Yeah.

I met my people, my chosen family.

I became myself.

entertainer, so I became this whole thing and I never looked back, right? And then, you know, that doesn't work.

you know, blew up, you know, the drinking, just, you can't be a persona 24 hours a day for decades.

So it blew up and, you know, around the time right before I filmed Somebody Somewhere on HBO, which is the same time as Life and Beth, you know, kids, trans kids and parents of trans kids where like your character means so much to me, you're such a positive role model, like all this kind of stuff.

And then also the young people share so much now.

Murray, what do you want to say?

Difficult also, but there was an epiphany and an awakening and... period of self-discovery for you where you, it just felt in reading the pages almost like you were able to step out of a box that you had been placed in.

Yeah, it was like a, what are those things called? Jack in the box? That's what it felt like when I left home.

Like, I'm just like, you know, thrusted into this whole big world.

And, you know, that happened when I moved to Boston from Connecticut to Boston.

And then that happened even more when I went from Boston to New York.

So, you know, I had to unlearn so much and then also be open to what i was seeing and i was a visual artist so i i couldn't believe like you know there's the college experiences and stuff like that but once i started taking photographs in gay nightclubs you know three o'clock in the morning in boston down at commonwealth you know my mind was just it's just like Because my whole life has been, if you're different, you're bad.

If you're gay, you're disgusting.

Smell you.

... until other people offered you that option.

So [sighs] that's kind of like, you know, when you, when you grow up in a dysfunctional and abusive home from your entire childhood, you don't know it's different outside of this unit, and that's why things get, you know, y- y- your psyche gets formed pretty early on.

So I didn't know that this wasn't normal per se.

And then when you have the messaging of like, "Don't you dare tell anyone what's going on in this house out there," you know, that stuff, and then the religious part of...

Like, so it's just like suppression after suppression after suppression.

And so when I got to college, when I w- when I got to Boston University and I was away from the family unit, they were not in the same state, I still felt those chains on me.

I still, I really felt imprisoned in my mind, like I was under my mother's, like, rule, and I didn't think I could question her.

Mm-hmm.

Can you talk about that specific fork in the road and how it reshaped you moving forward?

You know, I think one of the, one of the challenges of growing up in the household and the town that I did is adults turn the cheek, turn the other cheek.

You could see people-- I was struggling, and teachers and community people, people in the church, whatever, it's like everyone ignored it because you don't, you don't do any- You...

It's not my business.

So there's always, like a, like, a that.

And this particular RA, he saw me.

He saw that I was this, you know, very charismatic person, enjoying school, having a lot of friends, but then he also saw that I was coming home to the dorm room every, almost every night, completely shit-faced.

Has that always been the case?

Well, so now you have a book, Showbiz, that does get into these things from your past, from your childhood, and, um, before we get into exactly who you were then and, and kinda these experiences that you went through that, that led to a bunch of problems, uh, why tell that story now? Why, why did you wanna open up that part of your life when it's been closed off for so long?

Well, I think, you, you know, this is a good question because I, I, I wouldn't be having this conversation five years ago.

Um, and I certainly never in a million years would have written a book even 10 years ago, or even thought about it.

So what's, there's a couple things that have changed.

Um, one is I completely had a, a breakdown and went down to the studs, and when you kind of- ... fall apart like that, you know, all of the preciousness and the things I held onto about identity and past and family, you know, di- didn't make sense anymore.

So, and then, you know, parallel to that is, you know, now we're a culture of sharing and oversharing and social media, right? So, you know, I come from Irish Italian family, and we did not speak.

Nobody talked about anything.

Okay

Yes.

Yes.

And that actually takes the stress and tension away from the audience and from him as a performer.

You're right.

Because I had somebody say, a director, a director in all my 30 years in show business, only one gave me a good note.

And they said, you know, Murray, when things fall apart on stage, which they always do, you know, with either a light breaking and blowing up or an audience starts heckling you, whatever it is, never break character and always react as Murray.

And then there's no problems.

How do you deal with those voices? Because I must have nine or ten different journals that I have to write in every day just so I can get control of those damn voices.

And I'm really curious where that came from and then what showbiz means to you.

All right.

Showbiz to me is community, right? And, you know, I didn't always look like this, Danny, but kind of similar.

