Pearl Lam (林明珠): Hello, so this is Pearl Lam Podcast. I am here in LA sitting in Magnus Hastings’s home. I went today. I’m so, so happy that I have Magnus sitting with me. And let Magnus, Magnus can you tell the audience about who you are and your journey to become who you are today?

Magnus Hastings: My name is Magnus Hastings and I’m a photographer who moved to LA 13 years ago from London. I photograph particularly Drag Queens, queer people and are part of that whole rise of drag that happened 10 years ago as a big part of that. That’s who I am.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): Magnus, I’ve known you since millions of years ago and you were such a teenage girl. Actually, Magnus, you know, you were an actor. I remember when I met you, you were an actor. And you keep on complaining that you were too tall and too tall for any theatre and then you couldn’t get.

Magnus Hastings: I was too tall, because when you put me next to women, they’d look lovely and delicate and fragile, but you put me next to any other man and they look like a dwarf. So I would either have to be the lead or the villain, but you couldn’t give me a small part. The only big, not big role I got. But the the biggest thing I did was a null coward play where I played the dude that the lead handsome act. It was about putting on a play within a play. And because the all the other men in it were playing gay, I was playing and I wasn’t and they’re all straight and I was screaming the gay, but it was no coward. I was allowed to be who you are, me and it was. But I was so I was playing this young, handsome actor who could be tall and within the play, within the play wasn’t a big part, but I was allowed to be that because the director was playing gay. The director being the actor. The lead actor was playing a director, and he was he was short.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): OK. And then why from actor? And then you transform into?

Magnus Hastings: I’d always been I’ve been taking photographs for years. My dad was semi-professional and I kind of watched grew up.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): I thought your dad was a lawyer?

Magnus Hastings: He was a lawyer, but he did he have a dark room and he was always developing pictures into he was he sort of took, he was very I don’t want to say a hobby. I say semi professional because he had lots of things published, but he was some kind of photographer. He was good, but it was always about people. I remember he did like Dudley Moore’s album covers and he did it just things. And I stole all his enlarging equipment, was all in the attic. And I stole that and turned my bedroom into a darkroom because it had a sink. And then I taught myself. I didn’t study photography, I just taught myself. I just played around until I got it how I wanted it.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): But why drag? Why did you specialize in drag photography?

Magnus Hastings: Because I was a little drag child. Because it makes sense to me so.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): What do you mean by little drag child?

Magnus Hastings: I was cross dressing. I, my sister was. We was like polar opposites. My sister Sophie. Yeah, your friend.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): My very good friend.

Magnus Hastings: She always had a boxing gloves and was on the football team and she was this little, should have been a lesbian, but she wasn’t. So she was this little bruiser and I had dolls used to wear her clothes, used to borrow mum’s feathers, used to lip sync to songs. I was just wanted to be a little girl and and I used to cross dress all the time. It got shamed out of me. I remember my dad once saying to me while I was lip syncing to a song and he said people make careers out of that and I knew there was something humiliating about it. And then my mum, I was again dressed. I used to put on plays and I’d always be the the lead girl and make Sophie and my step sister Tash be the supporting roles and I’d be the girl and and I remember mum once saying, will you ever play the boy at me? And I was so there were so it kind of got shamed out of me. And then when I got older, I got tall and I had this thing about if I’m going to, I have to be a beautiful drag queen rather than the man in a dress. So I so it just became something that.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): So why didn’t you you become a drag queen?

Magnus Hastings: Because I didn’t want, because I became again my height interfering with everything. But no, but also my, my photography, it is my expression of it. I don’t. I’ve never felt like I’m observing it. I’ve always felt like I’m participating in it. So I come within, I understand exactly what’s going on, what’s going on internally in a way. So I’ve always been part of the world and not someone, for instance, I don’t take pictures of for years. Drag Queens are always this sort of looking wistfully into mirrors that they’re going to have a miserable life. It’s an unhappy gay man. Whereas it wasn’t ever about that. It was about celebrating these incredible exotic creatures. So I came at it from a different way.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): So, OK, so before you came to LA, you already started your drag photography?

Magnus Hastings: I became, well, yeah, I did started that. I, I, I was an actor and then I, I, I was doing head shots as a photographer and I was doing very well at it, but it was like disposable hideous photography. And I ended up with, it was just dealing with people’s neurosis all the time. And anyway, and so, but then I, I suddenly had enough of acting and I, I remember calling my agent and saying I don’t want to do it anymore. And I really stuck to it. And I said, we’ve got an audition for you going to Broadway. And I went, I don’t care. I don’t want to do it. I just, no, I’m done. And then within three months I went into a fact, it was the only bar called The Box in London.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): Of course I know The Box.

Magnus Hastings: No, The Old Box.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): Not The New Box.

Magnus Hastings: You know, the debauchery box, this was like a bar that had a gallery, but it was, at the time the only one that was like a queer space for photos. And I’m, and I went in and said, can I have an exhibition? And I said, do you need to see a picture? And they went, yeah. And I showed them some stuff and they went OK. And they usually had a waiting list. And they bumped them off and put me in. And I basically, I did quite a clever thing. I photographed local gay Soho celebrity, you know what I mean? Gay famous people. So it felt like a celebrity exhibition and included two or three drag queens. And I went around and I did these things and I blew them up and I had them pressed onto PVC and I just did these things that I saw in my head that I wanted to do and I had no idea if anyone was going to like them. And I put them up at night and I remember going, I really like them and they were very kind of in your face colourful pop party. And so I put them up thinking I like them, but I’m so I have no idea. And then the next day the thing opened and time out walked passed and put it as their show of the week. It just went [viral]. And then I then I was asked to shoot all the covers of all the game magazines, all the covers of all the game magazines from that. So on my career, just it, it was giving up acting and flipping to that. And within three or four months it was working. It was like what I should have been doing all along, really.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): Did you make? I mean, shooting magazine doesn’t pay.

