You Don't Have to Do It for Everyone Else, You've Just Got to Do It for You: An Interview with Louie Oddity

Jester costume designed and made by Ray Forest @runtboii {Image description: Louie Oddity is wearing a jester costume, striking a playful pose on stage at an outdoor event, surrounded by lush greenery and urban decor – a sign in the background reads 'Judys'}

Louie Oddity (they/them) is Tasmania's favourite showghoul – a name synonymous with weird, captivating, and boundary-pushing performance in Tasmania’s drag and burlesque scene. Beginning as a burlesque dancer in 2021, they’ve since evolved into a unique drag artist, while their self-produced showcase, Oddities, celebrates individuality and creative freedom.

With a signature blend of sexiness, humour, and an unapologetic embrace of the strange, Louie’s performances leave a lasting impression. However, like many artists navigating self-expression, they’ve also grappled with identity, creative fulfilment, and the pressures of expectation. After taking a break from drag in late 2024, they’ve returned with a renewed sense of self and a commitment to performing on their own terms.

In this conversation with Piper Loveday, Louie opens up about their journey – how burlesque and drag have shaped their sense of self, the challenges of being an AFAB (assigned female at birth) drag artist, the importance of creating spaces where performers can be unashamedly themselves, and the liberating power of embracing the weird.

What is a classic Louie Oddity show? What should someone expect when they come to see you perform?  

{Image description: Louie Oddity is onstage, under smoky red light. wearing a corset, fishnet tights and tall black boots}

I think ideally I want people to expect that it's going to be sexy and it's going to be weirdly goofy, and you're going to be like, what the fuck? I want people to feel something. I want people to feel empowered. A reason why I didn't give up on burlesque is, when I first started, I was really skinny and I've put on 30, 40 kilos since then and the reason I kept going was the audience's reaction to seeing someone with a body like mine on stage. That's why I'll always keep burlesque in there, even when I'm doing drag – I don't care, I'll still get naked, people need that. So I want people to feel empowered to be weird. That's why I started the showcase of curiosities, Oddities [in Launceston, Tasmania]. I was like, we need something weird, we need a space for people to just get their freak on and say things that they wanna say, just break the normal. So what do I want people to expect? Sexiness, goofiness and feeling empowered to be themselves, whether they're weird or curvy or not. I just want people to feel good about themselves. Which is ironic because I started moulding myself to everybody else. I need to be me and set that example, for everyone, but also for me.  

Okay, so you took an official break from drag at the end of last year, why?  

I was starting to just really not feel myself. I felt like I was performing for everyone else. I started doing my makeup and being like, as a drag queen, what am I meant to look like? What am I meant to look like as an AFAB drag queen? What does the audience want? What I like isn't going to be what everyone else likes. So I started shrinking myself a bit, into what might please everybody else, like the ‘normal drag’ and watching Drag Race, trying to squish myself into a box. I just lost the passion. In all my last performances, I was dissociating on stage, I was not there. I was not proud of anything I was producing. I was just having a bad time. My last show I nearly didn't rock up because I was just a hot mess. I got there just in time, rocked up, did my thing at New Norfunk and then left. I didn't feel like I was doing it for me anymore. I was just like, I need to stop, I need to figure my shit out.  

And the pressure of Halloween as a spooky drag creature, I didn't feel like I was doing anything for me. It's weird because that would have been my time to do something authentic to myself, but then I was just putting on so much pressure. I don't know whether anyone else would actually care, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I had shows lined up for that month and I had to message the producers and be like I can't, I'm sorry. I made it an official thing because everyone was expecting me to perform. That was really hard and I mourned it for a little while. Watching the Halloween shows, I was so upset. It was weird, because I was like, I’m going to take a break and do makeup on my own time. I've got to figure out, what's my look? What's my stamp? Then come back and be perfect.  

What was your first performance after the break like?

I mean that show [Altar Ego], it did well. The first act I was still dissociating a little bit, but with the jester I was so in my body.  Because I haven't liked anything I've done in the jester, at all. I feel like the costume was doing all the work and I just wasn't doing anything. When I did it for the Drag Ball, I was so not there. I hate that performance, I hate everything I've done in the jester to be honest. I don't even know how to describe it, just dissociation on stage. So it was nice to do something and actually be in my body again for Alter Ego.  

Did you feel better after you performed?  

Yeah, it's really nice to be back and get feedback from everybody. I was just like oh my god, this is why I do it, this is nice. And releasing that expectation that I had to come back perfect. I was like, I have to come back and I have to be this, that or the other. No one else gives a fuck. Literally just myself. But I don't know, I think brains are stupid like that sometimes.  

So during the break, did it work? Do you feel like you?  

{Image description: Louie Oddity is onstage in dramatic makeup, in the process of opening a red corset}

I think so. I think it was good to think about my drag and look at lots of inspiration on Instagram. I've got a massive drag folder and seeing other people do weird shit and being like, this is what I wish I could do. So I'm collating ideas and just figuring out how I’m going to do this as me. I think the biggest thing was starting to watch Dragula, I wish I'd started watching that before I started doing drag. I think it would have changed a lot. And I'm putting less pressure on myself. I don't love the last look I did for Prohibition. I was just like, I hate this face, what is this? This doesn't scream what I want my drag to be, but it's just kind of releasing that and being like, who the fuck cares? You just do something different next time. That's how we evolve and shit and that's fine. But no, the break helped, Dragula helped so much. I cannot emphasise that enough, seeing weird shit and being like it's art, you don't have to do it for everyone else, I’ve just got to do it for me.  

