CHICAGO — Chicago actor Theo Germaine debuted on screen in the Ryan Murphy Netflix series “The Politician.” Then came their role on the Chicago comedy “Work in Progress” for Showtime. Now Germaine stars alongside Kevin Bacon in the slasher film “They/Them” for Peacock, set at a LGBTQ conversion camp.
The movie’s writer-director is one-time Chicago playwright John Logan and Germaine calls it an “experimental journey into a different subgenre, in the sense that it is a clear empowerment film but it’s also a horror film at the same time. It’s a scary movie that takes a lot of negative stereotypes and tropes pertaining to queer characters or queer-coded characters in horror and it flips them” by tweaking audience expectations. “We show the audience that queer characters are deserving of survival and humanity and being heroes in this genre.”
In it, Germaine plays a 17-year-old nonbinary person from a very strict home who is enrolled in the camp.
Germaine has been working steadily and all these roles are high points. When asked to share a worst moment, Germaine recalled a Chicago theater memory.
My worst moment …
“This was in 2017 when the play ‘Hir’ went up at the Steppenwolf Theatre. A lot of progress has been made in recent years, but roles that were available to trans people even just five years ago — where it’s listed as ‘this is a trans person’ — were fewer than you see now.
“The play is written by Taylor Mac and it’s about a really dysfunctional family. There are two kids in the family and one of them is a 17-year-old trans person. We have a little bit of a pattern here (laughs) because I am currently playing a 17-year-old trans person in the movie ‘They/Them.’
“At the time, the play was the only popular play with any trans characters in it at all. And it was a really meaty, juicy role for a trans person, which was unheard of. The character is on stage practically the entire time. It was a really serious role. When word started going around town that Steppenwolf was going to produce this play, everybody started texting me: ‘Hey Theo, you need to audition for this role. You were made for this role. This role is you. You have to do this.’
“And I built up all of this pressure in my head because everybody was like ‘you gotta do this, you gotta do this,’ and I don’t think anybody had actually read the play! I think people were just saying this because I’m trans and the character was trans.
“I was invited to do a pre-read before they even announced that it was going to be part of their season. I was super nervous and I don’t think I did a good job.
“Then I auditioned and everything about auditioning for this role sucked. I just couldn’t figure out what was going on. I was so stressed out by everybody telling me this was the right role for me. And even during a coaching session (with a private coach beforehand), he was indicating that I didn’t really know what I was doing (laughs). I was way too neurotic and nervous.
“The stakes felt so high. This was before I started getting on TV and I had not been able to do a role that was specifically described as my gender. That just hadn’t happened yet. And five years ago I was like, if I blow this? I’m never going to have the opportunity to play a trans character again. These opportunities do not come around very often.
“It was one of the worst auditions that I’ve ever done. I definitely self-sabotaged myself.
“So I totally blew the audition, that’s the first thing that happened. I didn’t get the role.
“I was depressed and sad, but I was also really excited because they did a national search and the person who did get the role was a really great actor named Em Grosland.
“And then I got offered to be the understudy for the play. I’m totally clueless why they did that, because I bombed the audition.
“But I had never understudied before. And I realized that I am not meant to be an understudy because I also completely sucked understudying this play.
“Understudying is the hardest acting job I have ever done. I learned through this experience that it is almost harder than acting on stage.
“I tried so hard to do a good job. You never know if you’re going to get to go on, so I was watching the show twice as many times as they required. I was observing everything, taking pages and pages of notes. But I would get on stage during the understudy rehearsals and just freeze. I would forget the order of operations. I could get all the lines correct or I could get all the physical actions right — but I couldn’t do both at the same time.
“I was so bad at understudying that, one day after rehearsal, the stage manager had this really worried look on her face. She took me aside when everybody else left and she said, ‘Hey, you really gotta try harder. You need to try to do a better job at this.’ And I broke down and cried in front of her (laughs) because I was like, ‘I am trying so hard to do a good job at this role and I just keep (messing) it up over and over.’
“It was really embarrassing because I was trying really hard.
“Understudying is super hard to do, in my opinion. I really admire anybody who’s able to do it.
“But the play was also really hard. It took place in a hoarder’s home, so there was just a mess of stuff on stage. And it was almost like a farce, the way that everything was moving and everybody was talking and overlapping each other. It was a really hard role if you’re understudying for the very first time.
“So I ended up never going on. And it probably took until the last understudy rehearsal that I actually knew what I was doing, but by then it was too late.”
Is it intimidating and overwhelming to think you might have to perform at a moment’s notice?
“So intimidating, so overwhelming. So much internalized frustration and worry and anxiety about it.
“And also this goes to show that not every trans actor fits every trans role (laughs).
“There’s a lot of pressure when you’re a trans actor — if you don’t do well, that it reflects on all trans actors.
“We still don’t have the same opportunities as other people do. And when a trans role goes out, or they decide they want to cast a trans person or a nonbinary person — someone who’s under that part of the gender umbrella — casting directors can kind of forget that we’re all different. Every actor has different strengths and weaknesses. And my weakness is auditioning for Steppenwolf and understudying (laughs).
“I worked a lot between 2016 and 2017. I did several different roles at larger theaters in Chicago and was booking a lot. But I believe I was the only person at the time with my gender identity who was booking really anything at all in Chicago, so I was really tokenized. But I really wanted work! So I felt so much pressure.”
The upside is that understudying at Steppenwolf means Germaine was getting paid a living wage. But were they demoralized?
“Yeah. I was like (whispers): Oh no, am I a bad actor? What am I doing? Steppenwolf is the cream of the crop and if I nail it, who knows what can happen next? And then when it went really poorly, I felt so unprofessional. I let my anxiety get the best of me. I was really messed up and I did think I was going to put a stopper in my career, actually. Zooming out, that’s not what happened. But at the time, I was so (messed) up about it.
“For about a month or two after ‘Hir,’ I was really shook. But I immediately did another play. And then I did another play. And then I did another play after that. And then I got onto TV. And I kind of just forgot about the horrible experience I had.
“A lot has changed since then.”
The takeaway …
“Never give up. Seriously.
“Also: An understudy is a highly skilled professional who possesses a set of abilities that people need to respect. I think even actors, when they get understudy roles, there’s some disappointment. Getting an understudy offer is not a fail, it’s a victory. The show can not go on without understudies.
“I don’t know what would have happened personally if I’d had to go on. We would have had some problems! But understudies deserve more recognition than they get because you have to be so ready.”
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