OUT

AFTER FIRE ISLAND

“THERE’S A LOT OF PLACES THAT I THINK A LOT OF QUEER PEOPLE WANT TO SEE THEMSELVES IN THAT DON’T NECESSARILY HAVE TO TACKLELOVE OR FAMILYOR TRAUMA.”

Joel Kim Booster has been putting in the work.

The Loot star is becoming more of a household name since writing and starring in 2022’s queer retelling of Pride and Prejudice, the Emmy-nominated Fire Island. But the 36-year-old Korean-born comedian and actor has been sowing the seeds of his career for the better part of the last decade. While he’s getting busier and busier these days, he’s always known that he was built for this — even if he didn’t necessarily always know what “this” looked like.

“I always knew I wanted to work in entertainment,” says Booster, fresh off the second season of his beloved Apple TV+ show , where he plays a fiercely loyal (and gay) assistant to series lead Maya Rudolph; he’s also featured in , a new Netflix doc about the cultural impact of LGBTQ+ stand-up. “But my conception of what ‘this’ actually is, is that what I’m doing has changed so many times over the course of going to school for theater and then doing theater in Chicago and then starting stand-up and then going from stand-up to

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