Something you touched on before, I want to go back to, when you talked about being an AFAB performer... what are your struggles and pressures?  

Feeling like my makeup has to be bigger, even though I'm nonbinary. I feel like I have to go so over the top, it has to look ‘drag’ otherwise I'm just a chick wearing makeup. Looking over my makeup from while I've been doing drag... It started good but then I kept getting bigger and bigger and it got so messy and out of control. I felt like it has to be huge. It has to be this, it has to be that, because I’m AFAB.  

And then the whole, what are my pronouns in drag? Because I don't want to go by she/her, but I present so feminine that I feel I have to. But then there's not enough masculine for me to be a king. But now I'm seeing other they/them artists, especially in Melbourne. Seeing other mainlander nonbinaries doing drag and I'm like okay, you don't have to be androgynous to be nonbinary. That's something I struggle with out of drag, but it's weird experiencing that in drag as well. Being like, ‘I have to present a certain way because I'm a drag queen’.  

Figuring out my paint has been really interesting as an AFAB queen because I'm thinking I have to completely change my face, I have to not look like me because I've got the feminine features, so I've gone so over the top. But it felt really interesting when I had my break and I was doing drag for work. Because I wasn't doing it to impress other drag queens on the scene, I wasn't doing it to perform, and that was probably the most ‘me’ face I've ever done. Just realising I can be femme in my own way, I don't have to go massive for it to be drag just because of the body I was born in. Finding the moustache was really important, it makes me feel hot as fuck and it makes me feel validated that I can do a sexy femme eye and it doesn't have to be massive. So that's my safety net at the moment, my little moustache.  

Wigs as well, feeling like I have to wear a wig. I'm not about that, I remember the first time I did wear a wig. Everyone was like, ‘Oh my God, you look amazing. You should wear wigs more often’. That's my other thing, trying to stick to one aesthetic because I'm influenced by so many different timeframes. I wanna be 1920s, but then I also wanna be 90s grunge and then I wanna have the goth – I was feeling like I've had so many different faces. I went to X-Quizette [a fellow Tasmanian drag artist] for advice and I was just like, ‘Help me with my drag. Mumma, what advice do you have?’ And she was just like, ‘I don't know what a Louie Oddity face looks like’.

I want the freedom of still being able to change a lot, but I feel like trying to find that signature and that stamp, it's hard – also I don’t want to be trapped into the box because I love getting so creative with my makeup at the same time. I'll figure it out, just try to not put too much pressure and just have fun with it. I'll figure out my staple eventually. Got my moustache, then just playing with colours has been really fun, like weird colours.  

In what ways drag has been a positive influence in your life, your mental health?

{Image description: Louie Oddity is onstage in dramatic makeup, dressed in a red corset, in the process of removing their pants, smiling at the audience}

I have become so much more myself, I mean, that's something I've gradually been learning over the last 10 years. Growing up with trauma, having to suppress your personality and suppress being ‘too much’. But drag has enabled me to explore more of myself. It's weird because being in drag, I started shrinking myself, but then in normal life, I've started doing slightly weirder makeup and wearing slightly weird outfits again and just being me. I'm so authentically me, and a lot goofier. I don't mask as much, which is really weird – painting on a mask has made me unmask, it's made me embrace my big, goofy personality. It's just made me more comfortable in my skin. I think that's the biggest thing is it's made me a lot more outgoing. I compliment a lot more people on the street, I talk to a lot more strangers. That's the biggest change.  

Who are your biggest influences?  

Through watching Dragula, Dahli was a massive one for me, the way that Dahli fucks with gender and does their own thing, that was fucking amazing. Dragula as a whole has been a big inspiration. Bettie Bombshell and the confidence she exudes on stage. Burlesque performance in general. The amount of amazing people I follow on Instagram and the confidence burlesque brings. I'm really glad I started with burlesque, because they're so cheeky and they're so powerful. Goths in general, goth culture inspires me a lot to do your own thing.  

Last thing, what's a message you have for people new to drag?  

Do it for you. Let it be an amplification. If you could be anything, what? What would little you love to dress up as, if you could dress up as anything? Drag is the freedom to be whatever the fuck you want.

It's play. You can play, you can do whatever you want. You can dress up however you want. Express yourself in any way that you want, that you can't in normal day-to-day life because expressing yourself on the street can be scary. There's no rules. Embrace yourself.  

Ask yourself, if you have no limits, what would you do? And then do that.  

Jester costume designed and made by Ray Forest @runtboii {Image description: Louie Oddity is wearing the headpiece of an elaborate jester costume, along with nipple tassles, a corset, fishnet tights and tall black boots surrounded by lush greenery and urban decor. The is a sign in the background that say 'Judys'}

Interview by Piper Loveday / Editing assistance by Samm Cameron

All photographs by the talented Millie Crouch @millie.crouch

*This interview has been edited for length and clarity