Neil Patrick Harris & ‘Drag Me to Dinner’ Solid on the Bingeworthy Fake Cooking Competitors

Absurdity is on the menu in Drag Me to Dinner, a pretend recreation present pitting drag queens against each other as they assemble essentially the most glamorous themed dinner events they will muster in half-hour. The roasts (verbal and edible) are served piping sizzling, and the celebs attempt their greatest to not break because the drag queens rush to get dinner on desk. However once you spend nearly the entire time making an attempt to crack a smile onto your co-star’s faces, you find yourself with extra breaks than Jimmy Fallon on Saturday Night Live.

Husbands Neil Patrick Harris and David Burtka function “judger” (spelling intentional) and advisor, respectively, within the sequence, streaming now on Hulu simply in time for Delight 2023. With Harris on the judger panel are RuPaul’s Drag Race famous person Bianca Del Rio and Hello Tomorrow star Haneefah Wood (she additionally sings the opening sequence and provides us a stay rendition of it throughout our interview for this preview).

On the musical name with Wooden was Bianca and Murray Hill, the hardest-working middle-aged man in present enterprise, who serves as host. Hill, certainly one of NYC’s most legendary drag kings (seen in Somebody Somewhere on HBO), is the one individual within the solid who really had a script to comply with. Whereas Harris, Bianca, and Wooden feasted, Hill refused to attempt even a morsel. “That was a part of my contract that I had my agent work out, as a result of drag queens prepare dinner cooking? That’s a recipe for catastrophe,” he teases. That is the primary Wooden has heard of this. She asks: “Are you mendacity? Is that this true?”

“Sure, it’s true!” Hill replies. “I might need been the one one scripted within the present, as you may see. I’ve to get a few of the traces, , the enterprise of what we’re doing. However the remainder of it, you may inform that I went off script as a result of I didn’t know what the hell was happening both. There’s no manner I used to be gonna learn the teleprompter when, , Vanjie’s consuming a bottle of tequila, Bianca’s rolling her eyes, Haneefah’s like, ‘f**ok this sh*t.’ It was a full-blown circus, and I used to be very pleased to be the ringleader.”

Jeong Park/Hulu

A circus is among the present’s many themes. Among the many prolonged name sheet are 40 beloved drag queens, most of whom have graced the Drag Race stage a minimum of as soon as. Within the case of Jinkx Monsoon (above, with Burtka and performing companion BenDeLaCreme in Episode 1), she’s taken dwelling extra Drag Race crowns than anybody else — she received the first-ever all-winners season of Drag Race All Stars in 2022.

On condition that, and BenDeLaCreme’s equally endearing comedic chops, it maybe isn’t a shock that their abandoned island-themed dinner reigned supreme in Episode 1. The prize every episode: a golden cheese grater (bear in mind, this can be a fake competitors. You’re meant to take a seat again and benefit from the hilarity, not stress over the victors).

Additionally a Drag Race victor (of Season 6), Bianca is aware of these queens nicely. “My favourite is the truth that they go dwelling after one episode,” she teases. “That’s the perfect factor on the planet.”

“Pay attention, it’s the right binge. After I see drag queens stroll away, I’m going, ‘Yay!’” she jokes of the quick-watch season. “Within the present itself, there’s over 40 drag queens. Thank God we didn’t need to have them for that many weeks, however it was loopy. Get ’em in, get ’em out. And that’s what I believe makes it numerous enjoyable. And the ladies additionally get to point out their enjoyable, loopy facet. They don’t all the time get to point out that on different tv actuality reveals.”

If she had been saddled with curating her received Drag Me to Dinner get together, Wooden says the theme can be “inclusion.” “As a result of it’s for everybody, each individual, each race, each gender. Everyone come trip with us!”

Culinary present fans themselves, Harris says he and Burtka aimed to create the cooking present they wished to see on the planet. “David and I are massive followers of the entire cooking reveals. We’ve been judges on the Chopped‘s and the Top Chef‘s,” he says. “We wished this to be deliberately comedic in that manner the place [there’s] clearly not finances constraints and clearly not time constraints, despite the fact that we are saying that it’s. We’re making an attempt to barely take the piss out of issues.”

Jeong Park/Hulu

Provides Burtka: “Neil and I talked loads about that. It’s fascinating. Everyone is aware of these reveals. Why not take it and have respect for the viewer, as a result of the viewers watching these reveals are a lot extra clever than numerous these reveals give credit score for. Why not take it one other step additional and present a very completely different facet? Take the present and switch it on its head.”

“Typically you watch these completely different iterations of competitors reveals, they usually’re repeating the entire guidelines as in the event you’ve by no means seen a contest meals present in your life,” Harris replies. “And so we wished to play in the direction of an viewers that has already seen these reveals and that’s followers of this model, after which kind of flip it on its facet.”

The couple loves making this unapologetically queer sequence that may present a superb chortle whereas celebrating drag. “On this drag world, until you’re going to see their present in a nightclub in New York or L.A. or wherever they’re from, they don’t get the credit score that they essentially are deserved,” Burtka says. “A variety of these different reveals that they’re on, they’re produced much more, whereas we allow them to be who they’re and allow them to do what they wanna do and what they do greatest.”

“David and I are dad and mom,” Harris says. “We love entertaining, and we actually simply, in our world that’s crammed with every kind of potential stress, it’s good to be creating content material that’s enjoyable and constructive and pleasant, whether or not you’re by your self or having a kiki with a bunch of mates.”

Drag Me to Dinner, Streaming Now, Hulu