No Notes for Broadway Star Alex Newell

Welcome to the Laverne Cox Show, a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio.

No notes, no notes.

Notes, fuck, yes, absolutely, okay, work, I did that.

I did that, and I know I did that because Jennifer Holiday looked at me and said, I sat there and cried when I watched.

You saying that.

Hello everyone, and welcome to the Laverne Cox Show. My name is Laverne Cox. I am so excited about today's conversation. Alex Newle is a dear friend of mine who I haven't gotten to sit down and chat with in a really long time, so this will partly be a catch up. And I'm also a tremendous, tremendous fan. We met at

To get into all of that today.

So for those of you who don't know, Alex Newell first grabbed our attension on the small screen and Fox's critically acclaimed series Glee as transgender student waigde Unique Adams. They made history this year as the first non binary identifying actor to be nominated for a Best Featured Actor Tony Award, and went on to win that Tony Award for their amazing performance in the Broadway musical Shucked, I

This episode was recorded prior to the SAG After Strike.

Hello Alex Newell, Welcome to the podcast. How are you feeling today, girl?

I'm great? How are you, my dear I'm.

Good, and I'm really really excited to be chatting with you. So I saw a shucked last week finally, and you were amazing. You just won a Tony and your Tony Award winning acceptance speech.

I'm I'm tearing up right now.

It's super strange because one, I hate a prepared speech, and so I was just I wanted to be in the moment, and I just wanted to let life be what life was in that moment and feel everything because even up until my name was called, it could have been anybody's, it could have been anybody's. And I mean that truly when I say that, I truly was not supposed to be up there. I wasn't supposed to win this. The path to this wasn't conventional, it wasn't the way

Yeah, I think that's why it's so emotional for me.

Obviously, we've been friends for years and I've been a fan for years, and I just for me, it's just a testimony to what talent that your talent is just so big that it transcends all of the supposed limitations. The talent is so undeniable that you've just transcended. And that is like part of why I love you so much, part of why I think your story is so insanely inspiring and I'm just so happy and excited. And it

It was completely disheartening because you are told to your face how talented you are, and you are working as a professional actor at the time, and I was truly literally on Glee at the same time, and it's just like, yeah, it made sense to get into these schools because I was quite literally already successful. But there was something about not getting in that I was just like, am I not talented? Am I not good enough? Am I not? And then, now, being older, I know that it had

And I think that's a really interesting thing to sort of book mark or to note that, like so much of it's about how can we cast? Yes, much of a getting into a school is like who can we cast in the Spring you know musical and the Fall Musical, and you should have been playing Fie and you should have been doing what you're doing now, but they didn't have the vision for that. So at the same time, you were doing the Glee project, and so I didn't

I was when I did that tape. You know, my mother, when I was younger, I was held back twice, so I was already older than every one in my class. No matter what nine to eleven happened. Mother's like, you're the fourth grade, let's go back to third grade. And I was just like, okay, sure. And then we changed schools. School I started at they started at the fifth grade, even though I was the sixth grade. She was like, I guess you're going back to fifth grade. It won't hurt.

So you would have been sixteen or seventeen.

I was eighteen. Were I was eighteen because it'd be eighteen to submit, So you're eighteen.

What did you saying on your audition tape? Do you remember?

I sang and I am telling you in our auditorium in my school uniform, Polo Khakis center stage and just screaming the song to the backist of Rose. And you know, it's strange because that video went viral. Essentially at that time, it was because you could upload your submissions onto the MySpace. Dear god, it was so long ago, and people would watch them and vote on them, and I got over like a million likes and views and all of that things.

Okay, thank god you went hello yes, And then you didn't win the Glee Project, which is fascinating for they were so moved by the talent that they were like, let's give you a few episodes, and a few episodes turned into three seasons.

The season, three, four, five, and six. Yeah, four seasons.

Four seasons on Glee, which was life changing.