Magnus Hastings: No, it doesn’t. No, I’m no, I’m an artist, but I’m not rich.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): You’re rich enough to support yourself.

Magnus Hastings: You just have a lovely.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): Thanks, Father.

Magnus Hastings: Don’t drop that in.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): It’s OK because because what is what is important in life is to find your for find your real passion. And it is incredibly lucky that you know you. Both you and I, we can work for our passion. You know how many I mean?

Magnus Hastings: How many people can do that? When the last, when I inherited some money the last time, I immediately I was at the time, I didn’t know how I was going to pay my rent. And then this, it just happened and overnight I was like, Oh my God, I’ve got some money. And the first thing I did was think was, oh, I can now do this project that I want to do. I can now. So I’m now again not feeling particularly affluent, but I because I all I care about is creating and doing stuff and that’s what I’ve used any.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): This is great, you know, because we have to thank really, really be thankful that you have a passion and I have a passion when we both can work, I mean work and because on jobs that we love, I mean, how many people?

Magnus Hastings: I do.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): And I mean so.

Magnus Hastings: No, it’s, I mean, my my friends have got have got a running gag. That’s me with my charmed life because I kind of do. But yes, I’ve been able to, yeah, to do to, to also to be able to say no to things and to just.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): Exactly. Exactly. And that’s, and that, that is a really fantastic thing. Fabulous. Yeah. Fabulous life, darling.

Magnus Hastings: In LA, you’re my little tiny.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): And then and OK, so then you start doing your the photography, the magazines.

Magnus Hastings: Well, no. So I was doing that, but at the same time I then went to Sydney, so the big drag thing happened. So I’d done a few drag queens in London and that taken off and then I went to Sydney. Yeah. So then I went to Sydney and it was like.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): I didn’t even know that Sydney has this.

Magnus Hastings: Sydney at the time, so that was in 2003, maybe 2. And it had the most incredible drag scene where really the shows they were putting on huge in England, it was like a bruiser of a drag queen singing live and being funny. And in Sydney it was a full, it was all about lip syncing, but lip syncing incredibly. So you really believe that you’re watching this show and they put on huge numbers and they put money at it. And it was, they were incredible. And I walked in the one of the first night, I took my cameras with me and I had my portfolio from all the stuff in England. And I just arrived in Sydney and went, Oh my God, this is where I need to be. And I walked into a club and there was actually, it’s in my bedroom, the picture, but there was a Vanity Fair dressed as Dorothy, but immaculately dressed as Dorothy, the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen. And it turns out she was, she now makes wigs. And it was, she’d made her first wig and it was and I was just transfixed by this creature doing a version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow. And I then said, I need to photograph you. And she was, should have you got a card? And I said no, I was just like, it was so weird. And then I went in the next day to her shop where she worked and she looked through my book and she went OK and. And she turned up as the queen bee of Sydney. Oh.

Pearl Lam: Really. Oh my God.

Magnus Hastings: Because she did it everyone I was there, the whole thing opened up to me and I started to photograph the queens there. But also I the next year I photographed Courtney Act. But it was the thing that they I did was I photographed them in a totally different way. It was, I remember when Courtney sent me a thing off. Well, so once I’d done the ones there, then I was sent in to see a magazine that doesn’t exist anymore. What’s it called? There was a big like artsy Sydney gay magazine and I was sent in for someone heard I was doing this drag thing and the editor was really rude and she sat there and she said so I hear you’re doing drag queens niche market. And I said OK, and I opened the book and she went, Oh my God, it’s pop art. She gave me a 10 page spread there. And then first the first magazine I’d ever walked into in like that with my work rather than. And yeah. And it because so it was, I was then always planning to do a book and it it. But anyway, so when I left Sydney, Courtney sent me an e-mail saying I just want to thank you for what you’re doing for drag and what?

Pearl Lam: Courtney is the.

Magnus Hastings: Courtney Act is a very famous drag. She won Celebrity Big Brother in England, She was on RuPaul’s Drag Race. She’s she’s somewhere so on the cover of my book and and we became she became my muse and we did loads and loads and loads of stuff together. But she, but it was, yeah, she just sent me this e-mail saying how I was really doing something new and different because I wasn’t looking at drag Queens, as it’s like when people say to me that why, why are you interested in drag Queens as if they’re these, these, these things that isn’t that interesting, these gay men who do. And I’m like these.

Pearl Lam: Creatures.

Magnus Hastings: There I see that I know I don’t they’re just it’s about art. It’s about creating art and that’s the one thing my book that I found out it was when that came out, I found it was in like the Harvard Library and in makeup schools and things because the people were studying the makeup and what people were doing. But anyway, so I’m going Fast forward. But it was yeah, it was about looking at it differently. And that’s what I did because I think because I come, as I say, from inside, I’m not going, oh, who are these funny drag queens? And also, the basic thing is if someone spent three and three hours doing their makeup in the mirror, shading their face, you don’t stick a fucking light here. You liked this? And I was one of the first people to actually do that. So they go, yeah, because they’d always go, oh, let’s be creative and arty and not go. You’ve got it’s, it’s actually a man in makeup. And if you do that, you’re going to highlight all of the male features. But if you’d like the, the the shading and what they’ve done, then the illusion is there. And no one was doing that.

Pearl Lam: Wow, not just a pretty face, my dear.

Magnus Hastings: Ageing. Sagging.

Pearl Lam: So and so Sydney is actually your opening.

