Alexandra Billings, transgender actor: 'Transparent came up when I had nothing to lose'

The Guardian catches up with the first transgender actor to ever play a transgender character on television about her new role

Though she wasn’t sure about it at the time, Alexandra Billings made television history in 2005’s Romy and Michele: In the Beginning as the first transgender female actor to play a transgender character. Billings is now co-starring in Amazon’s new show Transparent as Davina, a guide to Maura (played by Jeffrey Tambor), who is coming out a transgender late in life. The Guardian caught up with Billings between classes she teaches at the Steppenwolf School West in Los Angeles, to talk about Davina, the joy of life transitions keeping one “in the newness”, and how the “T” in LGBT is often treated as an afterthought.

Can you talk about how you knew you wanted to be an actress, how you understood yourself as a transgender person, and how those two journeys were connected?

Those are big questions! Holy moly! I’ve been acting since I was about seven years old. That was only a couple years ago! My dad was a musical director and teacher at Harbor College and musical director at the Civic Light Opera, so I’ve been around musical theater and teaching my entirely life, strangely. History is very important to me

I believe we leave reverberations throughout our lives of who we are and what we do. I say that because my wife has been fascinated by our family trees, and she found that my great-great grandmother was, actually my great-great grandfather. He lived as Celia, and nobody knew this until she passed away, and then they had to bury her.

So in answer to your question, both of those things – performing, and being transgender – were pre-designed in a way that was not in my control.

You were the first transgender actress to play a transgender character on TV, in the 2005 Romy and Michele movie. At the time, were you aware that you were breaking some kind of barrier, or were you just going to work to do a job, or both?

It was funny. It was a combination of those things and neither of those things. It didn’t hit me until we were two or three weeks in, and I turned to the director Robin Schiff, who is a lovely person, and I said, “I don’t think this has ever been done before,” and she said, “What?” and I said, “a transgender person playing a transgender character,” and she said, “Oh that’s nice,” and walked away. And I thought, “Maybe this isn’t such a big deal,” and again we are talking about reverberations. I didn’t hit me until a couple years later and someone said to me, “You know, I think you were the first,” and I said, “Really?” and it didn’t really rear its head until Transparent began to happen. Now it has become more profound, and I understand it a little more.

You have played cisgender roles as well, yes?

Yes, but weirdly mostly in TV and film. On stage, despite my 40 year career, I have I have only played one. Isn’t that funny?

Talk about Davina. Who is she?

Davina is the guide and mentor of Maura, Transparent’s star, played by Tambor. I had known [creator] Jill Soloway for years. We did Chicago theater at the same time, so I was able to speak to Jill. I don’t mince words, but I try to work, as best as a I can, through a lens of kindness. But at that point in my life, I was done playing transgender characters in the hospital, going to the hospital. I was done wearing the gown!

Transparent came up when I had nothing to lose. I had auditioned and they had offered me the role, so I went up to Jill and said, “I want to be who I am, which is a jeans wearing, e-cigarette smoking, transgender-by-birth-but-fabulous-by-choice kind of gal!” And I am deeply spiritual, and I find the insane funny. I said to Jilly, you’re looking at a transgender person, so let’s not draw any caricatures or cartoons.

How are people going to know we exist if we don’t speak up? Davina is a birthing of myself and of Jill. She’s a real person.

In your piece about Jared Leto, you are very critical of him, understandably so. How do you feel about Jeffrey Tambor playing Maura on Transparent?

I want to be clear what that piece was for me. I wanted to draw a parallel who we were, the trans community as a tribe, and who is allowed to represent us in a true and in an authentic way. We allow cisgender people to portray us, to portray our lives on the screen, and we’re taking back our voice. In no way did I critique [Leto’s] approach to the role.

What I was upset about, and what I am still upset about, is when he received accolades, he didn’t thank us. He didn’t mention us. He didn’t acknowledge us, until word got back to him and by the time he got the Oscar, he did. My point is that Jared Leto, or anyone who is not trans, doesn’t get to speak for us and not acknowledge us. That doesn’t get to happen anymore. I want to make that very clear.

How is this different with Jeffrey Tambor?

He’s allowing Maura to come out of his life experiences. He’s not acting, he’s allowing the truth to come through the written word. The difference with Jeffrey Tambor, and I know this because I work him every day, is that he does this with great compassion and a keen mindfulness of what is going on and for whom he is speaking. The is the large, cavernous difference of what Jared Leto finally did and what Jeffrey Tambor has known from the beginning.

I’m a fan of Jeffrey Tambor, but I have to admit it was hard to reconcile him as Maura when I had so many images in my mind of him switching wigs and identities as George and Oscar Bluth on Arrested Development.

How glorious is that? What a reminder for all of us that there are so many different people in us and in the world. Jeffey is a great vessel, and his performances allow us, as all artistic movement does, to be freer, to surrender deeper.

Davina seems to be helping Maura come out, as a guide in his transition. How were you able to help guide Jeffrey Tambor about approaching this character?

I am curious by nature, and being with Jeffrey is like being in a master class. I felt much more like a student than a guide. Because in playing Maura, Maura allows me to see [being transgender] as new. I am always trying to be in the newness, and Maura is in the newness, and I can see her thinking, “I don’t understand this. It doesn’t make sense to me, and that’s OK.” Because being in the chaos is where the great gifts lie! And the great thing for me, as this character comes out, is that I get to look at Maura and say, “I remember how the world looked when it was all brand new!”

Of the episodes I’ve seen, the scene where Maura is trying to use the public bathroom with her daughters is especially fascinating, because it dramatized the pain of a situation I’ve heard about from transgender friends but have never witnessed. What scene of the show has especially resonated you in showing something about being transgender in America right now?

The whole journey has resonated with me. I did the talk show circuit in the 80s. I did Jenny Jones, I did Phil Donahue, I did Sally Jesse Raphael. There are tapes and tapes of me, and one question would always come up: so, which bathroom do you use? That was the big deal. Again, we are back to the rules.

It’s really all about learning, and that’s what’s happening with this TV show. It shows that life is complicated, and messy, difficult and old. It’s getting us to have a conversation. We don’t want to talk about gender. We don’t want to talk about a female president. We don’t want to talk about gay men or gay marriage, because that brings up the feminization of the American male. We don’t want to talk about these things! [Transparent] take us to the last uncharted territories, where it’s all new. We don’t want to go into the newness, but the show takes us there.

Last question, and I’ll let you go teach your class: in covering LGBT issues, I’ve found the “T” often gets left out. People will come up to me and talk about Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell being over, not knowing it still applies to transgender members of the armed services. What is your wish, for people who think everything LGBT is fine since gay marriage is doing well this week, to know about transgender Americans? And how do you address this as an actress?

It’s interesting because we are an afterthought. We really don’t belong within the gay tribe. Gender and sexuality are very different conversations, within containers where there is fluidity, but they are separate in and of themselves. What I wish – and it’s just a wish – is that we could all live in one great, big beautiful sandbox. I wish we could share our toys. I wish we could ask for what we need, and I wish we could be with each other in a way that included great imagination and profound understanding.

Are we done with the revolution? Oh no, trust me, it’s just getting started. I believe in peaceful wreckage, so I think we can do this not from a place of neutrality, but from a place of kindness We need to be heard.

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