Ginger Minj and Jujubee on RuPaul, Absurdity and ‘Stop! That! Train!'

Ginger Minj and Jujubee have never had more fun being idiots together, and they want you to come along for the ride.

The two drag queens from RuPaul's Drag Race star in Stop! That! Train!, World of Wonder’s first narrative feature film, a campy disaster movie parody that casts them as the leads of a very bumpy train ride. Directed by Adam Shankman and featuring RuPaul as the President of the United States, the film is equal parts absurd and surprisingly heartfelt.

“Even if you don’t understand drag queens or anything about the queer community, I think you can see yourself in these two girls who are just doing their best,” Minj said. “They’re trying to be good friends, trying to be good people and trying to make the right choices, but most of the time don’t succeed at any of those things.”

Jujubee agrees that the film’s appeal runs wider than its built-in fan base. “I think people are actually going to find themselves in these characters,” she said.

Central to that universality is a creative choice Shankman made early on. “Gender was never spoken about or brought up,” Minj explained. “It was never a factor in who Deedee and Tess were.” Shankman’s directive to both performers was simple: play it as a drama, stay in the stakes and let the absurdity happen around you.

“Funny because we’re not trying to be funny,” Jujubee said. “We’re just being these characters.”

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Editor’s Note: This conversation has been edited and condensed for publication.

You both are so enjoyable in this film. How does it feel to be receiving this level of praise?

Ginger Minj: I mean, it feels great. I would be lying if I said I don’t really pay attention to it. I do. And it feels amazing because, particularly at a time like now where drag is kind of divisive, it’s nice to see that there are people from all walks of life connecting with this. Especially these two characters, because I feel like our relationship is so universal. Even if you don’t understand drag queens or anything about the queer community, I think you can see yourself in these two girls who are just doing their best. They’re trying to be good friends, trying to be good people and trying to make the right choices, but most of the time don’t succeed at any of those things.

Jujubee: And I think what’s really special about this friendship is you get to see us go through this insane roller coaster, or for the sake of the movie, train ride. And it’s a bumpy ride, but you know that even through the Stormaganza, we’re gonna get through it together. And even though she decides to betray her best friend.

Ginger Minj: You were busy getting busy in the cockpit.

Jujubee: Well, I was just trying to fall in love with a co-conductor.

Ginger Minj: Yeah, and I’m trying to keep the passengers calm.

Jujubee: No, you’re trying to hang out with the mean girls.

The RuPaul’s Drag Race fan base can be passionate. How do you feel about the fan base dialog around Stop! That! Train!? Do you ever worry about how they’re going to respond?

Jujubee: I’m never worried, because the way that I see it is I could be praised for something and it’s the opinion of somebody, and then I could be berated for something and again it’s just the opinion of somebody. I don’t live my life through comparisons or relying on people loving me, because I love me so much. What does RuPaul say? If you can’t love yourself, how in the hell are you gonna love somebody else? That transfers to not just self-love but other people’s views of who you are. I’m excited that people are excited for Stop! That! Train! And what else does she say?

Ginger Minj: She also says what other people say about you is none of your business.

Jujubee: Are you worried about what people say?

Ginger Minj: No, because I have opinions about things that come out too, and I don’t expect my opinion to hold any more or less weight than anybody else’s.

One of the things that kept coming up in my conversations with the team is the need for absurdity right now. What is it about the absurdity of this film that you think we need so much?

Jujubee: Well, there’s a Stormaganza, which is a gay blizzard.

Ginger Minj: If you’re from Boston, yeah. I’m from Florida, so it’s a gay hurricane. With alligators.

Jujubee: RuPaul is playing the president of the United States of America.

Ginger Minj: So I think it’s an aspirational film, really. I do think that this is definitely a time in the world where all of us need to just get together as a group, which is why I keep telling people go see it in theaters. Don’t wait to watch it at home. You need to experience the joy and the stupidity and the laughter with a group of people.

Jujubee: It’s a community thing. The experience alone is gonna be great, but the experience with your friends who you can laugh with and get the jokes. And when you don’t get a joke, there’s gonna be that one friend, Ginger Minj, who will explain it to you.

Ginger Minj: I did have to explain a couple of the jokes to her while we were filming.

Jujubee: She also explained to me on the last day that RuPaul was in fact not the president of Glamazonian Railways. She’s the president of the United States. I was like, oh, that’s why we’re calling her Madam President. I really became my character. Our director Adam Shankman was like, have you read the script? And I’m like…

Ginger Minj: The problem is she only read the parts that she was in.

Jujubee: I did not finish reading the script before we filmed the last scene, which we filmed on day two, and I was confused as to why I was in my panties. I was like, are we sure I’m in my undies? They’re like, yeah. I’m like, what kind of film is this?

You’ve both filmed other things before, Ginger you were in the Hocus Pocus sequel, but in this film your characters lead and carry the film throughout. Was it a learning curve to quite literally be the stars?

Ginger Minj: Somebody asked me in another interview what was the difference between filming this and Hocus Pocus 2. And I said, well, Hocus Pocus 2 I had two weeks to film one line. For Stop! That! Train! I had three weeks to fill like a hundred pages. So it was fast. We never had time, honestly, on this set to be nervous or scared or think about, oh, we’re starring in this big movie going into theaters, because we were like, all right, we’ve got these lines, we’re standing right here, we’ve got to get these shots in every angle and then move on to the next thing.

Jujubee: And Adam Shankman works fast. When he sees the shot being absolutely complete, we’re like, wait, you don’t want to do another take? I feel like I could do this and this. And he’s like, no, we got the shot. Let’s move forward. Which I think is the most efficient way to work, especially when you have 19 days to film a movie that’s going to theaters.

