HOLLY HARKNESS
(Holly) My name out of drag is Gavin Lesnevich—L-E-S-N-E-V, as in Victor, I-C-H.
And then my drag name is Holly Harkness.
(Holly) She/her for both.
(Holly) Yeah, that’s kind of an ever-changing thing. But I very much like men—very into men.
I say I’m gay sometimes, but I’m a trans woman, so… it’s just like, whatever.
My view on womanhood is that—yes, there’s male sex and female sex—but then there are the cultural connotations to those things, which are completely made up.
So I try not to put a lot of pressure on myself to act super feminine, because I feel like that’s limiting.
Ever since coming out as a woman, I’ve actually felt more comfortable embracing the “masculine” parts of myself because I’m secure in my womanhood, you know?
And I think drag was kind of the catalyst for that.
It’s like that whole Susan Sontag Notes on Camp thing—when someone is doing camp, they’re not a woman, but a “woman.”
So, I am a woman—no quotation marks. In drag, I am a “woman”—quotation marks.
And that’s different for everyone. I don’t like to be what people call “fishy”—which is honestly a horrible term. I like to live a clown life. No, I think she’s… “bitty bitty bum bum” is fine. I think she’s a huge part of who I am.
She’s everything I’ve ever wanted to be. She’s kind of just… imagination personified.
She really is my childhood imagination personified.
(Holly) Yeah, just witchy, nasty, constantly being big and bold and loud.
And I think branding myself as a “nasty,” not generically pretty queen has given me the freedom to not worry about looking beautiful.
If my lash is off, it doesn’t bother me—because I know I look nasty, and that’s the point. There’s not a lot of that. Like, I love the older drag queens—you look at queens from earlier eras. They weren’t necessarily “pretty.”
I like to look weird.
It was COVID times when I started. And my mom—she said, “Everyone has to learn a new skill. What do you want to learn?”. And I said, “makeup.” So she bought me all the drag stuff.And then, like, a few wigs. I was kind of doing it casually at first. I had these huge lashes, so my name was Linda Lash for a minute.
But then WandaVision came out—with Agatha Harkness. And I loved Kathryn Hahn.
I immediately connected with that character because I thought she was so me.
Everything I loved about witchiness was kind of put into one person. And her outfit is so cool too—just the whole look. Love it.
Also, making yourself a witch… you can be, like, a Macbeth witch, or like a gross, chaotic… I don’t know—there’s just so much more agency and freedom when you’re this wild, “ha-ha” thing, you know?
And I like that. So I made myself Holly Harkness. Holly, just because… well, at first I was Harley Harkness. But you can’t really say that—it doesn’t roll off the tongue.
I liked Harley Harkness because I like Harley Quinn, but “Holly Harkness” just sounds better. It’s more showgirl-esque.
And that’s what I wanted to be—just a nasty, bitchy showgirl.
HOLLY HARKNESS
(Holly) The showgirl thing came into play when I started to learn about my family’s history with vaudeville.
They had a traveling group called Frank Dobson and the Tyrants.
(Holly) Yeah, so—Frank Dobson, the Dobsons… Pretty messed-up history. There was blackface happening, unfortunately.
But their main thing was burlesque. And that’s what I really grabbed onto.
(Holly) Yeah, interestingly—Frank Dobson is my great-great-great-great-grandfather.
He led Frank Dobson and his 13 Tyrants—13 of his women family members.
(Holly) Yeah! They traveled the country doing burlesque acts. They even performed at Carnegie Hall.
They were known. And we still have a bunch of pictures from those shows.
(Holly) I remember looking at them and being like…
(Holly) Traditional showgirl. Big feather pieces, headdresses, skimpy little outfits—basically bathing suits, but decked out in jewels and everything.
It was so glamorous.
And I think the idea of being a showgirl is super appealing to me.
But with a twist—like, I want to be the one showgirl whose lipstick is smudged.
The one who maybe fell over and busted her head before she walked on stage.
HOLLY HARKNESS
(Holly) Okay. I was… I was at the Lunar Fair in New Jersey.
A lovely New Jersey drag queen named Cookie Doe—she just put out something on Instagram that was like, “Anyone who wants to show up, show up.” And my friend—well, we don’t talk anymore—but St. Valentine, a lovely performer… yeah, they were like,
“Hey, Cookie’s looking for performers. Do you want to come do this?”