The world got to know you, got to know unique there was this gender non conforming trans character on primetime television. It was so groundbreaking in so many incredible ways.

And most of us who know you know that.

But I want to go back a little bit because in your speech at the Tony's you mentioned your mom was there sitting next to you, and I remember, I think I met your mom at once in this island of premiere. Now your mom is there, and you grew up in the church in Lynn, Massachusetts, and you were this church going kid who.

Was always you right and with this voice.

And can you talk a little bit about your journey in the church, your mother, and then your gender non conformity, because I don't know if I've really heard you.

Maybe you've talked about this, but girl, what's the team?

Well, one thing about my mother always gave me space to be whoever the hell I wanted to be. She always led with quite literally as the Bible teaches you, to lead with love and to have compassion and to love your neighbor as your own self. And I'm a shaney bitch most days, but that is where my gaze of life is. It's that of love and.

The gaz of life.

Yes.

So my mother growing up in church, like church for my family was that of community. I lived in predominantly white schools all my life, but like church was community. Like I call my mom's friends there, all of my aunts and uncles like those are my family members, not just church members that I know.

So your church was black church, right, Just to be clear, I remember you even know the schools were predominantly white school yes, okay.

And so they're all of my aunts and my uncles, and like true family members. We don't just see each other on Sunday. We saw each other through the week. They would babysit me. So that was my relationship. It wasn't until our pastor had died, Reverend Murray, who was I love that man. If I asked for a dollar, he would give me a dollar. I was a spoiled, rotten child. But so he passed away and we got

That and specifically you are just in general.

Well, there wasn't anyone else like me at church. So it was pointed. It was pointed. And I remember one time, because everyone loved me at that church, there were two specifical moments. One time, one of the associate pastors got in the pulpit and was towing the line of homosexuality is a sin and they were going to hell. And I remember no one in the church made a peep.

Now, when did you start singing in church and singing in the choir? I'm assuming there were solos early on, but yeah.

There were always solos. I was from the time that I could speak, when I was two, And you know, I thought that people hated how I sounded because they kept crying and every time I would sing, everyone was sobbing their eyes out, and I was just like, I sound awful. But I just realized as I got older that that was their way of showing how much they loved it, and I helped them have this cathartic moment and brought them closer to God while singing.

So your first experience is singing. Just to pause on your first experience is singing two years old. I know the State Fair story, which is the gorgeous You saw somebody on stage at the State Bear when I, you know, left your mom and went up on stage and like started singing.

That's genius. And so your first experience is singing in church.

People were crying, yeah, because they're so moved by the beauty of the voice. So once you realize that you gave people a holy ghost and people saw God through you and you were able to process that, how did that change your life to understand that that it was a gift or did you understand that it was a gift?

How was like didn't.

I never knew it was a gift, And sometimes I think that's the best to not take it for granted. So you're just using it in its pure sense. Like I loved singing. I still loved singing, and so for me it was joy and I loved getting to do what I knew how to do so well. And my gift giving was actually me receiving it as well. I too got to experience my gift in that sense.

That's that's incredible, that's incredible.

So was there a certain points before auditioning for Glee project or was there a point where you were like, oh, maybe I got something.

Maybe I'm slaying, maybe I'm turning it.

Because I mean, even the repertoire, even the boldness as of sixteen, seventeen, eighteen year old to take on Effie's singing, to take on these roll, these songs, this is the biggest I mean, Fie is like the biggest, probably most difficult Broadway roll besides Phantom, right, yea of the opera to sing and so to like the audacity, I mean, so girl, you had to know something just to even like, well I did.

What did someone tell you girl? You should sing? Fie?

No, I just had the gumption. Well, I just had the gall and the gumption and the audacity. I really did. I heard the song Here's Prior on the Fresh Prince of bel Air where Will is lip syncing and I'm telling you, and I was like, what's that song? And then I'm down this rabbit hole of Jennifer Holiday and dream Girls and just a whole new world of diaspora is in front of me.

