K: Did any of them end up on TV?
T: Oh yeah, honey. There’s 11, like Yoo-hoo and Playtex Tampons and Secret Deodorant. I did a bunch and they all aired. People were yelling at me on the street, “Hey, you’re the tampon girl.” I didn’t really do much else until I went to California for just a little break. I was with somebody at the time and we were having a rocky spot. Everybody says I should go out for this thing called Pilot Season. So I came out to LA and a week later I book Popular. So, see how there were a couple of steps missing…
K: So, you went to California for Pilot Season and you had a bunch of auditions?
T: Yeah, my agent started sending me out right away and I had a lot of callbacks and a lot of meetings with producers. Popular got me first. It’s crazy. They don’t fuck around in LA. If they like somebody, and if a pilot’s going to go, you audition for something one day, the next day you’re meeting the producers. The next day you’re meeting the head of the Network and the following day your life has changed and you’ve booked this TV show. It’s really unstable.
K: Popular dealt with LGBT issues, so why do you think you were advised not to be out and why did you follow that advice?
T: First of all, I had an agent who represented me very briefly who heard that I’d made a joke about being gay at one of my very first auditions. She called me up and she said, “If you ever, ever say you’re gay again, I’m dumping you. I will never work with you again. And you will never work in this town again.” This is in New York and mind you, she was a lesbian.