Magnus Hastings: That was my opening and I so I but I planned to do a book then and it was called Dragged Around the World. And then I got back to England and I went to see a publisher. I spoke to the Elton John AIDS Foundation and they were they were into it. And I then went to see my first publisher and she said, great, let’s get a psychiatrist to write the foreword.

Pearl Lam: Psychiatrist. Why?

Magnus Hastings: Because they’re strange men in dresses in her head. And I said no, and that’s not for me. And she apparently then kept the picture of Dorothy and pinned it up behind her thing. But, but I was like, no, not my thing. And so it kind of got sidelined. Oh, and then because then I ended up with the through the magazines. I was doing lots of pop stars and and more mains book queer stuff, but I was.

Pearl Lam: You were doing celebrities.

Magnus Hastings: I was doing celebrity stuff for the gay magazines, which got me my visa to here because all my work was all celebrities. So I played, I played on that to get my visa.

Pearl Lam: As a working visa here.

Magnus Hastings: Yeah, to get my working visa to come to America. But once I got here and there was a.

Pearl Lam: Management. What? Why? Why America? Why couldn’t you stay? Stay in London.

Magnus Hastings: Because I just, I felt like I got well known in England as this gay photographer and at the time.

Pearl Lam: In the range of how long? 5-6 years? 2-3 years hang.

Magnus Hastings: On maybe five year, 5-6 years, yeah, I felt like I’d gone as far. I felt like straight people work straight magazines and things, but I wasn’t hitting that. So I kind of went, but then I had, I also was out here and I did a bit of work on the side and I for one year and I just thought this is where I want it just felt like where I needed to be. So I but then this guy was helping me get out here and he tried. He said, just bury all your gay stuff. You’re better than that and all of this. And I’m like.

Pearl Lam: What do you mean the better?

Magnus Hastings: Exactly. It was so stupid, so stupid and my drag stuff. And he said you’ve got to do celebrity. And I anyway, I got here and then within 5 minutes I went, I just drag is what I get. And then Courtney moved here at the same time. And then we just, she introduced me to some of the Drag Race girls. And so I started started on America started doing that and, and just getting myself back into drag, which I loved. And then I turned that into a Facebook page because I thought I’ve got all of these images of drag. What am I doing? No one’s seeing them. I’m just kind of, it was kind of pre Instagram as well, I guess. So no one was seeing anything. And that really took off. And then I got a show in New York. I was in, it was called the Out Hotel and it had a massive gallery space and I was staying there and in New York and I went, this would be good for me to have a show and, and, and, but I also knew that Season 6 of Drag Race was about to come out. I shot the top, the finalists. So I want.

Pearl Lam: How do you get into RuPaul’s Drag Show being the photographer?

Magnus Hastings: I no, I was shooting them independently. I was then asked to be on one episode. I was on one episode, but I may I was, I was on one episode and then I completely fucked that all I mean.

Pearl Lam: How did you fucked it up?

Magnus Hastings: Because I was rude and they were.

Pearl Lam: Why were you rude?

Magnus Hastings: Because I turned up I was really nervous and they asked me to be on Season 7 Episode 1 as the guest photographer, but they phoned me up and they said will you do it? And I just come off my show in New York, which was a big success. I.

Pearl Lam: Was just what show in New York.

Magnus Hastings: So I had this show in New York called Why Drag, which turned into and I got up a literary agent from that. I got a book deal from that. So I was riding high in drag world and gay world of being the drag guy.

Pearl Lam: The drag photographer.

Magnus Hastings: The big drag photographer. And so then and also once I started reaching out to people from just from the Sydney thing, I was well known within the drag community knew me. If they were good at drag, they knew of me because there were so few people doing it and I was the one changing it. And then so then they are, they asked me to be on episode 1 and I said am I judging because the photographer is always judged? No, you’re not judging, but you can be so important. You’re going to be announcing the work and we’re going to judge a few pictures. It’s going to be a whole thing. And I had various conversations with them and I said just as long as you don’t make me look insignificant because I’ve built this thing up, no problem. So I turned up on the day and they said they’d already said bring some of these clothes, normal clothes. And then they said where are your black clothes? I said well I’m going to be black clothes. You making a stage manager? And they said no. And then they had extras around me with cameras. So I was basically looking like a paparazzi. So I’m going, what is going on? And then they then what did they do? Then Ru came over to introduce himself and started to talk to me in an Australian accent. I was so nervous, I went why are you talking in an Australian accent? And he went, are you not Australian? And I went no, but I was kind of rude because I was nervous and then.

Pearl Lam: Did you tell him that you’re.

Magnus Hastings: And I also was looking at him going, we do yoga. We’ve been in the same yoga class with 10 people for the last year. Do you not recognise this? Like in my head, this is really weird. I mean, he was being really, in retrospect, he was being sweet, but I was being kind of, what’s going on, being a nightmare. And then you’re always in, no, no, I’m better now. I told you, and I’ve learned.

Pearl Lam: So Ru came over.

Magnus Hastings: He came over and I was, I wasn’t rude. I was just like, what’s going on?

Pearl Lam: Can you apologise to Ru now?

Magnus Hastings: No, I’ve seen Roo afterwards, but I don’t want to actually dissect Ru. OK, because she’s not the easiest, but anyway.

Pearl Lam: She’s Megan now.

