Krysta Rodriguez On Liza Minnelli Colliding with Halston

One of the best things about Dan Minihan’s love letter to Halston is the friendship between Liza Minnelli and the late fashion icon. Liza is the only one who can give Halston perspective or put him in his place, and she is embodied by Broadway star, Krysta Rodriguez, in a loving and respectful star turn worthy of awards attention.

Instead of trying to impersonating Liza’s incredible vocal style or imitate her iconic speaking voice, Rodriguez instead focuses on Minnelli’s drive and her connection with Halston. Her heart comes through, and it’s a friendship for the ages. Her turn as Liza is very reminiscent of Renee Zellweger’s Oscar-winning performance as Liza’s mother, Judy Garland. Rodriguez doesn’t make Liza a caricature or a schtick-y mess. There is an inherent respect from Rodriguez, because, like her idol, she longed to be on stage.

Thanks to director Dan Minihan’s careful direction, we see a Liza beyond the stage persona and Rodriguez does her proud.

Awards Daily: My favorite Liza Minnelli moment is the ‘I Gotcha’ performance.

Krysta Rodriguez: Me too!

AD: Tell me why that is your favorite performance of hers.

KR: I could talk for hours about why I love it–I just watched it again last night. And it was well before I was ever considered for this role. I loved it because I encountered it at a time in my mid-adulting like in my early twenties. It was the right moment when a women in the industry is learning that she can either strive for perfection and strive for a semblance of control or you can say, ‘This is who I am’ and let people follow. There’s something intangible about that performance because she is really messy and just so fearless and willing to put herself in awkward positions. It’s a man’s song and it’s a Bob Fosse number so it mainly uses her pelvis which felt kind of risky. She is flinging her head back and has her tongue in her cheek. It’s kind of grotesque-looking but it’s so beautiful. I’ve never seen someone do something so unplanned-looking look so appealing. It put me on this path where women can do multiple things and unconventional and “unattractive” things and succeed with it.

AD: She’s commanding these two men who are framing her. There is something about the freedom of her doing whatever she wants with her body. I’ve had other gay guys tell me that they love that performance for the same reason. She’s gloriously unhinged in that performance.

KR: Yes. People said all the time that they felt this need to protect her, but she was in total control. Unhinged is a good word for it. You think you’re going to see a car crash but it never comes because Liza is in control of everything when she’s on that stage.

AD: You’re a stage performer and Liza is too. I know how difficult it is to cultivate your sound but then have to change all that to become someone else. You embody her and you don’t try to impersonate her. What was that like for you?

KR: The task is be the best performer on her best day. There is a reason why I am not Liza Minnelli. Those performances didn’t happen for me when they happened for her. You have to alleviate yourself of that. I had to be Krysta on her best day and what does that joy feel like? How do I command the stage? She’s the legend, but you get what that feels like and you get to relate to it. It’s purely out of necessity, so I had to find out where our paths crossed and how they were similar. Liza could’ve been handed a lot and she chose not to. She was born in California and her parents were famous and the TV world was set out for her, but she took the harder route with Broadway and did the nightclubs. That was similar to what I had gone through but without the famous parents. At the time of me growing up in California, everybody wanted to be the next Lindsay Lohan.

AD: I remember everyone was looking for the next big teen star. 

KR: Yeah. You had to be that Disney star that turned into something spectacular, but I wanted to be a theater kid. That’s what Liza talked about and seeing Bye Bye Birdie and wanting to be one of those kids. It’s so interesting to see people your age on stage because it makes you want to do it. I could count how many guy friends I know that grew up wanting to be Macauley Culkin. Liza was in the it crowd for a lot of her life and hung out with those misfits who became the cool kids. All theater kids want to be the cool kids.

AD: When you do a play or a musical, that cast always feels like the family you were meant to have. It’s a very unique feeling. 

KR: Exactly.

AD: There is an immediate trust between you and Ewan as Halston. It goes beyond the characters on screen, and Liza is the only one who can put him in his place. 

KR: I credit a lot of that to Ewan. When you’re the celebrity or the title of the show, it’s harder for the rest of the people to be comfortable. It’s an extra burden on him and he does it so beautifully. When he would show a little glimmer, I could then relax. I am grateful for him to let that relationship exist, because it’s not always offered to you. Dan, our director, was communicative and open-minded with us and he would throw us dinners and we all did live in a time where we could be close. And wander around New York City and all these places where these characters really lived. The thing that really connected with us, you can tell that Liza and Halston are the beta versions of themselves. They hadn’t come into their own yet, and that was mirrored very much with me and Ewan as well. I didn’t have the hair that Liza is famous for having and he wasn’t wearing the extravagant clothes yet. The first time that happened was when Halston asks Liza to perform at Versailles and that was the moment we saw each other as the people we were playing. We got so thrilled that we arrived there together and they helped create each other and collided with each.

AD: They can make each other better, too. 

KR: That’s right.

AD: That final scene between Halston and Liza at Thanksgiving is very sad. I got worried for her, that it was the last time she would see Halston. 

KR: Absolutely.

AD: Tell me about the stakes in that scene because it does have a whiff of tragedy surrounding it. 

KR: Beyond Versailles, she starts talking about getting married and every time she has a scene with him, she’s preparing for it to be the last time she sees him. Liza doesn’t know and she sees he’s destructive because she’s on a similar path. She and Joe know they need to pull themselves out of it, and by the time she says she’s going to rehab, he denies having a problem. For me, that’s the first time she starts saying goodbye. You have to remember that at the height of AIDS you were prepping for it to be it. That’s how I worked it into the scene. She was taking little, mental snapshots of it being the last time. The hardest part about that Thanksgiving scene is that he isn’t going to say that he’s sick. She knows.

Halston is streaming on Netflix.