conversations over and over again but for my own entertainment I still just tell the story differently.
Can you tell me a bit more about what it’s been like being on the other side of the camera?
It’s just as difficult as interviewing. You can kind of prepare yourself to interview someone – and I’m not saying that your job is any easier than mine. But it’s come with its own set of challenges that you can’t always prepare yourself for I suppose.
I’ve gotten really good at being able to answer competently with how I genuinely feel, whilst also making sure that I agree with everything I’m saying. Because sometimes people start talking and they end up saying wild crazy shit that they don’t agree with.
I think being on the other end of it was not what I really expected. I spent three years of my post-school life preparing to potentially write for media and now I’m on the other end. It’s just funny how life throws you curve balls like that – but it’s part of the fun!
Do you ever see yourself going down some avenue that combines journalism with drag?
Well my original plan was to do so. When I was in university I did a project where we had to interview people on the street and I was like, “Oh brilliant. I’m doing this in drag. This is my angle, this is what’s going to set me apart!” And I got a 7!
So, I always have a voice in the back of my head going, “Maybe I could go back down that route of combining my love for drag and my love for media at the same time?” But ultimately, I feel like it is healthy for me to keep drag as drag. Because it’s my creative outlet – and my professional outlet as well – I think if I were to blur those lines any more I’d find it quite difficult to manage the two.
Being a drag queen now that I’m on Drag Race as well, you have to operate yourself not only as a creative but as a business as well. Like, I had a meeting with an accountant yesterday because I needed help managing money! These are all things that you don’t really think about, but every drag queen that you meet is technically just a small business. We’re all sole traders – our product is just what we wear.
So going off the business side of things, you obviously have to learn to brand and market yourself as a drag queen. Obviously, you have a very distinct brand – right down to the yellow hat you’re wearing right now.
And the pants! They’re yellow too!
And the pants. Obviously yellow is your colour – and you’re also known as the electric devil. Where did your brand come from?
I think every drag queen has very specific female inspirations – or if you’re a drag king you’ve got very specific male inspirations. For me, mine were the people that I saw, especially in cartoons and films, the women who were… I always use the phrase, ‘the vengeful protagonist.’ And I try to create them in my drag.
So for example, after watching the new ‘Cruella’ film, you sort of see Cruella as a victim compared to old-school Cruella who was the bad guy. I’ve always loved Cruella… I’ve always loved the Bride from Kill Bill as my ultimate reference – especially with who Beverly is – because she is this strong woman who isn’t afraid to get violent and I think that’s really cool. I don’t think we see that enough in media – with women especially who are not afraid to get revenge or hold their femininity connected to their strength. I think so many times you see femininity connected to being poised or being womanly – but I don’t think that’s as fun or interesting. So my inspirations just come from women in media who aren’t afraid to get dirty.
Speaking of inspirations, I have a feeling who you might say, but who is your most left-of-field inspiration?
Who are you thinking I was going to say?
Lee Lin Chin.
OH MY GOD! It’s probably Lee Lin Chin from SBS World News! (That wasn’t prompted at all!) Yeah probably! Gosh, I just love women. Drag for me lets me celebrate my love for the girls who do it differently – and Lee Lin Chin’s one of them. I love Lee Lin Chin.
So how do you think your inspirations are reflected in your work?
Well I’ve always said – and you can see it in the Meet The Queens as well – the thing that I pride myself the most on is my performance skill. That’s always been the most important thing to me.
Most drag queens start off with a skill that they already have. Some queens come out the gate and they’re makeup artists or they come out the gate and they’re singers. And they build their other skills like makeup and costumes. For me, the skill that I had straight away was being able to perform. I had to learn so much about costuming, business, makeup… they were the skills that I really lacked. But you build them up and you eventually get there.
For me, being a performer was the most important part of my drag and what’s great about that is that I’ve been able to celebrate the women that I love in media. A drag performance doesn’t look one way – it can look thousands of different ways. I get just as creative with my costuming in the same way that I get with my song choice or my mixes or what I might post online – which is also absolutely an art form as well! I think people are sort of forgetting that social media is a skill now.