Magnus Hastings: Yeah, but she was. Yeah. And but so, but then anyway, then they, the producers, it just got worse from there than the the main producers heard me speaking and saw me and went, oh, actually we want to mic him and we wanted because I wasn’t on mic. So they mic me up. And then I thought, why are you miking me? I’m not speaking to anyone. I’m at the end of the runway shooting these Queens and I’d have this thing where I talk to myself all the time all out loud like we’re not because I live on my own. So I mumble and complain out loud, but I was miked, forgot I was miked, and they’d ask me to do something and I go, I’m not fucking done mandar from mumbling to myself. I’m not breaking my light. I’m not doing that. I mean, all of this and I was going was at lunch, forgetting I was still miked, still mumbling and complaining. Then they took the thing off. And then they came back to me saying, actually, we want to make you an interview you about all of the girls. And they wouldn’t let me have see. They didn’t give me a list of names. They didn’t let me see the pictures. So I was then stuck on camera. There’s you look great on camera. This is like your audition to be regular. So I’m like nervous. And then they said, So what about so and so and I go, well, who’s that? Because when I’m taking pictures, I’m focused on getting a great shot, not on what they’re wearing, what they’re called since I didn’t know their name. So it was very awkward. And they kept saying then say something nice about them, say something mean about them. And I went and I said, this isn’t, I haven’t got a job with you. I have my reputation with all the queens. They all want to work with me. They all know me. I’m not going to start bad mouthing queens because you want a sound bite. And I have no guarantee of a regular on here. So anyway, it just got worse. Anyway, cut to the finally I go to the launch and I went and I took, I was supposed to be in San Francisco. I changed it because I said you are coming, you’re in the show. And I went there and they cut me down to an eighth of a second. So on the day he said, you’ve been announced in the workroom, all the girls went mad. They’re all thrilled. All of it was cut. So all it was was me going click with my name flashing up on the screen saying celebrity photographer or something. So I stood there in this thing going don’t cause a scene, don’t cause a scene as I drunk more and more and more. And of course in the end I was like moaning and bad mouthing people. Not a full scene there. But I was pissed off. And then I went home going right, check your emails because they we had all these agreements and I realised they’d done the whole thing on the phone. So there was nothing in writing and I just sent a message and I was really up. Just I understand you have a show to make and you had to edit it. I get it. But just a heads up would have been nice that I wouldn’t you tell me it was all cut and they gave me a we really appreciate you. Sorry you feel like that ordered this bullshit. But then I would get drunk out in public and bad mouth world of wonder and say very rude things. And then Bianca Del Rio said to me at one point, please stop bad mouthing them. They know you better say, OK, so I blew that. And then I did drag it on. I blew that. I blew Dragula. So I was a guest judge on that twice.

Pearl Lam: So why did you blew that?

Magnus Hastings: The first time I was was smash hit. And then the second time I did it and we were, and it was just, it just dragged on all day. And they’d asked me to be the regular judge on that. And then I couldn’t do it because I was going to London. And then I was rude to the Boulet Brothers on, on New Year’s Eve and I and because again, I was drunk and I was rude to them and I and then I blew and they didn’t invite me back. That’s the pot, the potted story. I could give you a much more explicit version, but that’s enough.

Pearl Lam: So but now.

Magnus Hastings: You but we’re fine. I mean, it’s just it’s, it is what it is. It’s it’s the lesson of being being.

Pearl Lam: Today’s Magnus

Magnus Hastings: And today I don’t drink or take.

Pearl Lam: Bravo

Magnus Hastings: So and that makes a difference.

Pearl Lam: Yeah, because when you, when you drink all your yeah, all your inhibitions. No, your your inhibitions. It’s just.

Magnus Hastings: Completely inhibitions, but also it’s all these voices in your head, your insecurities and you think it’s it’s all your paranoia and all of that stuff. It’s not rational. And the thing that we’re cutting very Fast forward to this huge show I’ve just had in London that happened. I’ve been 2 1/2 years sober and that happened in sobriety. Now. If it hadn’t been I, I was such a they just, they thought I was the nicest.

Pearl Lam: Explain to the audience about your London show.

Magnus Hastings: So I just finished, I had a show at the Walker Gallery and it’s in Liverpool. The huge, amazing, prestigious gallery in Liverpool asked me to have a show like a retrospective and then also fly there and shoot local queen. So it was, so it started off being a big show of they approached me and they, they asked me to do it and I’m like, OK, fine. So what happened was I got asked to do a show at the Walker Gallery in Liverpool. They approached me earlier in the year, they’d approached me last year and it didn’t happen, but it was very kind of haphazard and didn’t feel very official. I didn’t know what was going on. And then this year they came back, but with a full proposal asking me to go over and, and but it, but I had no idea the kind of extent of it. So initially they said coming over, having a show and I thought, great, what have whatever space it’s going to be. And I also at this point in my career, I if it’s like, I’ll see it when I believe it. Let’s see. But then they said send us some pictures and we we’ll do a mock up of the gallery this and they then I sent through some stuff. They sent me back this walkthrough and I was like, holy shit. There were pictures that were 9 foot by 20 foot, huge wall sized.

Pearl Lam: Wow! I love it.

Magnus Hastings: It was incredible and it was, it was so exciting. And so how after 10 years of these days, if you work, unless someone buys a print or you’re shown in a gallery, but then it’s never that big, but people generally see all your work on a fucking phone or a computer screen. And so finally I’m doing especially drag, which is so huge and I’m suddenly looking at going, this is how it’s supposed to be seen. And but it so, but just the fact that it was so easy to work with them. They then at one point I said they, they said this is the space. You’ve got these huge ones. The not the smallest ones were I think 3 foot by two foot. So when the big ones were 9 foot by 20, I mean, it was incredible. They said we want to fly you over and shoot local queens to mix in with all because I’ve shot all of the big famous drag queens now. All of them. So it was like a star-studded drag show. And then I went over and shot the local queens. That was there was a section of that. So it was mixed in. So it really fed to the community, but also showcased the people love seeing all of the famous ones too. And but then at one point I said, so I had a project I did that was called gay face. That was more, it was queer rather, it wasn’t just drag, it was the whole community. And I said, well, why don’t I put do instead of one of the huge pictures, we do an installation of say twenty of the white boxes of the, of famous drag queens. And he said, fuck that. Let’s just do. Why don’t we turn the whole first gallery space into white boxes? So I so this is how good this guy was. So I then, so you walked in and there were 110 white boxes. He built a life-size white box for people to take their own pictures in. It was.

