Photo: JoJo Whilden/FX
Indya Moore has been striking poses well before landing her role onRyan Murphy‘s new show. The New York City native (she attended the same Bronx high school as rapperCardi B!) got her start as an independent model.
“I’m grateful for the experience,”Pose‘s Moore, who identifies as transgender, tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue, on stands now. “I have often been many companies’ first experience with a gender variant model. I am proud of that because I think I have broadened their horizons in my own way. I would love to see all agencies connect to models more for who they are and can be as opposed to what they’ve done.”
Joining thePosecast, which boasts themost transgender actorsever on one show, allowed Moore to continue exploring her identity. “Pose has basically been a trip for everyone,” she says. “We’re all in different phases of our individual evolutions, but we’ve embarked on the journey together.”
Moore plays streetwalker Angel, who falls in love with both her client Stan (Evan Peters) and New York City’s ballroom scene — something thePosestar can relate to. “As a black person of non-gender-conforming experience, my first existentially reciprocal and affirming experiences were in the New York ballrooms,” the 23-year-old says.
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Moore dedicated her performance in the ’80s-based drama to Naomi Hersi, a Somali trans woman who wasmurderedin London in March at age 36.
“Naomi’s murder in that London hotel this year could have been Angel’s story,” Moore explains. “No one wants to be alone and everyone wants to be loved. Her favorite thing to do was watching television. It pains me to know that Naomi is no longer here and that she will not get to see herself represented inPose.”
The actress does hope that the series will help change “people’s idea of love and family” to encompass “the existences of communities they would not have normally considered.”
Pose, also starringKate Mara, premieres Sunday on FX at 9 p.m. ET.
source: people.com
