JACK SCREW
(Jack) Yes, I at first really viewed him as this experiment because I started doing drag when I began to really lean into like the transgender part of my identity. Before that it was very “I'm non-binary I don't really know if I want to like I use they/them pronouns”. I didn't know if I wanted to feel like I was transitioning capital T... and Jack was sort of an experimentation in masculinity and just really studying movement and energy and presentation just for the heck of it to try it on and see how it felt. And I did sort of have the ulterior motive to see how it felt on my own body.
So in that way, he was an experiment and I think he's a separate entity another soul that inhabits this vessel. And I think it was really fun to create him and then do drag and then think you know, I kind of like this. Yeah, I kind of like walking like that. I kind of like the way the mustache looks and then actualizing that later in that way we're more connected. But he's a friendly entity… Hmm a friendly soul in this body.
(Jack) Oh like who was in the driver's seat?
(Jack) No, I think about that a lot.
(Jack) Oh, absolutely, I think I created Jack. Jack would not exist without me as Ellis, but I definitely like gave over control to that ‘experiment’. Yeah in a way that gave him sway and power and it is really fun. I haven't done this in a while to be honest because it feels this is like a whole other thought.
I really enjoyed it when I started doing drag it was very much like you would jump into your persona and there are a lot of people who wouldn't even know my name other than Jack and you had so much more freedom to explore that whereas now… There are definitely venues I could go to and I'm unknown completely and I could be Jack fully… But places where I am comfortable, I'm known as myself. So it's harder to fully become something different because there's always some element of being known as yourself, so I miss that and so and that way I feel like I'm always sort of me doing a character. Yeah But I'd like for it to not always be that way.