This is World of Wonder’s big first narrative film. How does it feel professionally to have this kind of moment?

Jujubee: I honestly don’t think it’s really hit me yet. I don’t think it’s gonna hit me until I am sitting in the audience at the movie theaters with you. We’ve seen this a few times at screenings and it feels wonderful, but I think I’m still in the midst of living a dream come true.

Ginger Minj: We’re still kind of in the honeymoon phase of the whole process. It is a little scary but in a really fun kind of way, thinking that this is about to be unleashed on the world.

Jujubee: People are going to love this. I think it’s going to relate to more than just our queer community. I think people are actually going to find themselves in these characters.

Ginger Minj: Adam said that he has seen this with dozens of audiences, and the people that laugh the loudest and the longest are typically the straight men who don’t know what to expect coming in and are just taken into the world. You have to think about the fact that we’re parodying movies that are very familiar. All of these tropes are so universal and everybody is comfortable with them, but there’s this little undercurrent of subversiveness with drag. It doesn’t smack you over the head with the drag.

Jujubee: We never mention anything about that.

Ginger Minj: We’re just there. Because we don’t have to. We’re just these characters in this world. So I think a lot of people come in going, drag queens, and then the movie starts and they go, oh, I know this world.

Jujubee: Yeah, and everybody knows these characters. Could you imagine the amount of Ambers out there? They are going to feel seen.

That’s a beautiful point. Drag is never mentioned. These are just characters existing, which is its own quiet message. What does the non-drag element of a big drag film mean to you?

Jujubee: It is drag, and it’s more than that, because this whole film is full of queer people and our allies. It’s created by queerness.

Ginger Minj: When we were just sitting down and talking about this with Adam [Shankman] in our first couple of production meetings, gender was never spoken about or brought up. It was never a factor in who Deedee and Tess were. It was always about what their relationship was and who they were as people. Adam told us very early on, everybody, but particularly the two of us, needed to play this as a drama. It needed to be real. Play it for the stakes and don’t get caught up in any absurdity. Let it happen around you. And I think that’s why it really works.

Jujubee: Funny because we’re not trying to be funny. We’re just being these characters. I know that when I do theater everything needs to be hammed up and I have to be so big, but in front of a camera the hardest lines for me, and I told you this, the hardest line was, “we ran out of milk.” It’s hard to just be normal. It’s easy to be dramatic and to have these big scenes, but just to be a person looking for milk. That was one of the hardest line reads for me.

Ginger Minj: And I was like, just say it.

Jujubee: Yeah, just say it. And it’s collaborative.

Juju, you lose your skirt at some point in the film and there’s never any decision to put another one on. She just exists in her underwear like it’s the most normal thing. What was it like looking the way you sometimes had to look and doing the absurd things you had to do in front of RuPaul?

Jujubee: Absolutely surreal. We got a big group picture with Sarah Michelle Gellar and I was in my panties while everybody was dressed to the nines. The funniest thing was nobody ever mentioned anything about me being in my panties. And nobody knows this but us, but we were filming at Union Station [in Los Angeles] and it was open to the public, so people who were going to a game were getting off the train watching us film, and I’m in my underwear. They went home and said she was in her panties all day in her ugly shoes and that mustard yellow top and that flip wig.

Ginger Minj: That was a wig?

Jujubee: Yeah. I took one.

Ginger, what about you? Working with RuPaul so soon after your All Stars win, to be working alongside someone so esteemed in pop culture and queer culture?

Ginger Minj: The public persona of RuPaul is so untouchable, but she’s just one of the girls. She’s such a nerd. She loves pop culture, especially if it happened 30 or 40 years ago. She loves to talk about Diane Sawyer interviews. She just loves to be an idiot with the rest of us. We spent all day in that cockpit filming and it was small, tight and hot. We had a little bit of downtime and Adam had told us, OK, when we get back to shooting we’re going to go underwater, we’re gonna go on a roller coaster, all of these things. And we’re just chit chatting about what we might do. This one starts making whale noises. So I start making whale noises. And then the curtain behind us opens and RuPaul comes out doing the same thing. And then she kept doing it because she just wanted to kiki and cut up, be one of the girls. It’s lovely to have that kind of experience as opposed to Drag Race, where she does have to keep her distance from everybody.

Jujubee: On Drag Race she finds the exact light when you are being critiqued. She knows where her camera is. She mugs the camera while all of us suffer. And we look at how beautiful she is.

We’ve watched you both grow over the course of your careers on Drag Race, and this feels like such a sweet spot professionally. What do you want to be doing next?

Ginger Minj: We’re getting EGOTs.

Jujubee: Oh, I thought that was something off a menu.

Ginger Minj: No. Emmy, Oscar, Tony and Grammy. I want an EGOT. But no, we just want to keep working and keep creating.

Jujubee: Right now we are actually in a dressing room in Atlanta at Out Front Theatre for Licked: For Gay, which she wrote. It’s a Wicked drag musical parody set to Ariana Grande. We’re here in Atlanta in June and then in July we’re in Provincetown at the Red Room. We both have music [out]. I have an EP called "Mess for You" and then you have your album.

Ginger Minj: I do have an album coming out, but we have a song we’re releasing from it. We did a cover of “Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better,” which I think perfectly sums up our relationship. And the truth is she probably can do it better. And then we’re going back on tour with Hokus Pokus Live. And we’re starting a podcast together where I’m forcing her to watch movies she’s never seen, because she has never watched any movie except Stop! That! Train! and Blade Runner.

Jujubee: I love Blade Runner. The original. Blade Runner 2049 is fine. I love a sci-fi movie from the early days where you couldn’t do anything too crazy. It all had to be like a leaf blower and hair and wind.

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This story was originally published June 10, 2026 at 9:54 AM.