Jinkx Monsoon Says Being a Broadway Star Feels ‘Like Affirmation’: ‘Exactly What I Was Meant to Do’ (Exclusive)

Jinkx Monsoon has some big boots to fill as Mary Todd Lincoln in Cole Escola’s Tony-winning play Oh, Mary! — and she’s more than ready.

Days after wrapping her run as Ruth in Pirates! The Penzance Musical on Broadway, the beloved two-time RuPaul’s Drag Race winner took over the title role in the hit comedy, opposite a star-studded cast including Kumail Nanjiani and Michael Urie.

Escola — who created and wrote Oh, Mary! — originated the role of Mary. The play imagines what would happen if President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination wasn’t exactly a bad thing for his insufferable wife.

Earlier this year, Escola won a 2025 Tony Award for their performance, while director Sam Pinkleton also nabbed a Tony for Best Director.

Monsoon, 37, takes over the role from Escola, as well as Tituss Burgess (Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt) and Betty Gilpin (Glow), who all previously portrayed Mary at New York City’s Lyceum Theater.

Monsoon’s eight-week limited run wraps on Sept. 28. PEOPLE spoke with Monsoon in the days leading up to her debut in the production.

PEOPLE: How tired are you? I mean, you just wrapped Pirates, and now you’re in Broadway’s hottest play.

JINKX MONSOON: I hit a wall of exhaustion last week when I was wrapping Pirates while beginning rehearsals for this. So I had a solid week of doing both. Usually I lie to people when they say, “How’s it going? You must be exhausted.” I say, “Nah, I’m great. Bring on more shows. I want to do more.” I can’t even lie — it was a new level of exhaustion I didn’t think possible because it was mentally, emotionally, and then physically exhausting because both shows are just amazing shows. I wanted to be fully invested in both things, and that means trying to give 200%, and that is not sustainable. Luckily things have worked out that I’ve gotten just enough rest to reset, and I’m just chomping at the bit. Honestly, we did a dress rehearsal yesterday and I’m like, “Bring on a crowd. I’m ready. Let’s do this.”

I know often actors do this, they’re in a show for however many months and then they’re rehearsing for the next one. But for mere mortals like me, unpack how your brain unlocks in order to let in another role, learn another script, do blocking and everything while you’re performing in another production.

I guess I’ve had to kind of start bringing in a new character while I’m still working with one, but never in this way and so significantly. But what I have found is it all feels like it was meant to be because the time period is 20 years apart, surprisingly enough, even though the material’s extremely different. And the costumery is like, I’m just going from one difficult costume to a different difficult costume. It’s difficult in a different way, but I love difficult costumes. It’s why I wanted to be an actress. I saw those crazy costumes actresses wear and I said, “I want to do that, please.” So wearing the crazy hoop skirt and the high collar and the bratty curls, it’s like that’s part of the dream. I don’t find it to be an obstacle. I find it to be an opportunity to do a lot of really crazy stuff with a hoop skirt. Why not? I mean, who has a better job?

It’s true! So putting on those curls for the first time, putting on the hoop skirt, when you saw yourself in the mirror, what went through your head?

I turned to [Oh, Mary! director] Sam Pinkleton and I said, “I feel evil,” with a big smile on my face.

I love it.

And I had a conversation with Cole about, I basically just said, “What do you want me to know about the character of Mary?” And Cole said, “I created Mary to put on stage parts of myself I had previously kept hidden.” Knowing that, I just wanted to do the same. I love the person that I am, but we all contain multitudes, and I’ve been given permission to funnel all of the rage I have towards current circumstances into a character that’s feeling very similarly. I said this in a previous interview, and I didn’t realize it until the words were coming out of my mouth, but Ruth and Mary are both characters living under extenuating circumstances, and they are women who have limited agency because of the time period and their station in life and their lot in life. I realized that I am a woman with her agency being threatened, and of course I relate to these characters. I just feel like I couldn’t be more in the right place at the right time.

How are you going to bring your own mark to the comedy of the show? I’ve seen both Tituss and Cole in it and they were so different.

