Category is cerebral. Suzie Toot entered RuPaul’s Drag Race as the brilliant theater kid with a specific vantage into the art of drag. With a signature paint and runway package filled with vintage references, Suzie was unlike any other contestant this season. Consistently performing well, she made Drag Race history spending 12 straight weeks never placing below safe. But it was one challenge where she returned to the classic Toot that knocked her out just shy of the finale.
As the beacon of vitriol and animosity, especially through the eyes of Lexi Love, her Season 17 sisters put a target straight on her back as they seemed threatened by how consistently well she performed throughout the competition. But that didn’t deter her. As Suzie said, “They were definitely threatened in the beginning. I think all of that was so very real, and then, because of that, it became the joke.”
Suzie Toot Explains Where Her Drag All Started

COLLIDER: She tapped her way into our hearts, it’s Suzie Toot! Congratulations on a fantastic run on Drag Race.
SUZIE TOOT: Thank you so much, love. I appreciate it.
COLLIDER: If you could describe your Drag Race 17 journey in three words, what would they be?
SUZIE: Oh, my God. Well, I guess I just did it. Yeah, it was f– crazy. It was incredible. It was wild. It was everything I thought it would be, and then nothing that I thought it was going to be.
COLLIDER: Let’s talk about your inspiration for drag. Where does it come from?
SUZIE: So it started with tap dancing. As soon as I learned what tap was and got into it, I fell deeply in love with it, and looked up everything that ever had to do with it. So Singing in the Rain became a huge touchstone, and just Debbie Reynolds, and Eleanor Powell, and the greatest tap dancers alive. Not only were they so talented, they looked amazing. The style of it, I thought was so incredible. And that’s where it all began.
COLLIDER: Cerebral is your buzzword. I love a smart queen. How did that work to your advantage?
SUZIE: I think it played my advantage in a lot of ways. I think especially in the beginning of the season. It gave me the edge to sort of step ahead and cut above the crowd. But, you know, it can also be a disadvantage. It can also sometimes, I think way too much, and that applies to everything in my life.
COLLIDER: Now, there were certain challenges that you wanted to win. You came very close, but didn’t. Talk to me about your sisters getting the glory on the challenges that you thought were yours.
SUZIE: You know, the only time it, because even in the Rusical when Sam [Star] won, I was so happy for her because I knew what that I did well, and I’m always proud to be a fierce second place. The only time it really got my goat with Snatch Game, because I wanted to do so good, and I couldn’t yet grapple with the fact that I did poorly, so everybody else who did well infuriated me to no end.
COLLIDER: And it’s interesting, because as a theater kid myself, I got Ellen Greene. I knew that Ellen Greene. Do you think it was just misunderstood?
SUZIE: I think there’s a lot that you can say about it. Most of all being that my impression is a hat on a hat. Like I’m doing a caricature of Ellen Greene doing a caricature of herself in the 2015 Encores production. Entirely inaccessible to really anybody besides super fans of it. And that is a folly. That’s bad on my end, you know. So I think there’s a world in which many people thought it was funny, or in the room. There were definitely people behind the camera laughing very hard at me, which was a piece of why I was so confident about my performance. But, you know, I can’t in good faith justify it.
COLLIDER: It was the season of the people versus Suzie Toot. Do you think the girls were threatened by your success and potential?
SUZIE: I think they were. They were definitely threatened in the beginning. I think all of that was so very real, and then, because of that, it became the joke and the status quo that like, “Oh, we hate Suzie. She’s doing good.” So then, toward the second half of the season, I think it did live in a much more lighthearted and humorous place.
COLLIDER: Now, when it came to role assignments, was a coincidence that you just happened to always be one of the central figures in the chat?
SUZIE: No, I mean, that’s the Rachel Berry. It’s always gonna fall. I think there’s definitely coincidence in like every time Onya [Nurve] wanted a role, I think people would have fought her, but she just happened to pick roles that nobody else went for.
COLLIDER: Fair enough.
SUZIE: Where every time I chose a role, it was contested, and who knows, partially because they knew that I could read a script well, and therefore anything that I wanted, they’re like, “Well, that’s probably the winning role.” I knew it after “RDR Live.”
Suzie Toot Becomes a “Robbed Queen” of ‘Drag Race’

