‘We’re Here’ on HBO: Queens and Crew Unpack the Tensest Episode Yet

We’re Here’s cross-country tour continued in Branson, Missouri—and tensions were high. HBO’s drag docuseries hasn’t shied away from awkward moments so far, as seen in the emotionally powerful Gettysburg and Twin Falls episodes. But Branson? Girl, Branson was not playing around. Lead queens Shangela, Eureka O’Hara, and Bob the Drag Queen were met with opposition unlike any they’ve encountered before—and that’s including their drag daughters.

This week, Shangela teamed up with a fellow professional and Eureka helped bring a shy dad out of his shell. But of all the mother/daughter relationships, none compared to what Bob had to pull off while working with Tanner, a man caught between living his life as a Christian and/or an out gay man.

Now that you’ve seen the story of Branson and met the town’s newest queens, here’s a behind-the-scenes look from the cast and crew at how the show found Tanner, navigated those challenging locations, and turned out a memorable drag show.

Of the three cities we’ve seen so far, the vibe in Branson felt the most tense. The lead trio turned heads even when out of drag.

Bob the Drag Queen (star, consulting producer): I think that we don’t look super outlandish [when we’re out of drag], but we are clearly queer people, I will say that. There’s no question whether or not we’re big gays walking down the street. Sometimes I get looks here in New York City. Not a lot. Most people don’t really care about shit like that. But still, to see people walk around unabashedly queer, apparently is still quite shocking so some people. For the most part, most people in these towns were pretty receptive and open. We had a little bit of opposition in a few towns, most people were like, pretty into it. The folks who didn’t like it just kind of minded their own business and didn’t want to tango with us.

Peter LoGreco (director): We were really really shocked and pleasantly surprised, I think, across the board by how much of an embrace—even when there was plenty of bigotry in all of these other conservative forces at work in these towns—but how much of an embrace there was there.

Of the three queens introduced in the Branson episode, Tanner’s story of coming out as gay and then going back into the closet to instead come out as a Christian posed challenges. 

Jeffrey Marx (casting producer): In terms of degree of difficulty, for my job, [Tanner] was definitely up there. We went to Branson and started talking to people at the bars that we knew already. There was a drag show going on at the time. We met this lady there, her name’s Melissa, she’s like, “I want to talk to you guys but I’m a little”—it was Halloween time, she was in a costume. She’s like, “I really want to talk to you guys, but here’s my card. I hear you’re in town for a few days, give me a call.”

‘We’re Here’: How the Groundbreaking Drag Docuseries Sashayed onto HBO

Yes—Tanner’s mother Melissa connected with We’re Here at a drag show.

Marx: We ended up going into her office and it was like a whole different lady that we were talking to than what we had met at the bar. She went right into talking about her three sons. Her oldest son, she was very concerned about because he has grown up in this religious Branson environment, and now thinks that his gayness is a sin and he’s going to pray his own gayness away.

Marx: She just, as a mother, was like, “I don’t want him to not know what love feels like. I want him to express love if he finds it. I don’t want him to feel like he should be ashamed or guilty of this part of him.” And I was like, “Well, do you think we could talk to your son? Is this something that you and your family would be interested in exploring?” When you find a family with a dynamic like that, you don’t want to just be like, “Hey! Be on TV.” You really want it to be their decision.

Getting in touch with Tanner himself proved to be difficult at first.

Marx: We were not able to connect with Tanner while we were in town. I did a Skype interview with him. It’s really hard to talk to a young gentleman that is definitely gay, as seen in this ep, but his life-view is so opposite of mine personally, let alone tons of people who will be watching the show. But he was so truthful and so genuine, and you could see him trying to make sense of all his answers as he was speaking, and how laughter came just as easy as tears did. It’s not uncommon for me to cry in my interviews. I think when you give your genuine emotion to a casting subject, they are more readily able to give it back to you. But our conversation was easily the longest out of all the interviews.

Fortunately for Tanner, there was a queen on deck with uniquely personal insight into exactly what he was going through.

Stephen Warren (co-creator): Bob has his mother, who has struggled being a Christian that came out as a lesbian, then back to being Christian. It was a wonderful pairing with Tanner.

Bob: After you watch the episode, you realize that Tanner’s story is not terribly different than mine or people in my family. So it’s not like I didn’t have any understanding of what Tanner was going through. I’m from the south. I was raised Baptist and I had a very similar—well, his is a little more intense than mine, but I had a situation that echoed his growing up. So I saw a lot of myself, and I saw a lot of my family members that have the same struggles that he had.

Bob: I was thinking to myself, well, you know, I just want to be delicate because when you deal with the sensitive subject of someone’s eternity, well… You know, there’s life, death, and eternity. And we were dealing with life, death, and then everything that happens after death, which is pretty grand.

Marx: [Tanner] just really was so game to do the experience, but still on his own terms. He had control over certain [aspects], in terms of gender, sexuality. It became a story of, this is what religion does to people. They genuinely feel this way. If we can just lay off the judgement on it, people will be healthier versions of themselves. I’m glad it had the happy ending it did.

The storyline around Eureka’s drag daughter Chris provided the crew with a problem you may’ve not clocked while watching at home: how do you fit a TV crew inside a small home?

LoGreco: A lot of times we had two cameras, but we shoot in what feels like a single-camera style. So, regardless of whether or not there’s another camera helping cover a conversation, there’s always a key camera person who’s moving around like they would in a 16mm documentary from 1988, where you were shooting on film and you didn’t have two cameras. While [this style] can bring a little bit of rough around the edges vibe to it, I think that it subverts and moves beyond what so much of nonfiction TV is doing now, which is sort of perfect coverage of scenes. I think that can take away from the sense of the fact that this is happening in real time.

LoGreco: And it allows you to go into a single-wide trailer and be able to film. Whereas, if we tried to bring in more than a sound and a camera person and an AC—which is essentially [who was] in Chris’ house in Branson—there just wouldn’t be any room. I think it’s really important that the crew not overtake the subject with this kind of storytelling. If your crew is as big or bigger than the number of people you’re filming, if [the people you’re filming] are not actors, the crew and the production starts to lead the story, versus the character leading the story. And I think that’s kind of a subconscious thing. It happens under the surface, but it’s unavoidable.

For her part in the episode, Shangela was paired up with a professional dancer named Charles.

Shangela (star, consulting producer): I am not a trained choreographer. However I’ve been on stages for over a decade. I’ve toured the world, I’ve performed in every continent except Antarctica, in 2018 I did a tour of 184 cities around the world, okay? The doll knows how to entertain. So if they’re gonna go out there and they’re gonna be Shangela’s daughters? They’re gonna give you what I like to call a beginning, a middle, and an end. And it’s gonna be something that brings you in. And I was able to work with my good friend, long time collaborator Joelapuss to create what she’s always done for me, creating moments through music. And we would put together those numbers and come up with a concept for the show. It takes you somewhere and when you’re finished, you’re like, “Yes ma’am!”

Through all the adversity, the Branson episode emphasized exactly what sets We’re Here apart.

LoGreco: [We’re Here is] really about giving these towns an opportunity to connect with each other and to connect to an art form that actually fosters more of a sense of community within those towns. Hopefully, as a viewer, it gives you an appreciation for how much more alike—and I know it sounds cheesy, and I’m really cynical so I’m the last guy to want to say this, but I really feel this way—how much more alike, across this country, all these communities are than they are different.

Stream We're Here on HBO