Miss Benny on Bringing a Fabulous Gender-Nonconforming Character to Life on Netflix’s ‘Glamorous’
In early development, Marco Mejia, the gender-nonconforming queer character at the heart of the new series Glamorous — set inside the world of the makeup business — was conceived as a much younger character.
“Literally, Marco was in high school,” recalls Miss Benny, who plays him on the show, which debuts June 22. But over the four years that the actor (and former YouTube star) was attached to the project, “It got retooled and written so many times and is at a different network [Netflix] — and now Marco’s just like, an out-and-proud-living homosexual,” says the L.A.-based actor, 24, who grew up in Denton, Texas, and has had roles on Fuller House; Love, Victor; and American Horror Story. “When we shot the pilot, I had to shave like three times a day to somehow look like I was 17. And this time, they were like, ‘No, you can just be you.'”
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In the escapist, fish-out-of-water comedy — “Our characters never face any homophobia or transphobia or any prejudice from the outside world,” says Miss Benny — Marco is living at home with his mom, who wants him to get a real job. He’s working part-time at a department store selling makeup and posting beauty tutorials on his YouTube channel (which has a witheringly small number of followers) when in walks Madolyn Addison (Kim Cattrall), the founder of an eponymous beauty brand. Soon enough, he’s hired as her second assistant.
When Miss Benny found out that Cattrall had been cast in the role (after the project moved to Netflix), “I cried because I was just so excited. She’s an icon,” says the actor, who is a longtime fan of Sex and the City and says that they have found inspiration in Cattrall’s acting.
“It’s funny,” explains Miss Benny, “because I had based so much of my acting style on her performances. Samantha Jones was campy and grounded and sexy and cool. And I had done an episode of American Horror Story where I had kind of tried to play a little bit of her — like, sexy camp — and apparently, that’s the clip that they showed her when they were like, ‘You would be co-starring with Miss Benny.’ And she apparently liked it, which was great because I was giving her a little bit of a tribute there. So, it’s all just really crazy, full circle for me.”
Miss Benny — who admits to a serious fixation on TikTok beauty videos (“I see a makeup trend, like dewy balletcore, and I’m buying it on Sephora immediately”) — says they are over the moon that the show spotlights a character like Marco, with whom they feel kinship. “There are so many unique challenges you face as somebody who is gender-nonconforming, specifically when you’re assigned male at birth and you present very feminine,” they say, adding that a slew of characters on the series are LGBTQ+. “Almost every single character on the show is a different shade of queer. I hope that people will watch the show and want to give more opportunities to people like me and people like the rest of the cast because we had so much fun making it. It’s just such a good time.”
Adds Miss Benny, who is also a singer and recently released their first EP, Swelter: “I can’t even believe we got to make this show, and we got to be this flamboyant and just so prideful. It is such a colorful, campy, dreamy show that I could only dream of.”
A version of this story first appeared in the June 14 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
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