Interview With "RuPaul's Drag Race" 2024 Winner Nymphia Wind

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[00:01:29] You are listening to the Next Best Picture podcast and this is Cody Derrick's interview with the winner of season 16 of RuPaul's Drag Race, Nymphaea Wynn. Fourteen bold new queens break through the noise. Who will seize the moment? I feel the presence of the season 16 winner in this room.

[00:01:49] I think it's me. Gag. Let the game begin. I lived for it but I also hated her for it. I don't want to get in trouble for fighting her bitch ass. Feels.

[00:01:59] This is something big for us because I believe we're the first dark up queens on the show. Finally having a shot to like live my dream. Luxe. If this is just a taste of who you are, I am ready for a buffet.

[00:02:11] Hello everyone, this is Cody Derrick's with Next Best Picture and I am beyond thrilled to be talking with the iconic, the sensational, the winner of RuPaul's Drag Race season 16, Nymphaea Wynn. Nymphaea, thank you so much for joining me today. Of course. Thank you for having me. Of course.

[00:02:30] Literally anytime. Right away, can we start out? I know you were crowned not too long ago but can you tell me how your life has already changed since your win? I hear the word congratulations a lot now.

[00:02:43] So it's pretty wild to win Drag Race and fly around the country as a reigning queen of season 16. That's very crazy. Truly flying on the wind, I'm sure, you know, as your name dictates. Flying everywhere. Absolutely.

[00:03:04] Now, talking to this season, one of the most inspiring moments of the entire season was seeing you talk about your struggles with your confidence and vulnerability. Did watching yourself succeed so consistently on the show help you find more self-confidence?

[00:03:19] No, I kind of just detached from myself watching the show. What I'm trying to say is this is still a thing that I am learning or ignoring. You know, drag has really showed me what self-confidence looks like.

[00:03:41] So when I'm out of drag, like, I can sometimes tap into that. But generally I just kind of live my life as a little plankton just going on about it. Well one thing that I'm confident in is that you had some of the best looks of not only

[00:03:58] this season but truly any season of Drag Race. It was just sensational watching you just conquer the season. Of course, but with a little bit of self-reflection, can you tell me what one of your favorite

[00:04:12] looks was for yourself and if you're able to, one of your favorite looks from one of the other queens from your season? My favorite look was definitely my butoh look. The dancing queen one. And a favorite look of my fellow contestant would be...

[00:04:31] Is it that that I don't remember? I mean there's so many. How could you? There's so many. What does that take? The egg. The egg by Zunami in the ball. I think that was really a cute one.

[00:04:44] I like anything dramatic and camp that really gave me the life that I needed. Well an egg look is obviously food-based and that was one of your... Red and yellow and white food groups. Exactly. Additionally on this season, something else that was just impressive about your entire

[00:05:02] run was that you were the only queen the whole season who never had to lip sync for her life which is not common nowadays on Drag Race. But I imagine you still prepared for these lip syncs, you know, just in case. Yes, of course.

[00:05:16] I was in the constant fear of going home so of course I was gonna be learning those songs. I was really surprised. I was fully ready to lip sync on the Snatch Game episode so I'm really surprised that

[00:05:32] they called me safe which I am of course grateful for. And you know, I'm glad Plain Jane put me in the bottom for the talent show because that means no one has ever seen me lip sync which I think is very in my favor because the last

[00:05:51] lip sync was definitely the first time anyone ever seen me lip sync so that was definitely very fun. The element of surprise. The underdog. The element of surprise has been so integral to finales lately so you got one that didn't

[00:06:05] even necessarily require a reveal but you still had an amazing reveal so kudos to you on that. I mean, I knew I was gonna go up against Saphira and Plain and I know Saphira is a fierce lip syncer so I had to do something.

[00:06:21] I had to bring my all. Of course. Because this was a battle. And you knew she was gonna bring her all obviously. Yeah, so I had to be prepared. Obviously there were a lot of moments throughout the season that didn't make it to air.

[00:06:36] Do you have any memories of specific moments between you and another queen that you're a little sad didn't make it into the edit? So Tsunami kept saying mad cunt a lot.

[00:06:50] And obviously we had to edit that out so that was pretty sad because I did like a higher pitched version. Tsunami did like the lower pitch but I would scream mad cunt in a very high pitched tone

[00:07:04] and those didn't make the cut so that's pretty sad we didn't have our mad cunt moment. Now at the finale you had this amazing song, this amazing performance called Queen of Wind.

[00:07:15] Did you have any hand at all in the writing or the choreo or was this something that was totally presented to you? I came up with the concept. I came up with the concept of Queen of Wind.

[00:07:26] I gave them a few demos of the song that I was thinking of so I gave Marry the Night of Queen of Peace by Florence and the Machine and another song I don't know if you know

[00:07:37] that song I forget the name of that a small town girl living in a lonely world. Oh Don't Stop Believing? Yeah, yeah. Journey of course. Yeah, so I presented this idea that I wanted to have a feeling of they were fighting for

[00:07:55] something they had somewhere that they needed to go and they needed to transform into this queen of wind and that they had to dig their self out of the dirt kind of vibe. So I kind of like presented them with that concept and they came back with this.