How old were you?

I couldn't have been more than like eleven or twelve.

Oh my god.

So for Alex Newell to discover Jennifer Holiday and Dreamgirls at eleven years old feels like a really is life changing Yeah, give it all, life changing moment.

Yes, and I and that's if there is one musical that I know from bookend to bookend, it is dream Girls. I know everything about it. And then when the movie came out on Christmas Day that year, I said We're going. I said, forget about Christmas, We're going to the movie theater. Immediately post hastetalling, we have to see the film.

I love, love, love this.

But then it's on top of that, it's like Jennifer Holiday, Neil Carter, even the Dame of Billy Porter, all of these voices that I've looked up to. That's when the wakening of like wanting to do theater, wanting to sing professionally. I think that's when I thought that I had the gumption. I was like, if they can do it, so can I. Let's get this ball rolling.

Amazing. So oh, I love that you mentioned Neil Carter and it's so funny. I was.

I remember I was sharing a video of you singing I'm random black Girl and my make d you know, Dajah, this is years ago, and Daja was like, I hear Neil car, little Neil Carter in there, and I Nail Cars from my hometown of Mobile, Alabama. I'm a huge Neil Carter fan, and I hear Neil in your voice, and so I just love I mean, every the Jennifer Holiday, you know, references are clear, but the Neil Carter.

Yes sang in the nasal.

Yeah, it's so beautiful, such a beautiful sound that Neil Carter had.

I remember watching the PBS special of Dateless Behavin and that's what really made me want to do musical theater. And then my mother was just like, oh, you know, to high school with her.

I said, huh, your mother went to high school with Neil Carter.

She was a senior when my mother was coming in as a freshman.

And she is your mother from Alabama?

Or yeah, my both of my darents are from Alabama. My mother's from Birmingham and my father's were just Lousa.

You didn't know that. I did not know this, you know, from Obile. Yeah, I know.

But when my father died. When my father died when I was six, my mother would send me the Alabama each and every summer. So from the time that I was that's another thing. Being a church in the south versus being in church in the city, two different things. But oh yes, each and every year just in Cottondale, Alabama, each summer, from the time that I was like oh til I was like seventeen.

I never ever knew this. And what I.

Think is important to just also just underline is how like I was a person who grew up with a lot of shame and trauma and I did not feel that unconditional love from my mom. And it sounds like you had it always, and not only from her, but from your church community. The audacity for them to say we don't do that here we were not. That is so utterly transformative, and so then you can go into

I'm just thirty, You're just thirty.

Okay, so you're thirty years old and just wanted to own your first Tony Award.

That is incredible. That is fucking incredible. This is a good time to take a little break.

We're back, so love from the family, love from the community. So you had not study voice formally, is what I've read before the Glee project. You were just singing in church, in choirs and school. There's a video of you. Do you have like a little scarf us you're wearing a suit if you're super young?

Do you know how old you were in that video you sing I'm changing.

Ah, I was most likely eighteen.

Yes, so you're eighteen, And what's fascinating to me.

The voice is stunningly beautiful, but if you build a song, so without any vocal training, you understood how to start quietly and to build a song, and then there's just there was so much support, and there was so much seeming technique. There was a forward placement, there was a little bit of a twang, there's rain.

How do you it's truly mimicking. I think a lot of my pre knowing what I'm doing now with a lot of money now to have impeccable technique, But back then I think it was really me just trying to make it sound exactly like I remember hearing it and

Of that, And then I think that thing is had to be playing around with all that without a voice feature and not hurt yourself. Yeah, were there moments when you would experiment and it'd be like, this doesn't feel right, like in terms of strain, because these chords are very delicate.

I never had like, yeah, I lost my voice, like any person would lose their voice, but like I never really worried about it because it was so particular when I was younger. I can't stress it enough. When I was younger, before life and gravity hits your vocal cords and changes your voice, it was always so verily easy and effortless, like if you think I'm singing effortlessly now, back then, when I was a child and those o our bands, that rubberbanding down there, it was so easy.