Pearl Lam: Amazing.

Magnus Hastings: It was the show for the white boxes with the show I couldn’t have because COVID happened when all of that was launched. The book was launched during COVID. So it was every step would be bigger and better and it was also everything we said we we, we worked so well together and leads back to the drinking thing. I was sober. So when there were moments when I would normally have gone oh got annoyed and gone. I want this. I was able to react in such a different way. So I mean, I’m the people who’ve known me for years laugh because I said they thought I was the easiest, nicest person to work with because I was, I was just, it was about creating something and being I’m working with. And also to be fair, we worked, I’ve been working on a different project with someone who’s intolerable. So that’s good. But it was just a wonderful experience that I, I think I would have got too nervous and crazy had I not been sober. But it was and it was a huge hit and it’s amazing. And now we’re hoping it tours and the gallery wants to tour it and all sorts of stuff. So.

Pearl Lam: So you’re very happy?

Magnus Hastings: I was really. Yeah, I was. I was just, I mean, I did have people going. I went there and they were like banners flying outside this gallery with my name on the pictures on and and somebody said, are you just taking a breath and looking at what’s going on? And it was, see, it was and also people going, this is a gallery for the first time seeing drag as a proper art form.

Pearl Lam: Wow

Magnus Hastings: And, and as me as an artist and it was, it was very interesting to and at one point I was going, well, I can’t put that in. It’s like everyone knows that picture. I thought, well, isn’t that the point? It’s like this classic famous drag picture that people can now see. 9 foot tall and it’s a huge bit of pop art.

Pearl Lam: It’s amazing, Yeah. So you basically destroy your opportunities, your TV opportunities on both drag shows and the drag shows and during the time when drag queen was becoming.

Magnus Hastings: Well, no. Well, I’m main part, yeah, but I’m part. The one thing I was pleased to hear somebody said they got the breakdown from World of Wonder who produce Drag Race. They had the 20 most important things in drag history and my book Why Drag was part was on the list. So at least they don’t hate me that much to not put me on in there. But no so from the show in New York. So all of that happened around that time then?

Pearl Lam: And and the book Why Drag has it, has it published yet? During the time.

Magnus Hastings: Yeah. Do you want me to show you?

Pearl Lam: You. Yeah, Please show. You should give me one. Wow, she’s beautiful. Oh my God, look, she’s beautiful. Oh, but I love the way you put that.

Magnus Hastings: I mean, obviously I can barely look at it now because I’ve so I’ve grown a lot since since.

Pearl Lam: Of course, that’s many years ago.

Magnus Hastings: This is 2016, so it’s they were shot from sort of 2014 onwards. I can show you the Dorothy though. Yeah, this is it’s this is like 20 years old. This is when I.

Pearl Lam: Is this the Is this the makeup Bible?

Magnus Hastings: That’s the Dorothy.

Pearl Lam: Oh, really? Looks like.

Magnus Hastings: Yeah, this is the Dorothy. There you go. Whoever wants to see that?

Pearl Lam: Yeah.

Magnus Hastings: Anyway, so that so So what happened? So from the show, I got a literary agent suddenly hit me up from this New York thing. So then in New York, it was about 40. I did it all on canvas because I didn’t want them behind glass because again, I wanted it to feel like you’re in it. And there are about 40 of them. And I blew them up as big as possible. They’re all canvases. Said that was the cheapest way to do it. And, and everyone went crazy in New York for that because again, no one had seen anything like that in, in that way. And people, I was hearing people going back and back and back to see it. But so this literary agent who didn’t actually go to see it, saw an interview with me and some pictures, called me in and I thought, OK, fine. And then he, he offered to represent me. And it seemed like I had so many. I had already had a forward by Boy George because I’d asked him to write it and, and he ended up writing it for me. And I pretended the book was being published when really it was my show. So I put it so I had it and he and it was on that. So there was a picture of him and then his his introduction in the exhibition. But it was like a no brainer. There were all these pictures and drag was really exploding. Not every single publisher that it went to would go. There’d be people obsessed with it. And I’d always find out there was one straight man going drag. No, and it wouldn’t. And the agent was really going what the fuck is going on? And then it finally went to, I can’t remember my publisher now to, to Chronicle books in San Francisco. And they took it, thankfully. And, and then, and it became a re. It’s like a drag Bible. It’s, it was a huge hit and it’s still being published 8 years later and all of that. But it was, it was amazing that it was Rizzoli had it, but they nearly took it. Then they didn’t. And then they published somebody else’s book and used half my pictures without asking. I mean, it’s just.

Pearl Lam: Half of the picture as.

Magnus Hastings: I said, and I actually, somebody asked me one person, someone said one point someone said can we use some of these pictures? And I said no, they turned my book down. I’ll be fucked if they can use all my pictures in a different drag book. And then they wangled some because people, some of the drag queens misinformed them and said they were able to use the pictures, which they weren’t. But anyway, who cares. But it was they see the new me goes, that’s fine, tell me as fuck.

Pearl Lam: and then and then after that, what happened?

Magnus Hastings: So that went then. So that happened and was and then I was just basically being the drag guy, just shooting and shooting and shooting drag stuff. Drag Queens, all the most famous ones doing.

Pearl Lam: You must know all the drag. I know all drag queens because this I mean, I mean drag queens have become mainstream.

