Cole Escola reflects on playing ‘demon twink’ in Difficult People

Cole Escola has recalled the fun they had playing a “demon twink” in the sitcom Difficult People.

Earlier this year, the actor and playwright became the first non-binary star to win the Tony Award for a leading actor in a play, for their performance as Mary Todd Lincoln, the wife of US president Abraham Lincoln, in his own work Oh Mary!

Appearing on Good Hang with Amy Poehler, Escola recollected working with the podcast host in Difficult People. The series ran between 2015 and 2017 and was created by Julie Klausner, who played the lead role of Julie Kessler, a jaded comedian in New York. It also starred Billy Eichner.

Escola played Matthew, a co-worker of Eichner’s character. Poehler, one of the show’s producers, appeared as “healologist” Flute.

“That was so much fun,” Escola said. “And that was a situation where I trusted Julie [Klausner] completely [with the humour]. And the character, I just got it immediately.”

Describing Matthew as a demon twink, a term used to describe particularly feral and mischievous twinks, Escola said the character was a “full-of-himself, musical-theatre villain… gay villain”.

They went on to praise Klausner’s love and “deep respect” of “awful gay guys”.

Poehler said Klausner was good at writing characters who “you are rooting for and also afraid of”, adding: “You don’t want to leave the room while they’re around. They’ll destroy you.”

Escola also talked about life after Oh Mary! having left the role in June. They have been replaced by Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt star Tituss Burgess. RuPaul’s Drag Race winner Jinkx Monsoon is set to take over for two months from 4 August.

“I’m sort of like when you get off of a boat. You know when you get off your biggest boat and you’re like wobbly. That’s how I feel,” they said.

Poehler joked: “There’s nowhere to go but down, babe,” prompting Escola to reply: “I know. Truly down or leave the business. Just jump in a river and change my name. Don’t bring my phone. Burn my fingerprints off.”

They have gone on to appear in At Home With Amy Sedaris and voice various animated characters.

In Oh, Mary! Escola’s character longs to be a cabaret performer, and they have admitted to doing zero research before writing it. It is set in the weeks before her husband’s assassination at Ford’s Theatre in Washington DC in 1865.

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