Miz Cracker on Who’s Holiday and the state of drag in 2022

She shot to fame on Drag Race SE10, was runner-up on All Stars SE5 – and like Jinkx before her, and Bosco after, there’s something so dryly funny and simply Seattle about Miz Cracker. 

“I thought that I was completely unique – then I met Jinkx and we toured together, and had so much in common – I was like: ‘Oh, I’m just a Jew from Seattle,’” the star reflects during a catch-up with Attitude.

“So I guess if you are from Seattle, you do share certain things in common: a certain wildness, irreverence. 

“But when I was last there, it rained 265 days of the year! That’s two out of three days, at least.”

Surely, then, the city and its surrounding countryside are very green? “It is absolutely beautiful,” MC concedes. “It’s a wonderful place to end your life.” Dead.

“Are people going to get tired of modelling? No. Were they going to get tired of America’s Next Top Model? Perhaps!”

– Miz Cracker on drag culture in 2022

Here, ahead of her star turn in the European premiere of Dr. Seuss-inspired adults-only comedy Who’s Holiday in Manchester and London, the 38-year-old reflects on her introverted personality, her plans for December and where she stands on the subject of drag fatigue…

Who’s the most fun to take on a date: Americans or Brits?

A Brit, obviously, because Americans say stupid things. British people say stupid things, but in a British accent.

Exactly. So I’m gonna be fine in this interview...

Yeah. Your worst question will sound intelligent to me.

What were your rejected drag names?

My first was Brianna Cracker, [like] Brie on a cracker.

You’ve started a cult. What is it about?

Brie.

If you had to do Snatch Game tomorrow, who would you do?

Nicole Kidman. 

Can you do her now?

“Naur!”

How would you describe your style not in drag?

Schlubby.  

I’m sure it’s not.

I don’t much care for fashion when I’m in my boy self. I express myself almost entirely through drag; I write as a drag queen, dress as a drag queen, paint as a drag queen. When I’m a boy, I am off, off, off. In every single way. I’m at home reading when I am not in drag. I’m more insular.

Do you think yourself in drag and yourself out of drag would get on?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, they are friends, especially because one pays for the other. And that’s the best kind of friendship.

What does no one think to ask you?

What I do with my regular life. Which is read. I study French, I study Wolof, which is the language of Senegal. And I drink heavily.

You were a columnist for Slate. Do you have any writing tips for us?

Find something that you care about very much, then talk as if you’re talking to your mother.

What about interviewing?

Oh, I love interviewing. The most important thing: be interested. I know that sounds like simple advice, but a lot of times when people interview, they come to the interview at the last minute. They haven’t fallen in love with the person they’re interviewing yet. You have to take time to research them. Figure out why you’re passionate about them. You don’t even need notes at that point.

What can you tell us about Who’s Holiday?

It’s the story of [Cindy Lou Who] after she met the Grinch. It is a tremendous challenge, because it involves singing, dancing, acting, and not being Jewish for a couple of minutes. So it should be my tour de force. I had options to go on other tours, take other opportunities – I chose this because this would challenge me the most.

How do you secure the rights to do something like that? Dr. Seuss has been dead a long time, right?

[Laughs] Yeah, he’s been dead for a minute. Which is why it is free to use this text to reinterpret it however we want. 

What are your plans over Christmas?

I’m so glad you asked. I have a few friends in London, and my co-pilot in life, Caitlin, is off seeing her family. But I have a few friends in London, and they say, well, what are we gonna do for Christmas? We don’t have a chosen family. I’m like, I’m going to make us a chosen family. And we’re going to celebrate Christmas the Jewish way: stay home watch movies and order Chinese food.

That’s cute. Lost Boys Christmas. I usually have one of those.

Exactly, exactly. Lost Boys. And here I am, Wendy!

How would you approach a career in drag if you were starting out today?

I wouldn’t approach it, first of all. Wait a second. This is gonna be worth it. I’m looking at my screenshots. OK, Crystal Methyd. Recently someone asked her what she thought the future of drag would be like. She said it was going to be a “bleak, homogenized hellscape filled with human hair wigs where an ever-growing mass of narcissistic, attention seeking queens clamour for an ever-growing audience that becomes further and further removed from the subversive underground nature of the origin of drag and queer expression.”

It floored me. I will email this to you if you want. Tattoo it on my body. I wouldn’t choose to participate in drag right now. I love the drag that I came in to participate on. And that was irreverent, campy. Most of all, it about breaking down expectations of gender, beauty, fashion and class. Rather than enforcing those things. 

What’s your response to the idea of Drag Race fatigue?

So, there was this article written in the New York Times and it featured a large picture of Eureka O’Hara. It was talking about the entrance of drag into the mainstream as something that was like commercially viable, right? The question in that article was, ‘is it a bubble that’s going to burst?’ And that article must have been written four years ago. So I don’t think, because there are new people being born and coming out every single day, that there’s going to be a kind of fatigue, especially when you think of drag in a larger perspective.

Drag did not begin with Drag Race. You have people like Danny LaRue in the UK who were putting drag on the main stage decades ago. And people in the Harlem Renaissance, both drag kings and drag queens who were making drag a mega form of entertainment across the country. And that was in the 20s. So to say, ‘is there going to be drag fatigue?’ is to take a very narrow perspective on how long drag has been a mainstream event. Drag has been a fascination for the world, for the UK particularly, and for the US, for a century.

Are people going to get tired of modelling? No. Were they going to get tired of America’s Next Top Model? Perhaps!

Miz Cracker stars in Who’s Holiday at HOME in Manchester until 3 December, and at London’s Southwark Playhouse from 7 December to 7 January.