Different. Well, I think it’s beautiful that each Mary has been really distinct from the other Marys, you know? I think if anyone, I have the most in common with Cole as far as the references we draw from, but I don’t think Cole and I perform any way in the same except we both utilize deadpan, I think to effect. But honestly, to me, the best way to be funny, the best way to play the comedy is to play the truth and to really lean into, well, the motto has been, “This is Shakespeare.”

We know what the writing is, we know what’s funny about it, but we’re treating this like the Holy Grail, it’s the Bible. That’s really what you’ve got to do with any show. When you respect the material as much as I’ve respected all the material I’ve gotten to do in my Broadway run, it’s really easy to just honor the script. I don’t feel like I have to bring any extra stuff because it’s all there in the script and if I just follow the path. So I kind of forgot about Cole’s performance because I’ve been working so intensely the last couple of weeks, and I thought I’d revisit Cole’s performance and watch the video and kind of re-familiarize myself. I watched it about 10 seconds and said, “Oh, we’re not playing Mary at all the same way.” I can’t watch this or it’s going to f— up what I’m doing because I’m going to start second guessing my Mary.

And I’m going to go see Tituss. I think at least there, there’s no possible way Tituss and I are going to come up with the same Mary. But Cole and I draw from so many same references that I was like, I have to not watch Cole until I’m further into the run and I’m really planted in my Mary because I don’t want to get thrown off the path that I’ve been on. But I really feel like I know what I’m doing here. Cole wrote this character for people like me and Betty and Tituss and Cole and Hannah and whoever takes over the role next because, I mean, it’s a big bustle to fill.

How emotional has this experience been for you? You’ve been on, obviously, this rise for years, but this kind of marks a big culmination of sorts. It’s your first real lead role on Broadway in such a major production. Has that sunk in with you? The enormity of this?

I guess it just has all felt like affirmation. When you know really early in life exactly what you want to be and how you want to be it and then the world convinces you that it’s not going to be and you let go of those dreams. And then when you least expect them, they come to you with open arms. It’s like, “F— everyone who told me this wasn’t possible for me and not possible for me to be fully who I am and do fully what I want to do with my life.”

Because it was the things that people told me to suppress in myself that actually opened the doors for me. It was creating my own show with BenDeLaCreme, The Jinkx & DeLa Holiday Show that made me believe in myself as an artist. Then when I started getting roles on Broadway, I was like, “I got here because I started to believe in the very things that I thought were going to prevent me from getting to Broadway.” It just really affirmed to me that A, this is exactly what I was meant to do with my life, and B, the way I get to do it is by being authentic. That’s the greatest gift in the world.

Have you heard from RuPaul regarding this new role of yours?

Not directly, but I’ve heard from World of Wonder, the whole family. They make sure to let me know how happy and proud they are for me. What I owe most to Drag Race that no one else could have given me, but Drag Race and everyone involved, is finding everyone out there who wanted to see a performer like me do this.

It’s this beautiful place that showcases art and artwork and the artist. So you get to see what goes into what they create and why they do what they do. And that forms a bond with your audience that, I mean, the people who are at the stage door today are the same people who were in my audiences at the Laurie Beechman Theater 12 years ago or 10 years ago, however long. They’re the same people who fly to San Francisco to see a Peaches Christ show and they meet us wherever they can for The Jinkx & DeLa Holiday Show. And it’s because I was given this opportunity to be fully myself and fully honest with a large group of people.

If it still doesn’t make sense, think of that scene in X-Men II when Xavier’s wearing Cerebro and she’s going, “Find all the mutants. Find all the mutants.” That is what Drag Race did for me. I found all my mutants and now we are very happy together.

I love that.

And I’m the biggest mutant of them all, and I love it that way.

You’ve conquered Broadway, you’ve conquered TV. What’s next on your bingo card? Movies?

Honestly, I just want to keep doing what I’m doing, and what’s next will come naturally. I love where I’ve made it and I want to be here as long as possible. I’m not in a rush to move on to any next thing. I love live performance and my future has to include it. But I also love that film opens up this whole different realm of things you can do that isn’t possible in live performance. So having the ability to bounce back and forth is something I’m really excited to do. I don’t know what the next filmed role will be or if it’ll be television or a film, but I’m ready for whatever it is. As long as it feels right and feels like it’s authentic to the trajectory I’m already on.