The actress and director speaks on ‘My First Time’, embracing vulnerability, and championing queer creatives through her new digital platform Club Curran
Regardless of the context, first times can be daunting experiences, but they can also be transformative moments that mark a new cycle in someone’s life. For actress Tommy Dorfman, understanding the intrigue of first times has been at the heart of her latest passion project, a podcast entitled ‘My First Time’.
Since its launch, the podcast has welcomed the likes of Julia Fox, Dylan Mulvaney and Hunter Abrams, with each episode unpacking a different first-time experience. “It’s really sweet and tender to have these conversations,” Dorfman says. “I find it comforting when people come on the podcast, it becomes more of a mutual exchange of vulnerability.” Whether it’s discussing the first time going to Venice Film Festival with Trace Lysette, or going to Al-Anon with astrologer Chani Nicholas, the podcast offers a refreshing take on a wide range of topics.
Alongside the podcast, Dorfman has had a busy start to the year. Officially launched earlier in January, Club Curran is Dorfman’s digital lifestyle platform made to give young queer creatives a place to find community, showcase their work and shop from a curated marketplace of LGBTQ+ owned brands. Remaining tight-lipped about her directorial debut I Wish You All The Best, a film which debuted this week at SXSW and follows a non-binary teenager finding first love, she says: “There’s nothing else I can say other than I’m really fucking excited and I feel grateful that I get to make art for a living.”
Below, Dorfman spoke to us about the podcast, giving queer and trans people a safe space to be vulnerable, and the launch of Club Curran.
What made you want to start the podcast? Where did the idea come from?
Tommy Dorfman: I am a really curious person and I love one-on-one conversations. I had toyed around with the idea of podcasts for a while. I thought a lot about transitions as human beings. We’re always going through these big, small or medium-sized transitions, and I think first times encapsulate the holistic experience of what transitioning is.
For Julia [Fox], writing a book saw her enter into another level of her career and it transitioned her confidence in different ways. Similarly, Kimberly Drew talks about redefining her relationship with food, and how that has transitioned her into a different phase of adulthood and responsibility. It’s the same with Dylan Mulvaney, who spoke about going to a fashion show, and how being invited into that space can or can not be such an affirming experience. I just love these kinds of conversations.
Why did you choose to focus the podcast on first times? And how do you approach discussing that with guests?
Tommy Dorfman: I feel a vested interest in talking to queer and trans people and expanding the narratives that surround us. Often I feel when I’ve been a guest on a podcast, I feel like I’m reduced to identity and gender, but there are a lot of things about me as a human that I would love to talk about. First kisses are universal, you know? They don’t have anything to do with who you like to fuck or not fuck and they have everything to do with that experience you’re having at that age, that time and that space.
In a world that is so violent towards trans people, the more we can humanise our life experiences, the more people will hopefully soften to us – if they haven’t already. I think my podcast is a space where people get to soften. This type of vulnerability can offer a way in for people who maybe don’t understand queer and trans people, so I do prioritise those guests in a lot of ways, but I love having allies on, you know, some people are just gay, even if they’re not gay!
“My podcast is a space where people get to soften. This type of vulnerability can offer a way in for people who maybe don’t understand queer and trans people” – Tommy Dorfman
Who haven’t you had on the podcast yet that you would love to speak to?
Tommy Dorfman: I think continuing to broaden and diversify my guest palette is so important to me. I’m curious to speak to politicians, educators and teachers, that would be like really cool. A lot of my guests right now are stateside, so doing a little bit more international seasons because I think geography impacts how you experience things There are certain accessibility portals via social media, but at the end of the day, someone who grew up in South Korea is going to have a very different first time probably than someone who grew up in Minnesota. I'm looking to broaden and maybe paint on a larger canvas.
What has been your favourite episode to record so far?
Tommy Dorfman: The Kimberly Drew episode is so special to me, ‘my first time eating without anxiety’. It was so unexpected. I understand food anxiety but I think it was a new way of thinking for me and it was so inspiring and illuminating. I had a lot of fun with Julia, just because we’ve known each other forever so it felt really special. We've been friends for 10 years, and to look at what we’ve both done separately is so interesting.
There’s a shop section on your new digital platform Club Curran which I love. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to find brands that are aligned with individual values so I love that it champions queer and trans brands?
Tommy Dorfman: I used to work in retail at Dover Street Market in college and I love fashion, emerging designers, skincare and beauty. I think there are incredible queer and trans-owned brands that everybody should be buying from – whether they are allies, queer people or people who don’t even like queer people, they should still be buying from these brands. I’ve always wanted to have a store, and so I wanted Curran to have a marketplace of queer and trans-owned businesses that we believe in and that we want to support and amplify or co-create products with.
What does the process behind picking the brands on the marketplace look like for you?
Tommy Dorfman: We started beauty and skincare focused, and we’re now expanding that. So we’ve added this brand called Alder that I really love and also Official Rebrand, which is a lot of upcycled comedy apparel. We just started carrying Private Policy, which is a cool advocacy-based brand that does a lot of collabs. They are genderless and gender expansive and focused on different types of social topics – relationships with money, nature and all of these different spaces. So it’s really fun for me to meet and work with these brands, and then it’s inspiring to think of different ways that we can either create new products together or develop different types of narratives or stories around the brands themselves.
Club Curran seems really rooted in community and safe space. I was wondering if you remember the first time you felt that for yourself, a sense of community and chosen family?
Tommy Dorfman: Well, I wasn’t expecting to say this, but when I started dancing ballet as a kid. It was really hard for me to have friends at school. I was bullied a lot. I had good relationships with my biological family, but I didn’t feel particularly understood or championed for certain parts of my existence. I felt supported in a lot of beautiful ways but I remember when I started dancing ballet it was the first time I met I made a group of girlfriends who took me in. I often was so separated because of my biological gender, I felt very stuck with the boys and did not know how to operate in those spaces. Ballet gave me this space and I was nurtured in a different way in that community.
But really, I found queer community and that sense of chosen family when I was in high school. It was outside of school, I just made other friends in Atlanta via social media who are queer and they just became my people. We could explore and evolve together and learn from each other's mistakes, successes, failures and wins.
When was the last time you did something for the first time?
Tommy Dorfman: Oh my god. I think I’ve done a few smaller first times with this felt big: I took a pottery-throwing class during the strike. I had watched this British show and I was obsessed. I was like, ‘I bet I could do this’. I’m very tactile and really thought I could get into like rhythm of it… and I was fucking terrible.
If there was one thing that you hope people take away from the podcast, what would it be?
Tommy Dorfman: I hope that people feel nurtured in some way, whether that’s feeling less alone or feeling inspired or feeling like something new is being reflected in them, or that there’s a relatability.