You Can’t Put Michaela Jaé Rodriguez In a Box

Very few people know the real Michaela Antonia Jaé Rodriguez. It’s possible they know Michaela Jaé Rodriguez, the performer who made history as the first trans actress to win a Golden Globe and to be nominated for a lead acting Emmy (both times for her breakout role as Blanca in FX’s hit series Pose); or even Michaela Jaé, the sultry R&B musician who dropped her debut album, 33, last year and is currently gearing up to release her next. But the full, four-name Michaela Jaé Antonia Rodriguez? The woman she describes as the “regular, degular girl from Newark, New Jersey?” Well, as she says on a rainy mid-August afternoon, “You don’t get to see the Michaela Antonia Jaé Rodriguez unless you’re really having an interview like this.”

The actress, singer, and newly-minted Off-Broadway producer tells me this as we’re tucked into a corner booth at the Beekman Hotel’s Temple Court Bar Room. We’re here, ostensibly, to discuss the third season of her Apple TV+ comedy Loot—which premiered October 15—where Rodriguez plays Sofia Salinas, the no-nonsense executive director of a nonprofit charity organization started by recently divorced billionaire Molly Novak (Maya Rudolph). But before we can really dive in, we get sidetracked on a conversation about her hair. You see, the new season opens with a noticeable aesthetic change for Sofia—as Molly gleefully puts it, “You got bangs!” It’s a marked pivot for Rodriguez’s character, whose presentation has always taken a backseat to the work she prizes above all else. So, I wonder, what is this meant to signal for her character’s new arc?

“In the second season, Sofia was in this kind of romantic phase, so she didn’t have a bang. It was very wavy. Still with a middle part, but romantic,” the actress explains to me. Last season, Sofia was forced to let down her guard after meeting Isaac (O-T Fagenble), an impossibly charming architect and part-time jazz saxophonist whose free-spirited ways taught Sofia a new way to find balance between her work and her personal life. “But in the third season,” the actress continues, “they wanted to show a different part of Sofia. She’s discovering more of herself, and with self-discovery, I think, there’s a chop of the bang, a new wardrobe, new shoes.”

There was a realistic reason behind the choice—a blurring of lines between the self and the character, one could say. As Rodriguez recalls, she had already been on a personal “journey” with her hairstylist, Barry Lee Moe, while preparations were underway for the third season. It was the middle of the 2023 actor’s strike, no one was working, and while itching for a switch-up, she told Moe, “I want a fuck-me bang, bitch. I want something that looks like it’s going to just eat it. I want something that’s just a smidge above the eyes where I’m just feeling it.” She posted about the hair on Instagram, and when the Loot team saw it, they felt it could work for Sofia, too.

I understand her thinking. Season 3 is, indeed, a period of self-discovery for Sofia. Much of her new storyline revolves around the arrival of a new character: Destiny (X Mayo), Sofia’s carefree sister and polar opposite. Loot’s writers get a lot of comedic mileage out of their odd-couple dynamic—Sofia describes herself as the Bill Clinton to Destiny’s George—but more importantly, it deepens our understanding of Sofia. As was the case with Isaac in season 2, reuniting with Destiny forces Sofia to consider exactly why she insists on putting so much pressure on herself to succeed. As the sisters work through their differences, they both learn more about themselves from each other and grow as a result. Why not throw a bang in the mix?

Still, Rodriguez needed separation. “Mind you, Michaela is totally different from Sofia,” she stresses. “Michaela Jaé gives, like, blunt straight bang. Sofia will give you a wave and a curtain bang.” To her, these minor aesthetic differences exist in parallel to the real-world differences between the character she plays on screen and the person she is in her day-to-day life. “Sofia is sophisticated and all business, whereas me…” She trails off for a second, considering her words. “Well, I guess I am business and I am sophisticated. But I’m a little more edgy.” I tell her that it’s possible to be both. “Exactly!” she exclaims. “We can be a little banjee when we want to!”

Talking with her, it’s not hard to pinpoint these differences. In person, Rodriguez is quite relaxed, even after a long photoshoot. She likes to joke and has a tendency to riff on silly hypotheticals, like when I bring up Donald Trump and she goes into an extended bit about not knowing who he is before “realizing” that who I’m actually talking about is Harry Potter’s Lord Voldemort. (A fitting parallel.)