Magnus Hastings: No, Well, I know all of the big ones. I mean, then it comes a point where the new seasons, it’s kind of become so exhausting and so conveyability. I mean, I for the for the show in London, I shot the top three of the last season, season 16 specifically. So it felt very current. So I had plain Jane Sephira and Nymphia Wind in the show, but I mean my what the I’m it was Sharon Needle said to me was a she won one of the seasons and she she said you are that you are the per that represent the your work is like the representation of of the explosion and drag in the naughties, I guess, and beyond. But it was but now it’s it’s hard. I’m not it’s I I was so obsessed with it and so hard working. And after COVID, all of these kids want to do it for free. And they there, there, there. There’s so many drag queens. I mean, I know the ones I work with mostly are the real Alaska and Trixie and Courtney and the people to me who were the real legends of drag.

Pearl Lam: Wow, when you say legends of drag?

Magnus Hastings: Because the new ones are nice but it’s but once in a while one will pop out who’s really special. But do you think?

Pearl Lam: Of them, let me ask you, do you think drag queen should be an entertainer? Because today, [oh, yeah, I do]. You know, one of the conversation we had, I had today was that, you know, most of the drag queens today, they can only lip sync, but they cannot then they don’t have the wit. They cannot do, you know, they cannot hold show. They’re not a comedian.

Magnus Hastings: No, I mean there are what?

Pearl Lam: Do you think about?

Magnus Hastings: I think she’s right. No, I think today’s drag I find it’s.

Pearl Lam: Just a pretty face.

Magnus Hastings: Or there’s a type, there’s there’s two. There’s people like Alaska, like Jackie, obviously, but people who really are. They’ve come up through the ranks of drag before there was a show they were drag queens and they’re about performing and playing in clubs and being funny and yeah I.

Pearl Lam: Miss that?

Magnus Hastings: There’s a there’s a huge wave of.

Pearl Lam: Of, but that is an older generation.

Magnus Hastings: Right, there’s, yes, there’s some of the younger generation want to do that, but they’ve also the younger generation have grown up watching Drag Race with TikTok and with Instagram. So it’s all about the visual and it’s, it is, it’s really, to me, it’s really depressing. It’s not, I mean, I, when I was doing that book, there’s a lot of San Francisco drag in there, which was so exciting and so punk rock. And you go in there and no one had any money in San Francisco because everything’s so expensive there. So all they’d spent, they’d spend all their money on whatever they could on drag. All the money was spent on rent. So they spent every, so they put together shows on a shoestring and it was like theatre. It would disappear. It was one night and it would disappear. And it was certain people stapling their tips to their heads. And it was that crazy shit that was that was about. It’s not.

Pearl Lam: But there’s but there’s, Creativity is huge.

Magnus Hastings: Creativity and, and the thing like I’ve just been asked to produce a drag brunch and I kind of went, well, I was asked to help find someone to do it and I went, you know what? Why don’t I just do it? So because I know everybody. So I’ve started to do that. And then I haven’t been to a drag show for about four years since COVID. And I went to a few just locally and it was, they were so boring. I mean, what has happened all it was especially in America because they’re all about tips in America. But it’s the girls would come out and then start to sort of sing a song or lip sync to a song and then they’re just wandering around taking tips. And I’m like, what the fuck? And in in San Francisco, the thing I loved was they’d be they’d go and put on a show and if you wanted a tip, you’d screw your tip up and throw it on the stage because they’re not interrupting their show for anything. Whereas here it was just wandering around death drop, create the tips. And I just went there. So the show I’ve already said to the queens I’ve asked to do my show that I want you performing on. I don’t want you going near a tip for over half of the of the song and then you can go and get them. So put on a fucking show because that was really I don’t when will.

Pearl Lam: When will the show be?

Magnus Hastings: It’s in Venice on the 20th of October.

Pearl Lam: I won’t be here. I would love.

Magnus Hastings: To see it’s my first one.

Pearl Lam: Show I love drag show.

Magnus Hastings: I’ve got good, I’ve got some good Queens on it, so.

Pearl Lam: Can you tell everybody about when the show at?

Magnus Hastings: It’s the Venice West on the 20. The first one is at the Venice West on the 20th of October. Lincoln Blvd. I can’t A 1717 Lincoln Blvd Show starts at 12; 12 to 3. Doors open at 11. thevenicewest.com. Look it up.

Pearl Lam: That’s great. OK, So go on and then.

Magnus Hastings: Oh, so that what happens. Yeah. So then I was just doing, just shooting and being asked to shoot things, album covers for the all the quote for like they were doing Christmas albums. I was just always busy. I wanted to do pop videos and I never got round to it because I was always busy and then then I thought I’ve got to do my next book and I was trying to work out.

Pearl Lam: What? Yeah, you were doing gay face right.

Magnus Hastings: Yeah, well, so I was in a bar with and I was thinking, what can I do? It’s about two years after this came out because I was doing all sorts of stuff on the back of this, doing interviews. And and then I remember sitting in this bar going, what do I want to do for my next project? I’d always wanted to do something called gay face because it made me laugh because it’s like an insult and and I wanted to own it. Do you know the idea he’s got gay face? And I thought, well, what is the face of gay and all of that stuff? So I wanted to do that. And then I thought.

Pearl Lam: Do you have a gay face?