COLLIDER: There’s been a lot of online chatter, so I would like to let you speak on it. Talk to me about what it was like having your mom come into the Werk Room for the makeover challenge.
SUZIE: It was really amazing. I’m so, so proud of her that she did it at all, because I would never have imagined her, I mean, on a stage anywhere, much less an international TV stage. And I’m so proud of her for pushing through and fighting and making it happen. And I think it made for a really special moment of television. So many people have reached out and said that their relationships were similar to mine, and they really got to see themselves on TV, which was very cool.
COLLIDER: I thought it was amazing and beautiful. So I’m so proud of you to see that connection and that you’re so happy about it.
SUZIE: Yes, thank you.
COLLIDER: Let’s talk about this final challenge here. It was a big audition. Now, as a theater kid, did you tap into the audition mindset?
SUZIE: Absolutely, and I think a little too much. Where, once I heard “audition,” I was like, okay, professional, I can do it. I have a plan. I’m great. And that worked, I think, really well for the interview. Where I love talking to Latrice Royale. Of course, that’s my hometown girl, and I was very, very easily, very ready to lay out my case and let ’em know why I earned a spot there. But for the photo shoot, watching it back, I’m like, “Jesus Christ, have fun.” Like, talk, like joke. That’s how I am in photo shoots now, like real ones. But in my brain, I was in such professional mode, and it’s just not how you want to be on Drag Race.
COLLIDER: Absolutely. Well, 12 weeks, never below safe first and only time in the bottom two. What was going through your mind when you were about to lip sync?
SUZIE: I said the same thing to myself that I said before I lip sync to “Woman’s World” the first day is, “Do what you do.” You know, give Suzie Toot, because whoever is performing next to you can do whatever they do, but they can’t do Suzie Toot. But I think I was coming from a place that was already so defeated and kind of hurt that, you know. And Sam, I think, ate me up a little bit.
COLLIDER: Many Drag Race legends have been eliminated just shy of the finale, placing in fifth place. What does it mean to be in such great company?
SUZIE: I mean that part is really thrilling. You know, Katya, BendeLaCreme, those are two queens that I look up to so much. And you know, it’s not a bad place to be. Sometimes you can win the whole thing, and people will be furious, and hate you incessantly because they thought someone else should have won. And to be in the company of, I’m using quotes here, “robbed queens” is pretty fabulous.

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Suzie Toot Is Ready for Broadway

COLLIDER: When Suzie Toot makes it to Broadway, what’s the dream role?
SUZIE: The dream role is Charity Valentine in Sweet Charity.
COLLIDER: Just please be better than Sutton Foster.
SUZIE: That, I mean, really, the wig was her downfall. The wig was insane.
COLLIDER: It was such a bad production. It was so bad.
SUZIE: And I love Sutton Foster. Look, obviously my Anything Goes bullshit as we saw sent me home. But yeah, I think that show really could use a queer lens and a queer viewpoint. Like drag queens in the f– ballroom. It would be too good.
COLLIDER: Let’s make it happen. We’re speaking into existence.
SUZIE: Manifest it. Come on, let’s do it.
COLLIDER: We’re going to play a quick round of Tea Time. I’m going to give you a name of one of your Drag Race 17 sisters, and you’re going to give me the first word or phrase that comes to mind. Are you ready to play?
SUZIE: Love it, absolutely.
COLLIDER: Lucky Starzzz.
SUZIE: A delight.
COLLIDER: Joella.
SUZIE: Horrible.
COLLIDER: Hormonal Lisa.
SUZIE: Crazy
COLLIDER: Acacia Forgot.
SUZIE: Nasty.
COLLIDER: Crystal Envy.
SUZIE: Ooh, perfect.
COLLIDER: Arrietty.
SUZIE: Rotted.
COLLIDER: Lana Ja’Rae.
SUZIE: Ooh, a ki.
COLLIDER: Kori King.
SUZIE: [guttural noise]. That’s the response.
COLLIDER: Lydia B Kollins.
SUZIE: Angel.
COLLIDER: Sam Star.
SUZIE: F- you.
COLLIDER: Onya Nurve.
SUZIE: Genius.
COLLIDER: Lexi Love.
SUZIE: Bitter.
COLLIDER: And finally, Suzie Toot.
SUZIE: Cerebral.
COLLIDER: Last, but not least. Now that you’ve been on Drag Race, what is the next dream?
SUZIE: Oh, man, I got a ton of stuff in the works. I have a one-woman show. I’ve got a film. A YouTube channel. There’s so much coming out. The dream for me is to be performing at a high level for the rest of my days. Wherever that is.
COLLIDER: Well, this is just the beginning. I see a great future for you. Congratulations.
SUZIE: Thank you, love I appreciate it.

The Amazing Race

Release Date

September 5, 2001

Network

CBS

Showrunner

Elise Doganieri, Bertram van Munster, Jonathan Littman