And it was like a newcomer’s one-minute lip sync. Everyone just did one minute.
(Holly) Insane. It’s like… a quarter of a song. I dressed up as a clown. It was a half-black, half-white outfit. And my face was half normal, half, like, clowny white face. The hair was falling apart. And I did Circus by Britney Spears.
(Holly) Yeah, yeah. One-minute version. And it was fun. It was outside.
It was one of those places where, like—you know when you go see the cows at the State Fair?
(Holly) It was in one of those covered pavilions. And the audience—it was bad.
They were on bleachers.
(Holly) So you know how at Hens, we can walk right up to people, interact, all that?
(Holly) None of that. They were all up on bleachers. And I had this huge space—like, not a football field, but like… This massive space I’m just walking around in.
Couldn’t get tips, couldn’t really interact… It was so… god-awful. But then my second one... That was better. I did Poison by Bell Biv DeVoe. And I was Poison Ivy. It was a tiny basement show. Just a sliver of a runway for a stage. But it was packed, people screaming at you.
There was a pole—it was fun.
(Holly) That felt like my first real time.
That was the moment I was like—“Ooh… yeah.” I got the bug.
(Holly) As Holly? Yeah—those were all Holly.
HOLLY HARKNESS
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(Holly) Like, what I really, like, crush on? I hate covering my brows.
I think that shit is so gross. It’s so horrible.
(Holly) I try… If you’ve noticed, I’ve been shaving more and more of my actual brows out. Because I get so pissed off and I don’t want to do it.
(Holly) I do, but you can’t cover them.
Yeah. And they’re, like… they’re, like, AMAB man eyebrows. So I have to… I’ve already shaved, like, some of them off. They used to be longer. Um… And I hate gluing down my brows. That’s the one thing I fucking hate.
(Holly) Um… What I love… I love… I love… I don’t know.
I don’t know. I like talking to people. I mostly like being at the place that I’m at. I like being ready and, like, doing the thing. And I think the transformation of it is really magical.
(Holly) I’m slow. I’m a good like two hours.
(Holly) Yeah. I don’t do a crazy nose contour anymore. I just do like regular darker nose contour.
Yeah, I’m trying. I’ve been getting really basic lately because I just… I like the do. I like making the mix and doing the performance more than throwing the makeup on.
I feel like you can really just throw anything — for me at least for my character.
I think she really just throws anything.
(Holly) I can throw on a trash bag and then cinch my waist with duct tape.
HOLLY HARKNESS
(Holly) Yeah. “Love Shack.” I do “Love Shack.” Yeah, I have beats planned out.
That’s one where like I know — I think I’m doing it at the 4:20 show. But it’s like no mix, just “Love Shack” straight up.
And everyone likes it. Everyone likes that song. And like, I feel like I have a good skeleton.
Also, “I Drove All Night” by Celine Dion. I have a good, I have a good slay-down number.
Yeah, I love making mixes.
But I feel like if I was asked to do like a solid number on the spot — just like a one-song with like maybe one bit attached to it — yeah.
HOLLY HARKNESS
(Holly) Well, I started drag by doing cosplays first.
So I was cosplaying Scarlet Witch and Agatha and Poison Ivy and a few anime characters.
And I just thought it was like all the parts that I wouldn’t be able to play otherwise, I was playing.
(Holly) Yeah, well Agatha is a huge one — Agatha Harkness. Sarah Sanderson is a big one. I feel like Poison Ivy a little bit. Like the Harley Quinn — no, Harley Quinn actually is a huge inspiration.
Yeah. It was Harley Harkness.
Harley Harkness.
(Holly) In your Australian accent it sounds like Holly! Yeah, so I was like — and I’d always mistakenly say Holly instead of Harley. So I was like, it’s Holly now. I don’t care.
(Holly) Outside of drag? I’m an actor. I’m going to school to get my acting degree. We’re still working on the BFA. I’m at NYU. And my teachers are so — I don’t know — they’re so cool. And they’re so willing to talk about how the techniques that I’m learning apply to drag. Which is really cool.
So like the clowning technique is huge in drag.
Movement techniques I found really useful in drag.
(Holly) And just being able to create your own material. Because it’s not — it’s a totally different muscle than script writing.
Because I’m writing a script for Holly right now. I’m trying to make a show for her to be in.
But like making a mix is such a different thing.
But I find that it’s still like finding the way you find beats in a scene — you can find beats in a mix or in a performance.