Magnus Hastings: I don’t actually, I can. Do you do Pearl and her gay face? No, but so it was supposed to and but then I also wanted to expand it into the whole community. So I was sort of adamantly wanted to be called gay face, but wanted to include a lot of trans people in it. And and then I remember arguing with Courtney and she said, can’t you call it queer face? And I went, that’s not a fucking thing. Queer face, it’s gay face. It’s funny. And and anyway, so the idea I went, what is the most, what do we need to do? Social media is the big the thing I have to get involved in with this. What’s the most social media friendly thing? A square. What can I do with a square? A box, a white box, because it bounces light everywhere. It’s an empty space. People can create their own thing. So I suddenly went, OK, I’m going to do that. I’m going to build a white box. I just had this thing and within two days I had built a white box and I’m going to get people in. I’m going to secretly get people in over three months. And then at the same day, at the same time, I want everyone to drop their picture on Instagram and on Twitter all at exactly the same time. And I’ve never seen that done before. And, and so I invited, I ended up being 120 people I shot it was the, I nearly packed the whole thing in 120 people where they’d come. And I’d say paint the box, draw on the boxes, decorate it, put whatever you want in it. Just express yourself. How would you like to see yourself in 10 years time that it represents you or I’d have ideas and things. So I’d also come up with things and cast people and but it was, I went to San Francisco over a week and I shot 65 people in this box and my back went completely. So I couldn’t walk. Two days before I was getting on the plane. I was, I actually couldn’t move and I had to have my neighbour put my shoes on, go to the doctor and go, I cannot cancel this. Give me the strongest drugs you’ve got. So I would, I was in San Francisco unable to get out of bed till I’d taken these pills. Then I’d finally be able to get out of bed. And then of course, I was drinking at night. I mean, it was like a shit show. And then I was in New York shooter, so I had a box in New York, box in San Francisco, box here. I did London later on and I did this and then everyone to there. I didn’t give anyone a picture because I knew it would leak. Someone would post it, they wouldn’t pay attention. So no one was allowed to see or get their picture until 30 minutes before they had to drop them. And I was going to have a tie in pop up exhibition the same day, so. I did all this and then we and trying to then we sent all the pictures 30 minutes before and everyone said the size is wrong because of course, once he got an assistant, they never do anything right. So he’d sent all the wrong sizes. So we then had to resend all of the images to people and, and, and they all, and I thought is anyone even they might go don’t like it, they might not want to do it. Every single person dropped that they were having a competition to drop them as fast as possible and it went exploded and everyone was like, what the fuck? No one had heard of it. And gay face trended on Twitter and it went everywhere and it was just huge. And then and then it went on for three years. I then turned and I carry, I went to drag con and shot. I went to Folsom and shot a bill to put a box there. And then that then turned into my next book where I got, but this time I got interviews with people because it became at the time, it was when the whole sexual and gender kind of revolution was really explored. That was 2018. So I was doing this, I was doing it in 2018. Book came out in 2020 and that so it was I had people again, I wanted to help people who didn’t get it about non binary and all of their stuff. So I had certain people I interviewed them so they talk about themselves. So it was just a really accessible way to people to go like someone who’s non binary is actually not trans, but so I’d have people just talking about themselves and somebody by somebody. So it was just, it was a really nice way and accessible way and fun way and creative and lots of nudity and craziness.

Pearl Lam: And I mean, now today we’ll always talk about an LGBTQ plus and with that movement, does it really help and support or what you’re doing?

Magnus Hastings: Well, it was, I mean, yeah, it was part, I mean.

Pearl Lam: And are you doing the things to support it.

Magnus Hastings: I’m doing that. I was doing something to support it and to also, yeah, I was doing my kind of my part in that to to help, to express it. My thing was to not was to help it not be something that’s annoying to let people have lots of people who are going, what the fuck is that? You know, just give it, give somebody access who’s just going thinking this is actually what matters to that person. It doesn’t cost me anything, but it really makes them comfortable. So let’s make it accessible. And it was just interesting to me. It was just something that seemed relevant and it’s, it resonated. People really got into it. But then of course the book came out. I did my last shoots in London for the book and then COVID happened. I feel it was like 2 days before I flew back and COVID, but then it was locked down and I thought the publisher because they had a clause, they could pull it because of natural disaster or things like that and thankfully they didn’t. But it was really frustrating. It was I couldn’t. I had a launch online with Alaska. We just sat on my balcony and did a thing with a book that.

Pearl Lam: Does it work?

Magnus Hastings: It was fine, but it was in the wide drag. I had three I launched in New York, launch here drag performances. That was half the fun was was doing it and and it was also very hard to promote in terms of magazine. Why drag went into every magazine everywhere, mainstream, everyone because it was new. And but this was the thing with the boxes is there. It’s about them being next to each other and how they relate to each other as much as what’s in it. And the the published of the the publisher would send out boxes for people to publish and they just published a box and then it wasn’t that’s not it. It’s about how everything works together and and so it wasn’t it wasn’t exciting in the same. There was fun, but they were interesting and some famous people and but it wasn’t didn’t have that kind of.

Pearl Lam: Vibes and dynamism

Magnus Hastings: But so when it ended up being a thing in the gallery, I was because there because why drag was a bigger success for me personally. So I felt like, oh, the drag queen stuff. Everyone loves that, but people go no, they really loved the book. Yeah, I was the boy there was gay for the the book. I wasn’t allowed to call it gay face. It was actually a trans woman who talked me round because she said I’m I’m a trans woman, but my whole life I’ve I’ve been fighting to be accepted by gay men and they’ve been they’ve not made me feel welcome. So I don’t want to be under the Monica gay. It makes me feel uncomfortable. So I for her, I went OK, Now I I don’t want somebody like Courtney saying, why don’t you call it queer faces. Isn’t that it was her saying this was my personal experience. I gay men were the worst to me as a trans woman so I called it rainbow revolution which is a bit.

Pearl Lam: Yeah, it’s so poetic, right? But.

Magnus Hastings: It’s not. I mean, it was happening.

