John Cameron Mitchell says it was important for him to make Joe Exotic ’empathetic’ in Joe vs Carole.
Based on the Wondery Podcast of the same name, hosted and reported by Robert Moor, the limited Peacock series depicts the infamous feud between Exotic and fellow big cat conservationist Carole Baskin, played by Kate McKinnon.
It also follows the criminal case of Exotic, who was convicted and sentenced to 22 years in prison for animal abuse and attempted murder-for-hire for his plot to kill Baskin.
Their feud was memorably put to screen in Netflix’s true crime documentary Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness, which quickly became one of the streamer’s most-watched series of all time.
Speaking with GAY TIMES, the Tony Award-winning performer – best known for co-creating the legendary musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch – admits he wasn’t the biggest fan of Tiger King because it was “too slam bang”.
“I didn’t have a lot of empathy for the characters, so I couldn’t really get into it. It just felt like Americans behaving badly, which is very popular in the UK!” he says, before adding: “I had a blast doing it and diving into Joe.
“Watching the footage, there’s so much to get into. It felt like a role like Richard III, like a real messed up guy who’s weirdly sympathetic.”
Mitchell says he wanted to use Joe vs Carole as an opportunity to portray Exotic in a different light to his infamous depiction on Tiger King, specifically to “humanise” his complicated background and past relationships.
“The real challenge and opportunity for [Joe vs Carole] is to get underneath the showman, find the Joe that we never saw in the video; Joe with his husband, or husbands. Joe in an unguarded moment, Joe not on show.
“Etan Frankel, the showrunner, his brief was to humanise, to find out more about these characters, to care about them and realise Joe experienced a lot of homophobia and abuse. We see these characters, we see how he was beaten by life and how he responded to become the king.
“You can admire his openness and creating his own space in a place where it was inhospitable for gay guys, I’m the exact same age as he is and from the same part of the country, so I understand it. But, rather than leaving for the big city, he decided to make a stand and create his own community.
“Then, the community kind of curdles and becomes a bit of a cult and becomes controlled by him. He starts to see enemies everywhere, paranoia that leads to an attempted murder.”
Mitchell once again compares his story to the “tragedy” of Richard III, “someone who could have been a more admirable figure, a role model, turned out to become the person who beat him up as a little kid.”
Following the release of Tiger King, viewers were polarised on their perceptions of Exotic. Some hailed him as a hilarious “fashion icon” and campaigned to “free” him from prison, while others condemned his treatment of animals and plot to assassinate Baskin.
At the time of Tiger King’s release, one Twitter user wrote: “I knew about Joe exotic for years and thought he was a complete psycho. The documentary actually made him seem personable which was a big mistake.
“I mean breeding a life just for entertainment is just sickening. But it’s done all the time. They unintentionally made him comedic!?!
Despite his multiple controversies, Mitchell says there’s “something weirdly admirable about him” and his unwavering commitment to his former husband Brian Rhyne, who died of complications from HIV/AIDS in 2001.
He highlights a heartbreaking story included in the Wondery podcast, where Brian died in Joe’s truck after being discharged from hospital.
“The hospital wouldn’t let him back in because he was dead,” explains Mitchell. “So he had to sit with this body of his husband waiting for hours for the funeral home, and I keep thinking that Joe’s still sitting in that truck, do you know what I mean? He hasn’t moved on from that. It made him very lonely and very angry.
“After that, the people he was attracted to tended to be guys out of luck, maybe someone that he could take care of rather than be taken care of and lured over. That moved me most of all, and that felt like the centre of the character for me.”
Joe vs Carole also stars Kyle MacLachlan, Brian Van Holt, Sam Keeley, Nat Wolff, Marlo Kelly, William Fichtner, Dean Winters, and David Wenham.
An official synopsis for Joe vs Carole reads: “The limited series will center on Carole Baskin, a big cat enthusiast, who learns that fellow exotic animal lover Joe ‘Exotic’ Schreibvogel is breeding and using his big cats for profit.
“She sets out to shut down his venture, inciting a quickly escalating rivalry. But Carole has a checkered past of her own and when the claws come out, Joe will stop at nothing to expose what he sees as her hypocrisy. The results prove dangerous.”
The series premiered 4 March on Peacock, exclusively on Sky and NOW.
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