Amid the drama and glamour of RuPaul’s Drag Race season 10, one queen has already proven that sometimes, going home first is a good thing. Vanessa Vanjie Mateo was the first to leave the competition this season, but her exit, in which she simply repeated the words “Miss Vanjie” over and over again, has become the stuff of legend.
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Miss Vanjie has become so popular that even actor Andrew Garfield knows about her meme — and loves it. “I was so disappointed to see Miss Vanjie go, as everyone was,” Garfield said in an interview on Broadway.com’s Show People with Paul Wontorek while promoting his starring role in the Broadway revival of Angels in America. “And that exit is like one of the iconic moments – I believe – of Drag Race history.”
Garfield went on to say that he was as confused as everyone else by Mateo’s repetitive catch phrase. “What the hell was that?” he asked. “Were you taken over by a divine entity? It’s hypnotized the culture, it’s like…she was channeling something.”
The actor admitted that while the moment was incidentally hilarious, he felt almost inspired by it. “I feel changed,” he said. “Bruce Springsteen and Miss Vanjie, I feel changed by so far this year. Maybe Miss Vanjie slightly more profoundly.”
In Angels in America, Garfield plays the lead role of Prior Walter, a gay man in 1980s New York who has been diagnosed with AIDS and receives a call to action from a heavenly angel. Garfield received a Tony nomination for Best Lead Actor in a Play last week.
Watch Garfield’s full interview with Paul Wontorek below: