Queer Eye For The Spider Guy TV Show? w/ Jai Rodriguez

today's guest is an actor musician

broadway star and maybe best known for

being an original member of bravo

network's tv show queer eye for the

straight guy but today he is on the

podcast because he is also an exotic pet

keeper and enthusiast and he shares his

love and appreciation for these animals

with his massive audience so i want to

welcome to the show today jay rodriguez

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hi richard

thanks for having me on this is so

surreal you know as you mentioned i work

in entertainment and i'm around a lot of

celebrities all the time but i i i feel

like i'm i'm talking to the king of

tarantulas i've been following your

channel

for a while now and it really got me

through the pandemic and i discovered

you because of a lot of aquariums and

youtube suggests other channels at first

to be honest i was really like this guy

is wild you have a big personality and

so i was watching for your personality

but in the process i started really um

becoming less afraid of the idea of

tarantulas not that i wanted to keep

them and uh and then over time

you know i it just

you would use specific words

like never threat prose at me or rarely

kicked hairs when you use the word

defensive i'm like nope that's not one

for me

um but anyway i i yeah i'm new to the

hobby but like many people who are new

to the hobby i did a ton of research

before i was even comfortable and

started small and got to where i am

today so when when did it begin for you

uh you mentioned during

the pandemic

pandemic i i think what it was was was

um you know i think a lot of us got

really introspective about the things

that matter to us um during the pandemic

and um were determined to kind of live a

more full life when we got the chance to

and for me that meant kind of tackling a

lot of the things i was very fearful of

spiders and big bodies of water

specifically if there's things that will

eat you in a pond tarantulas seem and

and i don't like i'm not i guess i'm

kind of assuming i know a little bit

about your lifestyle but you know doing

a lot of these like tv shows and movies

and stuff like that i'm sure you're in

and out and sometimes gone for days or

weeks at a time so tarantulas seem like

the type of pet that would be very

conducive to that type of lifestyle

because they don't require daily care i

would have had this hobby sooner than

but what do like your friends and

coworkers and stuff like that think

about the fact that you keep tarantulas

fascinated want to see all the pictures

in videos i found that when people come

into the home they start fearful and

then

they're like the nine times out of ten

they're big oh it's actually really cute

is it weird that i'm saying it's cute um

it's always in that order and then the

more friends that i've had over who've

gotten used to the idea then they and

you know i have them in my office and my

rule of thumb is if it doesn't fit on

the two shelving units like it can't

come in the house so i'm almost that

capacity thank god for stackable ones

yeah thanks tarantula collective and uh

and turning me on to tarantula cribs

that was like that was the helpful tip

but no i think people really kind of at

first are a little surprised but when i

posted a picture the other day i'd

gotten an arizona blonde off nate and i

and i posted a video or something people

were like the dms were nope never

and i was like it's actually mine

they're like really and they get curious

so like i think it sparks curiosity i

think if specifically because they're

under my care i just don't seem like the

kind of person who would care for

something so dangerous and i think that

if they're like well if he can do it you

know there's got to be something

that i'm missing yeah i get uh talking

to tarantula cat

almost on a daily basis and she'll

mention she's heading to the pet store

and i tease her i'm like what are you

gonna get like i know you're coming back

with a tarantula or a frog or something

i love her and i have her little

wednesday spider that she had um uh for

sale i almost i i she was one of the

ones i followed in the originally

because i could not believe this woman

kept spiders in her bedroom when she

said that i was like

what in her richard puts it in the bait

how she but how's she going to sleep

there's gonna and then

like my brain could not

compute that that was even happening i

think one of the things that you know

i always say this as an actor like i can

go into a room with guys who are more

built more credit whatever whatever

people are attracted to your essence the

kind of the uniqueness that makes you

use so when you were growing up and i've

always told you be yourself the reason

for that is because your authenticity

and your you're not conforming and just

being a prototype of everyone else is

what makes you interesting is what makes

you memorable and it makes people uh

want to be around you and so i found cat

so interesting that i just started

following her and i i think i was very

surprised that this this cute little

woman was like doing all this kind of

dangerous tarantula stuff in my mind at

the time you know and i couldn't

understand it but i i learned how to you

know build an enclosure and the

parameters for substrate i mean i

probably would win one of those people

with like an inch of substrate had i not

known you know and i i'm like i wish you

all live closer i'd be like i'd be

able to spider sit whenever you need

yeah that would be very cool interesting

is a good way to describe her i like

that term yes if i had a house it would

be really different i think i would have

what i've wanted which was snakes i

started watching snake discovery like

everyone else and um obviously adam's

wicked reptiles uh

wicked reptiles that's hard to say so i

really do want like a ball python or

something but i just at this point i'm

like i think

right now for my lifestyle this is the

max that i can

handle and that's a conversation you

share in a lot of your videos as well

making sure

that you stay within the realm of making

sure everything you get the optimal care

with the amount of time you have and

i've tested the theory because it's been

when i've been in town and when i

haven't been in town and so now i have a

system going where everything is i have

sitters for this or i have a person that

feels more comfortable with this and

it's been pretty easy to kind of make

that happen without complete disrupting

my life or neglecting the animals while

you're talking about that you mentioned

before we started recording you were

doing a judd apatow movie

yes so the trailer just dropped it's

called bros it is the first gay rom-com

basically so think bridesmaids think any

of those kind of movies that he's ever

produced it's the same vibe that just

happens to center around a gay couple

and the entire cast is lgbt which is

great because it's never happened but

most importantly he flipped the script

so for a long time in hollywood there

was a lot of bias uh if you were out

there was certain roles that were for

you generally stereotypical gay or

whatever and if you even could

convincingly play a straight person

there was there was hesitation about

hiring you and this movie completely got

rid of all that they just hired people

who just slayed the role regardless of

how they identify or who they choose to

love and it's billy eichner co-wrote it

with the director nicholas stoller who

you know wrote for getting sarah

marshall and get him to the greet and

directed those and i this is my first

lead in a major motion picture and i

play

a bro

hunter

gamer type guy and i think people are

shocked to hear it and i'm like you do

understand i had to go to high school in

the 90s right

like there was years of practicing for

this part um yeah just from a pure

safety issue back then and so to be in

this cast of like

something that's momentous i got to be

in the first all-out gate cast with

queer eye on television history and now

the first all lgbtq film for a major

studio to make was massive and it's

september 30th and generally speaking

there's like weekends that are like hot

spot weekends for big movies it's

already in a bunch of we'll see list uh

and there's a there's a trailer i think

it's a not safe for work trailer because

it is against very bright bridesmaids

and it's you know how bridesmaids open

with that comedic sex scene there's a

lot of

those kind of funny moments it doesn't

take itself too seriously but it's also

thought-provoking and funny and touching

and

yeah i loved doing it it was

a shock i mean i'm not gonna lie i after

i've been doing this you know acting

professionally since 1997 my first job

was in rent on broadway and uh then

queer i kind of introduced me to the

world on this global platform and it was

so

big and i had you know the cover of

vanity fair or like copper entertainment

weekly or doing oprah all these other

things that seemed big and then i left

the show and when i transitioned

back to acting there was a lot of well

you were on a reality show so there's no

room for you you just want to act i'm

like wait i have this whole pedigree of

work before it didn't matter and so it

was a real struggle so i told when i

found out i booked this i pulled over

and i cried and i'm not really i'm not a

very emotional person in that direction

and i understand the importance of it

but also like i was really thankful that

that billy eichner nick and

jed apatow saw the importance of the

work and they even pulled me aside and i

just you know hundreds of guys

read for this role and within the first

couple lines we're like that's him

that's him

and uh yeah and i play like billy's

billy's love interest straight bro

friend it was a really cool experience

i'm excited for people to see it and

today the trailer just dropped so when

you're when you're filming movies like

that does it make it

difficult you know to be able to take

care of your pets while you know while

you're busy on set or do you ever bring

any tarantulas or anything into your

trailer and keep them there

um

now you give me ideas um i

know so what i've done in the past is

i've made videos a la richard style at a

la tarantula collective that are very

easy to follow and then what i have

people do is first of all a when you're

working on a project like that you know

you're being paid so it's only fair i

wouldn't ask a friend to do it for free

so someone has a financial incentive to

take good care of the animals and then

what i do is basically like i have them

do it with me so if it's feeding day i

will have them do all the feedings that

are necessary on a feeding day with me

just supervising and not saying anything

and just we can kind of and it usually

goes like a dream and easy sometimes

it's small things that get forgotten

about like they'll forget to feed the

crickets or the dubia roaches right so

like small things like that but then i

just fix that by putting neon sign every

single enclosure has a postcard care

sheet underneath it poking out so if you

ever in question and it's almost like a

sign out form last fed last molted it's

all on there and i'm super religious

about that thankfully um you just

partnered with that great app

so arachnophiles so now i can i don't

have to use that but it's been really

helpful like i haven't brought anything

with me my dog will come if it's more

than two weeks but even then like it

depends because i have to like make sure

that also i have a friend who has a

house and she's like i have two dogs

ready it's better for him to be playing

all day than to be in a hotel room all

day so there's a small stuff i i try to

consider but yeah if i had one listen i

remember i remember hillary swank had

like a parrot a bunny and a dog i could

be mistaken about the parrot but it was

definitely a bunny

a dog and and she would bring them in

her trailer on set and she would travel

with them because she could and she

wanted to and because she was an oscar

award winning actress and and why not

like really why not it's a pretty big

trailer when you're that level um and so

you know like i feel like there

shouldn't be a distinction between the

care we have for a dog versus the care i

mean you shouldn't disrespect some how

attached someone is or how much they

love their spider because it's something

you fear richard thank you for your time

thank you for all you do and thank you

for making spiders less scary this is a

huge honor to be here i i'm i'm a member

of your patreon i like fly to your

videos and and i try to tell as many

people as possible and mark my words i

really think we need to make this show

this queer eye meets uh tarantula

collective moment

go house to house across the nation and

help people with their exotic pets that

would be awesome i would love that

i think people would enjoy that that

would get andy cohen on the line maybe

one of the housewives wants a tarantula

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and then we also have like a lot of

wasps kind of their little

like a hornet's nest or whatever like we

have those like like on the sides of

buildings and i'm like i thought you

were talking about white anglo-saxons

oh no

richard look at me

in my building

i mean i probably do but i very much

adore them