I remember when we talked it at lunch, you talked about when puberty hit and your voice. Presumably you were signed mail at birth, I think we can say. And so for most folks to sign mail at birth, when puberty happens, the voice dropped.

So did that have been for you?

Fully? Not?

So? Bless your heart?

So so what was your There was no I hate you? It did not mine did So you didn't have a voice drop? No, not at all?

No, So no, what happened was I let's talk about it. The anatomy of my vocal box is already mutated. Okay, so that's really what it truly is. It's everything is smaller, compactor and narrower and mimics not exactly, but mimics and looks like that of a female voice box. Our vocal cords.

You've been scoped, yes.

We've looked at it. They're smaller, they're shorter, and there's like this little you that's normally like a wider you. But mine is an upright view, that makes everything more smaller, and then I have some tissue that makes even more narrower that is kind of mutated on top of the vocal cords, so it's like a little bump in front of the vocal cords, which makes it even smaller. So it makes everything that much higher as.

Well, a bump in front of that, so like the false vocal folds or smaller. Is that when yeah, wow, oh, this is so fascinating.

So it's a blessing and a curse because I have to push twice as much air out and even when I'm in my legitimate there's always just a little bit of a hiss back there because it's literally my air just gasping out.

What's interesting to me when I move my voice because I you know, I'm a student of the voice, and I'm very fascinated by vocal pedagogy. And my voice teacher, who is a male soprano, Madam Iris Eiff, was a

But when I when my voice changed, I would give Mariah a run for her money.

There was a change there, but it wasn't like a drop, No, it was not. So when it changed, I just lost whistle tones. But I heard you as an adult with whistle tones. Where's to stay your whistle tones now? Because girl, we've heard I've heard above, I see I've heard g there's literally a video of you singing I think a G seven on because there's Alex to do a vocal range videos on YouTube.

A lot of them have been taken down.

I think I'm the one taking them down. I don't want the expectation that I'm going to be out here to give whistle tones.

Or whistle tones are iffing, even for Mariah she in her prime. Some days it just you know, it wasn't there.

Just doesn't come out. And that's where I'm at now. Yeah, okay, yes, some days I'll wake up and I call it a healthy day because I don't have them. And then on those sad damage days, I'm just like, well, I guess I have whistle tones, but it is it's temperamental. Like some days, my chords are to pristine to do whistle tones. They're relaxed and there there's no swelling anywhere. There's They're just there.

So for you, a whistle is about a little bit of swelling your whistle. For me, that on the Tonies when you're saying, Mama will provide. On the Tonys, it's so big, there's such a it's such a big sound.

That was I think. I was so i by the time I did that Tony performance, I was on so much steroids. I was on xenix. I was just I was. I had just been thrown all through the ringer throughout that entire show, where it felt like I was carrying this show on my back. I was doing all the press, I was doing all the shows. I wasn't calling out. I was running around doing Broadway in the Park, Broadway in the Alley, Broadway bars, Broadway bears like, Broadway Under

And saying for the god Tonning. You sang for the god Tonning. You wore it out, girl.

I think I was just so tired, and that whistle tone was kind of just like my last goah. I was just like, well, I'm singing, let's go and just keep going.

Yes, bitch, you did it in performances too.

There were videos of Mama to provide the way you did it in performances as well, and it's just it's beautiful.

So we talked last week about Shocked versus.

Once on This Island, which was written for someone else, and obviously Lulu was written espressly for you, so that run it sounds like once on This Island was whether that was a strenuous number for you or is it just not getting rest?

It was everything all of that. It was not getting enough for rest, being in my twenties and thinking that I could go out and and then come and do my show the very next day. For met Today, it was the sand, being in that sand all the time and just breathing it in and constantly getting sick and hiding and never being able to get truly well, or the animals and the pet dander that was always around, or you know, there was a myriad of things that

When you have to sing that number? Like, yes, that is not.