[00:08:17] And you started the number with this gorgeous outfit that I was reading was inspired by Peking opera costumes. Can you talk a little bit about that? So that tiger outfit is a general kind of clothing within Peking opera.

[00:08:59] It's not like your traditional Peking opera outfit, but it was like inspired from that. So it's basically a very masculine figure and this tiger general I imagine is weighed down by a lot of arrows and is struggling a bit fighting for their life and is hurt and burdened.

[00:09:19] And I imagined a person breaking out from all that burden and all that pain and suffering and becoming the queen of wind and freeing themselves from all of that. So that was the basic concept for the clothing.

[00:09:37] Well, oh absolutely because that actually read and just hearing you elaborate on it really intensifies some of your intentions. So I totally get that. And you know a lot of your looks were highly conceptual throughout the season, but they also were always underlined by couture fashion sensibilities.

[00:09:55] Can you tell me some of your favorite designers? I love Madeline Vionette, the person who invented the bias cut, Ni-San Le Hong, Alexander Queen. Oh, there's a few more. Hsu-Sin Chia-Lian, Tom Brown and a few others that I cannot remember right now.

[00:10:13] But you know, I like any fashion designer that is dramatic in their own way and has a signature. And when you look at the work, you know whose work it is. So having that recognizability and design sense and dramaticness in their garments.

[00:10:33] And as a fashion based queen, can you tell me what came first? Were you more into designing fashion for fashion sake or did you design fashion based drag for yourself? Design for fashion or design for drag. Yeah, which one came first for you?

[00:10:49] Was it kind of a symbiotic thing? Oh, I guess fashion came first. Yeah, I think fashion came first. And once I started doing drag, like fashion design and drag kind of just merged together.

[00:11:05] But I started by doing fashion illustrations and it got to a point where I wanted to start making these looks happen. So, ta-da! Well, and in your pre-drag race career, was there a specific moment where you decided,

[00:11:23] you know what, I do think I want to audition for drag race? I think it was always at the back of my mind with auditioning for drag race, because I knew I was American. So this is an option for me that I could do.

[00:11:37] I always thought about it, but you know, living in Taiwan, drag race felt so far. Like it didn't feel like something that could actually happen. So originally I was going to move to New York in 2020 to audition and all that.

[00:11:50] And just, you know, because Taiwan's small, you kind of feel like you plateau at a certain point and there's just like, there's only so much you can do. So moving to New York was an option for me to further my drag career and really see where

[00:12:04] drag can take me. So I say I moved to America to explore my drag, but also in the back of my mind, it's also to maybe attempt to audition for drag race. But 2020, the pandemic happened so I couldn't move and I just stayed in Taiwan and I just

[00:12:21] auditioned the first time in Taiwan, you know, just to go through the motions and see how this whole process works. And in 2022, I just felt like I heard a voice saying that, you know, maybe it's time. Something's calling me to America to make that move.

[00:12:39] And I really felt like, you know, it's time for me to make the move to America. And initially when I told my friends that I was moving, I always said like, you know,

[00:12:47] it's to, you know, change the scene and to see where my drag career can take me. But not telling them that I was going to audition for drag race because I didn't want to

[00:12:58] jinx myself or oversell myself and get people excited and not end up, you know, making it. So it was always in the back of my mind, auditioning for the race. And, you know, in 2022, I just sent in my audition tape, filmed it and got the call,

[00:13:16] which to me was very surprising, but also not surprising. Surprising in the sense that it is happening so fast. Like I just moved to America for like one, two, three, four, like four months. And then this is already happening. Like this is crazy and unreal.

[00:13:34] So that happened, got on the show and now we're here. So you only auditioned once before getting on the show? Well, technically two times. Technically. But once in America. I'm approaching the end of my time here, unfortunately with you.

[00:13:50] But before I let you go, if you had one piece of advice you could give to queens who were going to compete on drag race, what would it be? Put a recording of self-motivation into an iPod and listen to that and bring calming music.

[00:14:05] Bring your emotional support music with you into an iPod. Because I feel like a lot of times because you're so isolated and you're by yourself, you don't have your emotional support who remind you of who you are.

[00:14:19] So in the competition setting, you kind of sometimes forget who you are. And that is a scary thing in this competition show. So find things and bring things that re-center yourself into you and just be yourself. That would be my advice.

[00:14:37] Well, thank you for showing us who you are in this amazing season of Drag Race, Nymphaia. And I'm so excited to see what the future holds for you. Oh. Have a good one. Hey everyone, thank you so much for listening to Cody Derrick's interview with the season 16

[00:14:54] winner of RuPaul's Drag Race, Nymphaia Wynne here on The Next Best Picture Podcast. RuPaul's Drag Race is up to your consideration in all eligible categories for this year's Emmy Awards. You have been listening to The Next Best Picture Podcast.

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