I have to tell you that you were the first drag queen I ever saw perform. I took my mum and we went to our local bar and saw you perform and she was so inspired by you that she turned to me and said “You should do drag!” So what would your advice be to someone who sees you as their first queen – at a bar, or on an international TV show?
My advice for anyone wanting to do drag is to do it because you want to do it. Drag is so fun and there are consequences for how fun drag can be. It is exhausting… it is stressful… it is hard. You will lose sleep – it’s harder to cultivate your relationships out of drag as a drag queen. So you need to be willing to make sacrifices if drag is something you want to do.
I think a lot of people do drag because it’s the opposite of what people are expected to do as a human in our society. You need to be ready to make those sacrifices and if you are able to balance the two, you’ll have a really awesome drag career. If you’re able to cultivate your friendships out of drag and in drag as well, that’s really important as well. I know so many people who do drag and they don’t have friends outside of the drag scene – but for your mental health it’s so important. They’re like your work colleagues – you need to be able to have friends outside of work.
So my advice to people wanting to start drag is – if you think drag is for you, you are doing people a disservice by not showing your talent. If you think you’re meant to be a queen, please put the wig on! Everyone wants to see your talent.
So moving on, who are some of your Australian drag idols?
Australian drag is very specific in the way it presents itself. We are loud and we are unapologetic and silly – that’s a really important word. Something that I’ve learnt is my respect for the silliness.
When I started drag – and people have even said so on the internet – [I was told] I come across very seriously and take what I do very seriously. And that’s true – there’s nothing wrong with that! I am by no means the first queen to get on the mic and make a joke. So for me, I take a lot of inspiration from the skills I don’t have. So for me, in Brisbane, working with people and hosts like Vollie Lavont and Mandy Moobs, those are the queens that I’ve learnt so much from. Because we have nothing in common – we’re so different!
But because of that, I’ve been able to watch what they do – they’re a master of their craft. If anyone’s seen Vollie on a microphone, no one can beat that. So I see that, and I think “That’s a skill that I want to learn.” I don’t think I’d ever overtake her, but I’d love to one day get on that same level, taking silliness very seriously.
What about on an international level?
Violet Chachki, I think, has the highest commitment to her art that any drag queen has ever had ever. She did a tour of her corset and shoe closet, and I think I watched it four times in a row – just to look at every bead and every stone. I was like “Oh my God!”
On the other end of that, I love drag artists that subvert what modern drag is. I think Evah Destruction is one of the most talented lipsyncers I’ve ever seen. I remember seeing videos of her online and thinking, “If I could lipsync like that one day, I’ll be ready for drag race.”
And now I’m ready for it – let’s do it!
I’m a big believer that it’s great if you’re a jack of all trades for drag – but if you have one skill that you’re really known for, that’s the way you stay on people’s minds. I respect the queens that can do it all but the queens that can do one thing better than anyone else – that’s where I draw inspiration from.
One last question – you bring up Violet, who infamously likes to ‘boot’ people’s looks. So I’m wondering – who’s outfit was really horrible? Just kidding!
You know what’s funny – we film those confessionals and you leave and go “what did we even just talk about?” Not only do I not remember whose outfit it was – I don’t remember who I was talking about, I don’t even know which outfit set I was talking about – I do not remember!
I will have to find out who I was talking about when everyone else finds out, honestly. And that’s the brilliant thing about Drag Race – we filmed this a while ago. So I’m excited to see if I was outside the room when some conversations were happening. We don’t watch each other’s confessionals, so I’m excited to see what other queens have said.
We’ve all made a commitment to each other that we’re making a TV show so it’s never personal, it’s just drag. So whoever I said that about, I’m sorry. Her outfit probably was hot garbage, but no doubt who I said it about I would probably stand by it.
That’s probably the best answer I’ve ever heard to a joke question. Thank you so much for your time Bev, I can’t wait to see what you bring to the Race!
RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under Season 2 premieres July 30 on Stan.