GLOW Star Kevin Cahoon Opens up About Bringing a Trailblazing Drag Queen to Life

Author:
Jeryl Brunner
Sep 3, 2019

If you've watched GLOW season three, then you already know Kevin Cahoon, the actor who brought lovable drag queen Bobby Barnes to life in the most recent season.

But you may not know that the Broadway veteran began his performing career as a rodeo clown—when he was only 6 years old!

Parade.com sat down with Cahoon to get this inside scoop on this rising career, how he really got his start as the world's youngest rodeo clown. (Hint: He owes his mom a big "thank you".)

A Texas native, rodeo was more or less in Cahoon's DNA. “My dad was a calf roper and we were at a different rodeo every weekend,” says Cahoon, whose parents met in rodeo club when they were in high school. “I fell in love with the rodeo clowns and wanted to be one.” The family would pack up the horse trailer and head off on an adventure. “We did every rodeo you could imagine,” Cahoon says. “It’s been a life in make-up! What can I say!?”

Cahoon ultimately graduated to being on the hit TV show Star Search. (Remember Star Search?) He had done theater in Houston and had an agent who got him an audition. “They wanted me to audition to be an actor on the show, but I insisted on auditioning as a singer,” he explains. The next thing he knew, he and his mother were in Los Angeles filming at The Aquarius Theatre and he was singing show tunes. Cahoon was voted Grand Champion Teen Vocalist. The following summer, they did The Stars of Star Search tour with Sinbad and Katt Adams.

These days Cahoon is making big waves as Bobby Barnes in the newest season of Glow on Netflix. As the show’s first drag queen, he does some killer impressions of Liza Minnelli, Carol Channing and Barbra Streisand. He got a call to audition for the hit show when he was in LA working on a production of The Tempest with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. “The role of Bobby, a single, gay father who happens to be a female impersonator in an off the strip Las Vegas casino in 1986 was too enticing to ignore,” he says. “I dove in!”

For the audition, they requested three female impersonations. Cahoon came up with five: Shirley MacLaine, Loretta Lynn, Cher, Carol Channing and Tammy Faye Baker. He ran around Los Angeles like a crazy person to find the ideal costumes. He scoured Halloween shops, the Gary Marshall Theatre’s prop shop and friends' closets. He also found a pianist to create the tracks for the songs. “I jumped through hoops and sometimes it felt as if they were on fire,” says the Broadway veteran whose credits includes The Who's Tommy, The Lion King and the title role of John Cameron Mitchell's rock opera Hedwig and the Angry Inch. “It was a huge challenge, but great fun to put together.”

Once he got the part, Cahoon began researching Las Vegas in 1986, where the show takes place. “It was a very challenging place to be an out, gay performer and try to get ahead in the Las Vegas show business world,” he says. “Homophobia was a huge issue. Those performers faced incredible odds and had to sacrifice everything for their art.” He scoured YouTube to see female impersonation during that time. “Drag, as an art form, has evolved in such a beautiful way,” Cahoon says. “It was fascinating to watch these pioneers of the art form and how they dealt with the mainstream audiences in Las Vegas.”

What qualities does Bobby have that you adore?

I love that Bobby is a fighter. He knows what he wants and he will sacrifice everything to get it. I also love that he is such an unabashedly larger than life showman. I’ve never had more fun with a role. With Bobby, the show’s creators, Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch, created a complete human being with ambition, frailties, weaknesses and against all odds, optimism. AIDS was decimating his community. And yet, he keeps fighting and singing his truth.

And what was the joy of working with Geena Davis?

There was nothing BUT joy working with Geena Davis. I know people say this all the time about people they have worked with, but Geena Davis is truly the best. Her commitment, her heart, and her generosity are unparalleled. She is getting the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Oscar this year and no award has ever made more sense to me. She is a humanitarian when it comes to ending unconscious gender bias in the media and she is a humanitarian at craft service at midnight when you have both been in six inch heels for 12 hours. I love her.

What do you want people to take away after watching you this season on Glow?

I would love for audiences to be reminded that there was a time when being gay and being an out, gay performer were not part of the mainstream. These performers broke the ground for today and we are forever indebted to them.

You took a big risk and left the stability of being in the long-running show, The Lion King on Broadway to be a stand-by for John Cameron Mitchell in the original company of Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Why do you consider this one of your smartest career moves?

I had no choice. I loved, loved The Lion King and consider that show one of the greatest gifts of my life. But when I saw John Cameron Mitchell’s groundbreaking performance and heard Stephen Trask’s incredible score, I was going to do my best to be a part of this show. I began “standing by” for John and doing the eighth show in the week.

There were people who thought I was making a huge mistake to leave the hottest show in Broadway history to join Hedwig Off-Broadway, but I knew it was a history-making moment for the theater and for the way that LGBTQ people were being represented on stage. Hedwig and Bobby have a lot in common. They are both outsiders in their own worlds and are facing unimaginable odds. I am so lucky to have had my career and so lucky to continue playing roles, like Bobby, who are disenfranchised from the mainstream. Yet they plow forward with their head held high and a song in their heart. I hope I do Bobby justice and all those who came before him.

Next, Kelly Clarkson Opens up About Her New Talk Show