Exclusive: Emmy Winner Billy Porter On His 2020 Emmy Nomination For ‘Pose’

Among the Black actors who received Emmy nominations this year is the Emmy-award winning actor Billy Porter. Having won the award in 2019 for Outstanding Actor in a Drama Series for his role as Pray Tell in the FX series Pose, he became the first openly gay black man to be nominated and win in any lead acting category at the Primetime Emmys. Porter is again nominated in the same category.

Porter has also won a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical for Kinky Boots and won a Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album for the show. He’s one step away from achieving EGOT status, but he has time. In the meantime, he’s just the fun ride he’s having playing Pray Tell.

BlackFilmandTV.com spoke exclusively with Porter about his recent nomination, getting to back to the dance again, and the projects he says yes to.

The Primetime Emmy Awards will take place on September 20, 2020, 8:00 PM.

How thrilling is it that you can go back to the dance for the same role you've played?

Billy Porter: Well, it's interesting that you say that, because I've been talking about that a lot being a theatre person. You can only win the Tony Award one time for the part that you played. You can't win multiple times. So this is a new reality for me that is really interesting. It's trying to mitigate all the nerves. I’m so grateful to be in the room to be seen, because there was a long time I wasn’t. So am really, really grateful for this time.

Can you talk about the episode you submitted and why?

Billy Porter: One of the things that I have always been fighting for since the beginning of my career is to be taken seriously, as a serious artist, as a serious actor, and unfortunately in our business and in the world very often when one can be fabulous, I'll just use the word fabulous. It's not always associated with serious and I represent fabulous and serious and that's why I chose that episode in particular. What I love about Pose and what I love about Pray Tell and what I love about Ryan (Murphy) and Steven (Canals) and Janet (Mock) and Brad (Falchuk) is that they have seen me as a full human being. They use every part of me so that the world gets to see every single part of the human being that is Pray Tell and that is on full display and in episode six. That’s why I chose that one.

For this particular season, what changes did Pray Tell go through that got the voters interested enough to keep you in the running for Outstanding Actor?

Billy Porter: I just think there's a deepening. We are blessed to have a wonderful creative, writing team who are really focused on character development and going as deep as possible. For Season one Pray Tell didn't exist in the series until I walked into the room so they created Pray Tell for me. In Season two I believe that Pray tell was solidified as one of the beating hearts of this show. Pray Tell and Blanca really are the heart and I think Season two allowed for that to flourish.

What are we looking forward for next season? Or is that too early to ask? 

Billy Porter: I don't know. I have no idea. I am a writer. I'm a director. I'm a producer. I do Everything. That's not my job. My job is as an actor, so I don't know what's coming. They give me the script and I show up and do the job that I'm supposed to do. When we shot the first episode of season one, I think we were a day out from finishing it. It happened so long ago, I don't even remember what it's about. All I know is that we had a food fight. That's all I remember. So I'm excited to pick back up, see where the show goes and where the journey takes us.

Every time one sees pictures of you, you have the most amazing outfits. How much of a conscious effort do you put on yourself when you go out? Whether it be to the store to an event or anything else?

Billy Porter: There's a time and a place for everything and right now, I really am taking this global reset time to work on self care and balance and boundaries and stuff. There hasn't been a whole lot of crazy outfits. There are not too many places to go. It’s hard to care about that right now. But I will say that it is conscious. I am first generation post civil rights movement. We were all taught to dress up for the first impression is what you look like. Dress up for the job you want, not the one you have. Clothes are very important to me and it was very conscious. It has been very conscious because I'm trying to create a space for new conversations to be had around what it means to be a man in this world, particularly a black man.

What goes into the projects you say yes to?

Billy Porter: About 20 years ago or so I was watching Oprah and she had Maya Angelou on and Iyanla Vanzant and they were talking about creating a life intention. That's about service. When you choose service as your life's intention, everything else will work itself out. I really discovered pretty quickly that my service was my queerness. My service was my gayness to lean into that, to be authentic. That is my service. I always say it's easy to be who you are, but what you are is what's popular. I was told that my gayness was would be my liability. And it was for decades. Until it wasn’t.

I look at projects in terms of what kind of service is this going to path to society? What kind of good energy is it that they're going to put out into the world? How is it going to touch somebody, read somebody, changed somebody, or save somebody. That’s the kind of work that I'm interested in and dedicated to do and so I try to choose projects based on that criteria.

How have you been holding up throughout this time?

Billy Porter: I am in a very blessed position to be able to take this time for myself to reset. The last couple of years has been off the chain in really wonderful ways. Simultaneously, I can't burn out. I'm trying to figure out what that looks like, what that balance and boundaries and self care looks like and so that's what I've been doing. I've been writing a lot. I've been working on my spiritual side and my sanity, making sure I'm holding on to my sanity. Doing therapy, working on my relationship with my husband, and all this stuff that we don't always get to make time for. It's a very specific thing right now. I'm just using it as wisely as I can.