Pearl Lam: Actually, but I actually rainbow revolution is very NAF.

Magnus Hastings: Shout out shows you know what they you know what you know what they wanted to call it. They wanted to call it express yourself, the publisher. And I went, I’m not calling. I said I’m not fucking calling it Born This Way either. I thought no remember revolutions just fine. No gay face is fucking cool. I wanted to call gay face. They wouldn’t call it gay face. So can we move on?

Pearl Lam: So, so during the COVID time, obviously you cannot take any picture of, you know, any full photograph at all.

Magnus Hastings: I did some I did. I did. One thing I was really proud of that didn’t go anywhere. I did. I went to all of the most famous drag Queens I knew because I could shoot outside. So I shot them all as boys outside and then I put that I had to happen to have them all at some point in their careers in makeup. So I then turned, it was a, it was a, it was a pro mask because there was all this mask controversy. And I put so their masks I created on their faces with them in makeup. So it was their own mouths in makeup with their boy bodies and their thingies. That was really cool.

Pearl Lam: Wow, have you published those pictures?

Magnus Hastings: Just online. It went on to like online things and they put it on QWERTY and things, but no. So it’s so frustrating. When I went, I looked at it the other day, I went. It’s really cool. It’s really cool. Why?

Pearl Lam: Don’t you do a book on that?

Magnus Hastings: Because that’s just one thing, isn’t it? I mean I should put it into work into then my next, but I’m trying to.

Pearl Lam: Is it on your Instagram grid?

Magnus Hastings: It’s on my website magnushastings.com. It’s called Mask. It’s called hashtag. Mask up. Hashtags are over though, aren’t they? We’ve got to stop that hashtag thing. Nobody wasn’t then I’m rude. Hashtags were all the rage.

Pearl Lam: OK, So what is your next project? What are you thinking?

Magnus Hastings: I just it’s, I’ve been, I’ve came back from England like six weeks ago, so that was and I’ve been waiting to hear.

Pearl Lam: And your sister is so proud of you.

Magnus Hastings: She was, it was really, it was really nice. She came up to see it and she genuinely, it’s like her jaw hit the floor and she genuinely was really proud. And I really respect her opinion. I mean, she’s in that world and she just.

Pearl Lam: Yeah, she’s so proud.

Magnus Hastings: She was, it’s very important. OK, no. And it was, it was really nice to actually be to, to, for my work to be seen like that. And no, so I would have said the gallery. So the gallery are very excited about it. It was, as I said, lots of people came through. People were loving it. So they want to tour it. So I’ve done the created the tour pack with them and locked all that down. So now they’ve just got a picture to all over the place. So we’ll see if it gets picked up. I mean, I’ve, I’m, let’s see, I’m always out seeing as believing this. I’ve been. It’d be lovely.

Pearl Lam: Next project well.

Magnus Hastings: This well, the net I was, I’ve been working on, well, I’ve been working on a new book and then and then in a documentary, which I won’t say too much about, but it’s being it’s a bit tricky because I’m I’m I’m always butting heads with the producer.

Pearl Lam: Of course I can see that.

Magnus Hastings: It’s not what it’s OK, I mean.

Pearl Lam: Because you need a producer. You need a producer who support your vision. And it’s very difficult because because you need to communicate.

Magnus Hastings: Well, she can I say I hopefully she won’t watch this. The big argument we’re having is she keeps my new project is about old, old queer people. So it’s 75 to to death, but we’ve been, it’s turned into a really big issue. So that’s where I am. That’s my next project of dealing with that. No, but the idea was to do a book getting the stories of going in and photographing people, but getting their stories of these people who are, they’re basically dying out people through the living, through the AIDS crisis and, and Stonewall and all of that. So that’s what I’m working on. And it’s really, it’s, they’re incredible stories. And, but it’s hard photographing old, I mean older people because I’ve always had these very kind of photogenic subjects and I love doing what I’m doing. But it’s tricky because first of all, people can’t contort themselves and throw themselves around and there. And you know that lots of people when they see themselves, they, they just see themselves ageing. So they find it very difficult. So it’s it’s an interesting different thing, but I think it’s valuable.

Pearl Lam: It just seems that you know, you do your drag, you do your, your, your rainbow. Rainbow what?

Magnus Hastings: Call it gay phase.

Pearl Lam: I mean, you are actually addressing the issue what the world, especially in America, is talking about the gender issue. Yeah. I mean, actually, I think you picked it up without even knowing that this is actually a social and political issue. You’ve been doing it. So tell me that if a younger person coming to you and and she said to you oh Magnus, can you give me he or she or gay asking you ask you ask you have a dream. I wanted to do photographer. I want to be a photographer but I don’t know which which direction I should be doing.

Magnus Hastings: Find what I’ve always it’s what you what you love. It’s find this thing that that excites you and, and it’s funny when people would the thing that I, I just, I found what I loved and I’d shoot everything and I learned how to make things look expensive with nothing. It’s not, it’s never been about having an expensive camera. It’s about light. It’s about seeing light and for it’s like half. I remember once meeting I was David Chappelle’s assistant and he wanted to do his own thing and he went, but I’d never do it unless I was working with so and so and so and so and I went, why? Why don’t you get some new people? Try them out. Don’t have to just play work things out and the thing that when you got no money, I would you just throw a light you I use outside and then you put a light in it and you play with the light and it suddenly looks like an expensive set. It’s like just try everything, play with everything and find what you love is what you should do.

Pearl Lam: Thank you Magnus. It’s great being here with you after all these years.

Magnus Hastings: I know. Was it 2 1/2?

Pearl Lam: 2 1/2 years, yeah.

Magnus Hastings: Thank you for having me.