And it was saying for someone else. And on top of that, it's the expectation of the two great fucking women that came before me to do that role. I'm singing Keisha Lewis's song that Lilyus White took up a whole half step and sang down, and so that expectation of walking into work.

I think you added a run though that they didn't do that.

I think that, yes, whoa, that's an Alex Newall.

Yeah, that was me. That was the one stemp that I had because I was like, what vocal health do I have to do this clissando up seamlessly because there might have been danced and said whoa or whoo. So I said, how could I maneuver this? I know for me that I will get up to that.

I f mm hmm, it makes sense.

I mean, singing a high note as part of a scale is a lot easier than just hitting in a gossando, which.

Is stupid because I do with glissando in my song. Now at the very end, can.

You talk a little bit about the difference between the run, because as far as I know, you always hit the run and mom will provide the glissando, and independently owned is more.

It's trickier for you. Do you know why that is for you?

There are two reasons. One it's I have just come out of the phrase of these long held notes I do celebrated, and there's not really breath there. So by the time I get to you and I live my life, I'm already at my breath capacity. And the other thing is I can't say musically and I live my love because that's that's a break, or I can't do and I live my life. I wish I could, but that breath makes it less impressive.

And it just Yeah, thessando is part of a bigger phrase that's ye live my life.

But then you have to hold You have to hold the life for two beats before you can slide up because the court underneath the piano hasn't changed yet. Wow, because if you just go straight through the gossando you sound flex girl.

WHOA okay? Wow?

At what point did you start working with vocal coaches and cultivating with someone the gift?

You know? How did that change your voice?

How did that change your understanding of singing when you started actually taking voice lessons?

So I have a great voice coach now, Mike Ruccles brilliance. He really helped me through months in this island because I kept hitting the wall. I kept hitting the wall, and I was just like, I can't make it. I'm not making it. And you know, I was young and stupid and I was never calling out. So he he's looked at me one day and said, you're working too hard. You are out here singing far too hard. Less, give

MM.

So it's the I need to let them know, you know, every single night, and learning how to what Lantine price. My operatic idol says on your interest, not your capital, So you learned to sing on your interests, not your capital,

You'll do it.

You do it on the recording. You slide up and then growl at the top of it. I believe if I'm going.

And you growl and work.

But last week they're what you The slide happened, but there was less of a growl, and so there was What was beautiful about it is that the purely pureness of the tone at the top right. And maybe it was you like saying, I'm not gonna give everything tonight, but it was also what I loved as just a fan of your voice and a fan of just beautiful singing.

Is that tone. There's a beautiful soprano sound that you have that I'm you know, I want you to sing opera.

We've talked about this, but we got to hear that beautiful sound and in the duets as well. And the acting is so beautiful in your performance as well, and there's just so much heart and you're hilarious, and it's just beautiful to watch the growth that you've had as an actor from Glee Once on This Island is always extraordinary playlist which you were actually were wonderful. You got

That she does.

So you know, for me, it's always the ground up. I had someone to ask me when I was doing a Christmas Carol, how do you get into character? And I say, I think I start by quite literally molding how they walk? How did they hold themselves when they're just walking. And I have the mindset of how they're walking, I'm in it. And so that's why Vulu's walk is so distinct, Like anytime I step foot on that stage, that bitch is stomping because she has some place to go.

Yeah. Yeah. And there's a great analysis.

There's a wonderful channel called black Music Archive where they do an analysis of your independently owner and if you've seen that video and Malik talks about how is written kind of in your speaking voice. It sort of starts there, so when you start, it's coming out of dialogue and then you're kind of it's like talk singing, but your talk singing is very way higher than a lot of people, and.

So it sort of comes out of that.

So it's beautiful to have something written for you, like, can you talk a little bit about like the evolution of independently owned in terms of when you got the role and how the song changed or did it well?