And yet, the similarities between Sofia and Michaela can’t help but pierce through. This is my third time profiling Rodriguez, and on each occasion, she has referred to herself as a “workaholic.” A textbook Capricorn, she was raised by two parents who instilled in her a sense of duty. It’s what got her through four straight years as the de facto lead of Pose—where she endeared audiences with her sensitive portrayal of a selfless HIV-positive ballroom house mother—and what pushed her immediately into another four years working on Loot.

She very rarely takes breaks. Even when she’s not on a film or TV set, you can probably find her in the studio, working on music, since, as she stresses, “I’ve always wanted to be a pop star.”

Then again, maybe working on music is her way of taking a break. She lights up whenever our conversation pivots to that side of her career, explaining that, “In the music world, I’m free.” She sees music-making as an inherently different creative endeavor than acting; music, for her, feels much more intuitive. “I always say that my body moves before my mind sometimes,” she tells me. “So my body will go to the studio, and my mind will then say, ‘Bitch, you at the studio! Did you know that?’ And I’m like, ‘Oh, shit. What am I doing here?’” She lets out a laugh. “I kind of like that. I like that my body can feel the music before my mind catches up to it.”

Much like acting, it took some time to find the separation between who she was as a person and who she was an artist. She says her first music video, for her 2021 debut single “Something to Say,” was when it finally clicked. “After I looked at that video, I was like, ‘Damn. This is Michaela Jaé.’ This is not MJ Rodriguez. This is not Michaela Antonia Jaé Rodriguez. This is the embodiment [of my pop star persona]. This is who you see on stage, dressed up, bionic, new and improved.”

Four years after that, she feels like she’s finally realized her prowess as the pop star she always envisioned herself as. “I don’t see myself any other way now,” she says with full confidence. “At first, I was like, Am I? Now, I’m like, I am one. I might be an underrated one. But I am one.”

It’s always nice to hear an artist talk about the sheer joy that comes from doing the work—and Rodriguez is nothing if not a gracious practitioner. But she’s also not blind to where we are politically, and she doesn’t mince words when it comes to the climate she’s working through.

The last time we spoke, before Loot had even premiered its first season, the actress told me that she was really excited to be playing a character who wasn’t defined by her transness. Pose, the show that made her famous, was notable because of its focus on trans identity. On Loot, however, Sofia’s gender identity was never meant to be a part of her narrative. Rodriguez relished that.

But it’s been three years since then, and while 2022 felt like a breakthrough for the future of trans representation on screen, 2025 feels increasingly bleak—not just for representation, but for trans rights, writ large. It’s left Rodriguez feeling slightly torn. “I feel like our stories, as trans women, are getting muddied with a lot of misinformation, which makes it easier for human beings who are not understanding or are bigoted to create a narrative about us and make it something true when it’s not,” she says, explaining how this has wide-reaching negative implications for trans people trying to find work, housing, or even just general safety from harm. So while she still feels “thankful” that she’s been afforded the opportunity to portray a character whose womanhood is just accepted as is, she does feel that, without trans-specific stories, there is an added responsibility for her, as Michaela Jaé Rodriguez, to raise awareness in other ways.

When I mention how this all feels inextricable from the anti-DEI wave currently plaguing all sectors of society, she snaps her fingers in agreement before responding, “I’m glad we all know. I’m glad I’m hearing it from an interviewer.” She immediately brings up the unceremonious cancellation of The Colbert Show. “That was someone who influences people around the world to have a mind and to think for themselves,” she says. “A lot of people in the world know why that show got shut down, and when you see that, you know what kind of influences, politically, are happening.”

It’s also not lost on her that Loot, a comedy that satirizes the idea of the “good billionaire,” is in direct conversation with some of these cultural shifts as well. She cites that as another key difference between herself and her character. Whereas Sofia tries to see the good in Molly’s efforts to do right by the world while also holding on to her wealth, Rodriguez struggles to see the same. “Sometimes, I want to be like, ‘Sofia, there’s no hope, girl,’” she says with a laugh. “‘You’re holding out the good fight, but there’s no hope. This isn’t going to push the needle forward.’”

Still, Rodriguez sees trans people as being uniquely poised to meet this moment with a certain resilience; after all, the world (and this industry) has never been exactly welcoming to women like her. “I’ve been here for a long time and I’ve worked hard. My sisters have worked hard,” she says resolutely. “And we are in a harsh time right now. It’s scary. But the only way to get people up and to get them going and to continue on is if there are people like me out there saying, ‘Okay, yes, it is scary. And so what? What are you going to do? You’re just going to stop?’”