So I had it hard growing up.

And, you know, it's either, you know, I kind of made a choice at a young age.

It was like, you know, let's bring everybody together, disarm people, and we're all going to get along and we're going to see that we're going to connect with the heart first.

And I always think, even as a little kid, it's like if you're connecting with the heart, then you're not being like, oh, you're this or you're this or you're this.

It was like a little light.

What, what do you love about it? 'Cause I know from the book that you love that scene.

Well, you know, there was a couple of things happening at the same time for that scene.

Um, one was just the breathtaking landscape that we were in.

So w- you know, Mike and I were in the middle of this field, it was a gorgeous day out, and the crew for this one was way back, like 50 feet behind us.

So we were actually out there by ourselves, and the director was giving us notes through a walkie-talkie that was in the, in the grass.

So I actually felt, I don't know if this is transference or if this is what acting is, you know, I came up from the clubs, but you know, I felt like I was in the field with him, talking to him as a very dear friend and consoling him.

And then I felt from him that he was doing the best that he could for his family and that he was accepting me as a human being.

Why, why, why did you feel that you wanted to do that both for yourself and to, like, tell the public a- a- after years of not having told y- your good friends about that part of your life?

Okay.

So he would have, [laughs] you know, 'cause my, I would look at him at the window, out of my bedroom window.

He would have a Salem cigarette like this hanging out of his mouth, the ash that big, and he would be going so slow up and down, up, and it wasn't straight lines.

So he would l- the grass was barely cut, but then you would see these huge patches.

And he didn't have...

I know this sounds crazy as I'm saying it.

[laughs] I'm like, "Ooh." But it's, I think it's in the book.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah.

[laughs] 'Cause they, they have a lot of thoughts about that question.

Um, but all kidding aside, you know, I started do- becoming Murray the persona when I moved to New York.

When I first started, it was full-blown every night of the week.

You know, I got to New York and I s- uh, and I said to myself as, as a specific choice, "My life starts now." And part of that was I'm gonna ignore and suppress my entire past, not think about it, not deal with it.

I'm just gonna become something else on my terms in my life.

And I-- To make things a little more complicated for myself, I switched genders while I was making that new persona.

[chuckles]

and when you

feel like you belong and that you're part of society because regardless of what you do or how you do it or any of that stuff we are part of a society not to go back to sports again but sometimes this is a bizarre connection that i just had i like it i like it when i watch like world cup for example right the nationalism that you see other countries have Like pride.

We don't have that here.

But you know, there's a little bit more and it's not obviously not every country, but there's not a sense of we're taken care of here.

And so it's just like a general, this is bizarre too.

Like when Obama was there and he made healthcare, you know, it wasn't perfect, but it was actually affordable.

There's a certain thing and you don't know this unless you've been in this position.

What do you say, Marie? Alicia, you're talking my language.

Not like it is now.

No, not like you can, you know, get your Prada stuff and all that business.

So I went in there with my camera and it was so, it was all about like masculinity and passing and serious and sexuality.

It wasn't like camp and funny and like the drag queens, right? So anyway, I started photographing and then I saw a space that didn't exist and I was like, okay, there's not somebody that's like a campy drag king.

Because I love camp.

And I think it's a great way to communicate.

To me, it's a great form of activism.

Was it scary, exciting, a dream come true? How does it feel now?

No, go ahead, buddy.

You know, I think something that I also find special about the show that it, it's also a time capsule and stuff, that it, it holds up from a political sen- you know, there's a, there's a little feminist stuff in there that you're like, "Ooh," but, you know, it does change over the, you can tell when it starts to change in the, in the late '80s.

But I just wanna say this and I, and I, I would, I, I have to mention it because, uh, um, and Jill, the character that I played on Somebody Somewhere is a trans man.

And, uh, you know, here we are in, what, in the 2000s, you know, '20s, that the way that character was played was kind of, you know, still kind of the first to be played like that.

So, you know, I don't know what year it was when Mackenzie Phillips played-

[laughs] Do tell.

Real quick, this won't get me in trouble I don't think, but, uh, I did a s- they added a scene with me, uh, and him, uh, Arnold, at, at the end of the night.

It was like, you know, 15th hour, and Arnold was on his like 30th take of, um, you know, Santa Claus is Coming to Town.