The ending, the whole back half of the song was completely written for me. The first half of the song it like it was already written. It was the same. It was like, I'll know a change. I've always been a w O M A N. I'm independently oh and celebrated I'm independently Oh dada da da da da da da da da da da and I live my life independently. Button. Wow, that's how the song went. And it said button And we did our out of town tryout and they heard me singing and they said we need more.

Well because miss thing can bring more. I mean, this is Alex new Ole Darling. We need to have a climax. We need to have a modulation.

And because modulated was always there, the joke was always there. But then our music director and Jason how it was just like I just let's just keep and so we were still in the room and literally just were playing and bouncing ideas back and forth off each other, and he was just playing chords, and you know, you wanted bigger. There was one time that one version of the song and I was like Jason, I literally cannot sing that the list.

It wasn't just modulate to celebrate Da da da da It was but da da da da da da da da da da da Da Da Da Da Da Da Da da da da da da da da da da da da da.

And I was like Jason, I literally cannot breathe. We need to I'll just die right on the floor. And so we truncated it.

But like even I have my limitations, everyone does, and it's important to know again, to know what those limitations are and to say that, and to say it. I remember someone and I haven't. I didn't talk to Billy about this, but I heard like through the grapevine when Billy did Kinky Booths, that Billy went in and said, okay, if you want me to do a shows a week, and he's in this key like, this is what it

And so knowing that for yourself is so very very important. Okay, it's that time again. We'll be right back. We are back. Oh my gosh, Okay, Like, okay, I have audio that I want to share with you.

I am.

Sup, but I think I mean I need.

Sing up singing so clear.

And chi I'm ordify.

Ill talking out and I'm not BA, but I'm.

Up little.

I cannot.

Okay segment Alex is nodding. Segment this is the thing I wanted to listen with you. So the first one was I think you were probably eighteen or so. It was that one with the little scarf, and then the second one was with the Boston Gay Men's Course from twenty fourteen, so you've been twenty two. And then the last one was last year when you were twenty nine. I guess at Broadway juneteenth twenty twenty two. So a decade of you singing, I am changing and there's more

You're like, no, no, no, no, fuck, yes, absolutely, okay, I did that.

I did that, And I know I did that because Jennifer Holiday looked at me and said, I sat there and cried when I watched you sing that. You did me so proud of I'm so thankful for that. She came to see shop and she told me this in person. She told me. She called me after it, but she told me to me in person. She said, you honored me and made it your own, and I love that about you. You will pay homage to those that account before you and still have your own twist on what

Oh work, okay, So I don't want to keep you too much longer, But can you reflect on the eighteen year old you, the twenty two year old you, the voice.

That you heard then, right? And then the difference is in the maturity.

I mean, you sound like a grown woman in twenty twenty two, like a grown woman because I am grown now.

Yeah.

Do you feel like you slayed all of them? No?

I mean absolutely not. I mean no eighteen year old should be singing and changing.

But you did, and you slayed it. There's so much that was added to that number that you gave us.

I think that's when I listened to all three of them back to back, it's like this bitch has been through some stuff that she is bringing in a whole new way.

That's what I hear. But what do you hear when you listen to the three versions?

Well, I hear the one in a sense of purity that was there back in twenty fourteen or however long ago. I was singing the little song, I knew none of those words I was singing. I know what that song was about back then. I do now know what that song is about, because life is a bitch and it comes hard, and you figured some shit out. But back then it was truly just I liked singing the song, and that was I was having fun while singing it.

Yeah, how are we manifesting Fie for you?

I mean, I know it's been on your bucket list forever, so it's gonna happen. We've been man if you've been manifesting it your whole life, and it will. I know it will happen on God's time, not our time. Oh, Alex Knewell the Tony Award winning Out of Circle Critics Drama Death Award winning.