Rodriguez is certainly doing her part. After our conversation, the actress will be heading to catch a tech rehearsal for Saturday Church, an Off-Broadway musical adaptation of the beloved 2017 indie drama about a young queer boy’s life-affirming experience with the ballroom community.

Though the actress—who played ballroom house mother Ebony in the original film—was initially asked to reprise her role for the stage production, Rodriguez opted to come on board to the new project as a consultant and producer instead, citing two reasons. The first was practical: Though Rodriguez is a proud Afro-Latina woman, she notes that a character literally named “Ebony” should be played by a darker-skinned actress. “The [only] reason why I played Ebony the first time is because there were no chocolate trans girls showing up at that time,” she says.

But the second is more inspirational: She saw this as the perfect opportunity to pass the torch so someone else could have their own star-making moment. Weeks after we meet, when I check back in on the actress to see how she’s been feeling now that the show has officially opened, she tells me of the actress who was cast, “I do feel a tremendous sense of pride because I had already known that B Noel [Thomas] was an outstanding and tremendous talent.” She’s also proud to be working behind-the-scenes for once, calling the experience “eye-opening.” She exclaims, “I feel that the heart each and every last person put into the show has been even more amplified by the audience response. There’s been standing ovations mostly every night!”

In the meantime, she is looking ahead. Rodriguez, who is turning 35 at the top of the new year, feels she has accomplished everything she would have wanted to by this age. She feels fulfilled as the actress Michaela Jaé Rodriguez, as the singer Michaela Jaé, and at home, as the “regular, degular” Michaela Antonia Jaé Rodriguez. “Now, it’s just time to fine-tune them.”

She has plans for how to do so, too. At the top of her list? A romantic comedy. “We need to see all facets of a trans woman’s love and how someone else loves on her,” she says. There’s a personal element to this dream: Rodriguez has been in a loving relationship with her boyfriend, Stephen Gimigliano, for almost six years now, and believes that it’s important for society—and other trans women—to see that it is possible for trans women to find true companionship. “We are done with the stereotypical story of being heartbroken by men that don’t know how to love [us] openly,” she declares. “I’m over that because I’m being loved openly. It’s tangible.”

But she knows there are outside pressures. Leaning over the table to speak directly into my phone, she delivers a message to the “brothers” who might be worried about the implications of playing a trans woman’s romantic interest: “Get off your high horse, get over yourself, and let’s get to fucking work!” She says she’d love to work opposite Michael B. Jordan in a film directed by Ryan Coogler. All it would take is for them to “be courageous and brave enough” to do so.

She assumes a similar posture when it comes to the future of her music career. She has a “whole bunch of songs” recorded for her sophomore album, and would love for one of them to chart in the Billboard Top 40. From what I’ve heard, this dream isn’t so far-fetched. The new music takes the singer’s unique take on R&B in a dancier, more club-ready direction. Her aim was to make songs that “will get your body moving” without sacrificing her ever-present objective to “invoke confidence, tenacity, and audacity.” But as she puts on the final touches, Rodriguez also wants to collaborate with artists who are really willing to share the spotlight with a trans songstress—not just “performative acts where they have the [trans] girls come on stage and just be side-pieces.” Once again leaning into my phone to deliver a message, she says, “All y’all little R&B girlies: stop playing with me, okay? Let’s get in the studio and eat these girls up.”

For Rodriguez, everything circles back around to one key desire: “I want to have fun with my work more,” she says. “I want to have fun in my life and in the relationships I have with people.” It’s an aspiration that feels in line with one of the final things she tells me before heading out to the Saturday Church tech rehearsal—“a message for the youth” that she’d like to impart. “Make sure you know that the sky is limit-less,” she tells me as she begins to pack away her things. “It’s not the limit, because that means you have to stop at the sky. But if the sky is limitless, you can go beyond it into the stars, baby.” She flashes a smile. “So just shoot and don’t stop.”

Photographer: Shane McCauley | Stylist: Mimi Kim | Hair Stylist: Kyrsten Oriol | Makeup Artist: Team Tilbury, using Charlotte Tilbury | Manicurist: Gina Oh | Location: The Beekman, a Thompson Hotel