Nina West Went from ‘Drag Race’ to Queens of the Dead

Nina West can thank a cellphone name from buddy Zelda Williams for her largest performing alternative thus far.

“Zelda Williams calls. ‘My buddy has you on their imaginative and prescient board for this film. Would you be OK if I launched you?’” recollects West, the drag queen who’s often known as Andrew Levitt.

Their mutual buddy was Tina Romero, a filmmaker and daughter of late zombie maestro George A. Romero, the revered Night time of the Dwelling Useless director.

The youthful Romero wrote West a notice, recalling how earlier than her father’s loss of life in 2017, she acquired his blessing on her personal mission, a film referred to as Queens of the Useless. The horror-comedy facilities on drag queens and membership children battling the undead throughout an outbreak at a drag present in Brooklyn. Would West need to be part of the film?

West, greatest often called a contestant on RuPaul’s Drag Race, beforehand labored onscreen within the Bizarre Al Yankovic biopic, Bizarre, taking part in drag Icon Divine.

Her newest movie shot this summer time, with Katy O’Brian, Margaret Cho, Brigette Lundy-Paine and Cheyenne Jackson among the many forged.

“It’s this queer forged of exceptional magic,” says West. “It’s camp. It’s horror. I’ve by no means seen an undead film prefer it.”

The summer time shoot marked a busy interval for West, because it got here amid the rollout for RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars season 9, which wanted her to do promotional duties throughout weekends off of filming. She used the present to lift funds for The Trevor Venture, and likewise launched a T-shirt elevating funds for the LGBTQIA+ youth charity.

West is at the moment touring a one-woman present and has a watch on doing extra movie performing roles after Queens of the Useless whether or not that’s in drag, or with out it. Says West: “I don’t should be in drag to do a job. However it’s a talent for certain that I convey to the desk, and it’s additionally knowledgeable me within the storytelling that I can do.”