Oh, I just handed me everything this time. They had to be nothing the last time. This time they said take it off.

So what's next? What's the dream now?

I mean a vacation, Oh, well, deserved vacation.

I've never well.

I took my first vacation last year for my thirtieth birthday and it was only for four days. So it's time. But we sit and we talked about all the amazing things I've done. I've never gotten to take a break. I've constantly been working NonStop and I'm very blessed and fortunate that i had this opportunity to do such. But it is time to take a step back and like, actually appreciate all the hard work I've done.

Yeah, and I think what I love about There's so many things I love about you. I mean, I just love pure talent excites me. Amazing singing excites me, but cultivating the talent. A lot of people are gifted and talented and have voices, but you have really cultivated and studied. And even before you had voice teachers, you studied, right, you studied, now, Carter, you studied, and so there's different ways to study.

And that's what I love. And I remember we're talking to you in twenty fifteen.

I was just like, this is it is a gift from God that you have and it is and it's rare for singers to be able to maintain their voices over decades. And this is my dream for you that you know, at seventy you're giving us everything that you can do.

I will still be Pat Lavelle when I'm seventy eight. Yes, ma'am, I'm going to be Patricia Labille. She is still out here singing the girls now.

Amen, and I still want using some offer two. But you know, if you feel so called, so to be continued with you, Alex, I love you so much. In my podcast with the question what else is true? It's taken from my therapy and the idea of both. And when things are rough and things are challenging in the world, as they often are, we can focus on the thing

What else is true? Honesty? That's where I'm at, Honesty. I think we get afraid of honesty and truth a lot of times, and we don't like it if it hurts, and we don't like it if it's too much to hear at one time. And I've lived my life in such an honest way, and I try to live my life in such an honest way, and sometimes it comes off shady, sometimes it comes off mean, but it's our truth and sometimes it's better to let that out.

What has been a truthful moment that you've had, or an honest moment that you've had with yourself or someone else that has been maybe hard to hear or hard to say.

You know, I think it's asking for help. A lot of times I had to do that in the back of my mind and realize that it is actually okay to ask for help. I sing the song independently own eight chos a week and knowing that I've cultivated this great career of mine on my own, and a lot of that has come with struggle of trying to do it all on my own and not really wanting to do anything else after that.

So yeah, Wow, as the phone rings, we can ask for help, we can ask for help. I love that.

That is a great note to end on. Thank you so much, Alex Nowell. You are a gift to the world and I love you so much.

I love you, I love you.

I'm so happy for you. I'm so happy and fucking proud.

You know. I'm so proud. I love you, Alex. Alex Newell.

Oh, that was so wonderful watching Alex listen to themselves saying and just be an utter joy of how beautiful their sound is, how much they turned it out.

It reminds me of my idol, Lantine Price.

There's many many interviews of Liantine and articles written about Lantine where she says I just love the sound of my voice, and watching Alex listen to themselves saying I am changing through the years. I felt Alex in something similar Alex to not say that, but Alex was like, no, notes. What's wonderful to me about that is that we can be so critical of ourselves as artists, and I'm so critical of myself, but Alex was just like I did that.

Better visions of ourselves.

That that purity, that light that we all have inside of us as children, if we can maintain that if the voice can be a metaphor for what we can do to maintain a certain kind of purity and innocence as we move through the world, even as we, you know, maybe a little weathered by life.

To keep that freshness.

Lantine says that she feels the youngest and the most vibrant when she's singing, that it should be this like youthful exuberance, and Alex indeed has that. Let's all like start collectively manifesting Alex singing e Fie and Dreamgirls like everyone within the sound of my voice. Let's manifest that because we need to see Alex nule as Fie and Dreamgirls.

We need to see that.

Thank you for listening to The Laverne Cox Show. Please rate reviews, subscribe and share with everyone you know. You can find me on Instagram and Twitter aka x and TikTok at Laverne Cox and on Facebook at Laverne Cox for Real.

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