Drag queens, comedians and gay icons walked a hot-pink carpet in Hollywood on Monday evening to celebrate the premiere of RuPaul’s new movie, “Stop! That! Train!”
“This movie is about an escape from all the serious mishigas we’re experiencing in the world right now,” said RuPaul, who produced and starred in the film. “It is the perfect antidote to, oh my gosh, everything we wake up to.”
In theaters June 12, the movie is a disaster film parody that follows two train stewardesses, Tess (Ginger Minj) and Dee Dee (Jujubee), who lose their jobs on Stank Rail and start working on a fancy high-speed train called the Glamazonian Express. But when the Glamazonian is struck by lightning, it becomes a runaway train hurtling toward a severe and life-threatening “stormaganza.”
“It’s about an hour and a half, and in that hour and a half, everything that could possibly go wrong goes wrong, and it’s up to drag queens to save the day,” said Ginger Minj, who competed in several seasons of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” and “RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars,” winning Season 10 of “All Stars.”
The runaway train quickly becomes a national emergency, which escalates to the desk of President Gagwell (RuPaul). The movie is studded with celebrities — including Charo, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Nicole Richie and Lisa Rinna — as well as plenty of drag queens from RuPaul’s popular TV competitions.
“It was so much fun to shoot, and kooky and chaotic,” said Richie, whose character in the film is transporting her dead mother’s coffin on the train.
Rinna, a longtime fan of “Drag Race,” said that being part of this film felt “like a fever dream.”
The premiere, which took place at the Harmony Gold theater, had a dress code of “choo-choo realness,” which some attendees took more literally than others. On the carpet, Betsey Johnson climbed out of a colorful luggage trunk with the help of DD Fuego, who was on Season 18 of “Drag Race.”
Symone, the winner of Season 13 of “Drag Race” who plays a train attendant named Ayshleiygh in the movie, arrived on the carpet with railroad tracks tied to her back.
“We picked them up downtown, darling,” she joked. “Just from the Metro.”
Rachel Bloom, who plays a train traffic controller named Donna Dusk, showed up to the carpet in a latex train conductor outfit.
“This movie’s just about laughter for laughter’s sake,” Bloom said.
Adam Shankman, who directed “Stop! That! Train!,” said he drew inspiration from filmmakers like Mel Brooks, Paul Feig and the directors of “Airplane!” Jim Abrahams and David and Jerry Zucker.
“I like stupid, so when it comes to comedy, give me stupid,” said Shankman, who also directed the 2007 movie “Hairspray.”
The evening also, naturally, put the spotlight on drag performers, who don’t often have the chance to shine on the big screen.
“This is a celebration of an incredibly talented group of people — it’s about fricking time that they got to star in movies,” Shankman said.
Inside the theater, attendees sipped on canned Absolut cocktails and took their seats. Various “Drag Race” alumni including Bob the Drag Queen, Monét X Change, Trinity the Tuck and Nicole Paige Brooks were scattered throughout the audience.
“I am really happy to be here,” RuPaul said as he introduced the movie. “First of all, to be a part of this documentary means so much to me,” he added, making the room roar with laughter.
After the screening, the crowd moved to La Bohème, a restaurant in West Hollywood, for drinks and dancing.
Servers wore T-shirts that looked like the Stank Rail and Glamazonian Express uniforms and offered cocktails including the “cosmopoli-train” (a cosmopolitan) and the “hot flashback” (a spicy vodka margarita). Attendees snapped photos in a train-themed photo booth in the restaurant’s garden.
Inside the restaurant, RuPaul was curating the music from a balcony above the dance floor. As he played songs like “Smooth Criminal” by Michael Jackson, “Point of No Return” by Exposé and “Into The Groove” by Madonna, he danced and twirled from his perch.
When he put on “How Will I Know” by Whitney Houston, he ran downstairs to shimmy with his fellow cast members.
“I love irreverence, I love to laugh, I love to make fun of everything,” he said earlier in the evening. “That’s what drag is.”
“We are court jesters, and the court jester is really the shaman of any situation,” he said. “They are what reminds our culture: Don’t take it too seriously. ”
