It could have all transpired differently. He studied psychology at Concordia in Montreal and planned to go into psychotherapy. However, drawn to acting, he moved to New York and started auditioning. With auditions came waiting tables. A chance meeting with the food expert from the original Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, Ted Allen, led to a personal assistant gig and a mentorship. It was Allen who suggested he audition for the show, though it was Porowski's gleeful, long-winded description of an ideal last meal that clinched the job for him.
"Because I didn't have a master plan for this, I'm kind of rolling with the punches," he says. "I had a bit of impostor syndrome in the beginning, where I felt like I wasn't gay enough or didn't deserve to have this public position. So I said yes to everything." Now, he's streamlining his focus, highlighting New York's LGBT Center, which he says helped him personally during a rough period, and City Harvest, an organization that addresses hunger through food redistribution.
"THEY'RE GOING TO WRITE WHAT THEY'RE GOING TO WRITE.... LOOK, IT'S NOT A COOKING SHOW."
His unexpected ubiquity does come at a cost. While he's earned praise from the New York Times and become a fan favorite on the show, some on social media gripe about the simplicity of his kitchen creations. Notably, he's become the face of a roiling national conversation about whether it is hard to make guacamole. It's a real scandal.
When asked about the public reaction, he gets a little peevish (at the whole thing; not at me). "They're going to write what they're going to write.... Look, it's not a cooking show." He points to the first episode of season 1, featuring Tom Jackson, which features Porowski's now-famous preparation of guacamole. Jackson has lupus, an autoimmune disease, which Porowski tried to incorporate into his food plan. "We discovered that nightshades are inflammatory, and people with autoimmune disease shouldn't have them. Okay? Tomatoes, garlic, eggplant, peppers, tobacco?he smoked three packs of cigarettes a day?all nightshades. So, I made a menu that had a salsa with a charred corn, black beans, cilantro, and lime juice, all very accessible and easy." But what made it into the show? Jackson's gobsmacked reaction to Porowski cutting open an avocado, and the guac that launched a thousand memes.
"Was my ego hurt? Definitely, but at the same time like it wasn't about me showing this whole entire spread. It was about figuring out what that person's guacamole was." He segues in and out of metaphor frequently. For Porowski, especially, guac is never just guac. And food is never just food. "The show is not a vehicle for me to proverbially jerk off my skills," he says with finality. "That's not the purpose of the show."
The purpose, as he sees it, is to help another person and to increase visibility for the things he cares about and for the different parts of his identity. This presents a challenge for someone on a show called Queer Eye who, when asked what his sexual identity is, replies, "Antoni."
"My sexuality has always been kind of sacred and private and not anything that I really shared, because I dated mostly women. I've only been in relationships with two guys." It was discomfiting, he says, to share both food, which he describes as intimate and home-based, and his sexuality, in such a public light. As his visibility has increased, however, he's come to a new understanding of what it requires of him. "I realized just showing up and being like hey, I'm Antoni, I'm in a relationship with a guy and I'm going to teach you how to make food. Just by being that for somebody.... You can never know what impact you're going to have on somebody by sharing your personal story."
This, too, can spark controversy, however. As someone who has suddenly been thrust into the center of national conversations about queer life and its public acceptance, there can be a disconnect between the actions of Antoni the avatar and Antoni the individual. It's one of the prices of fame?as a highly visible queer person, his physical appearance and his political stances are as closely scrutinized as his cooking work. "It's an ultimate lesson for somebody who is pathologically drawn to wanting to make everybody happy," he says. "What I've learned is that living in public life...it's impossible to have everybody like you. No matter what you do."
As for the shirtless Instagrams and ads like his contrapposto Hanes spot, he's surprisingly forthright. "It's not going to last forever; the body's going to change. Somebody new is going to come around the block and take the spot, right? I want to have a bunch of corgis, live a good life, set up a fund, and help my sister out. She has MS and is about to do stem cell and I get to make a real fucking difference in her life. And if I have to wear my underwear in a couple of endorsements to be able to do that for somebody then, yeah, I'll do it. I'm okay with that."
02-07-2018 - Vidéo
