It’s early on a recent afternoon, and Tommy Dorfman somehow has a foot in two worlds. One is Mexico City, where the actor is wrapping up an extended visit that began by filming a forthcoming limited series for the UK’s Channel 4, and then segued to a few days at the Instagram-favorite Casa Orgánica and a beach trip to Oaxaca’s Puerto Escondido. The other world is Brooklyn, where far-away Dorfman is uncannily up-to-date on the weather (“a little rainy today”), with a hot tip about a bagel shop in my neighborhood. “You need to go to Nagle's Bagels and get a sandwich for lunch,” they say, before remembering that this is ostensibly a call about beauty. “It’s going to be really good for your skin!”
Dorfman, who appeared in the Netflix series 13 Reasons Why and has a role in Lena Dunham’s upcoming feature Sharp Stick, is on the phone to discuss a more immediate project: a Boy Smells campaign pegged to the new Pride Radiance candle collection. (The campaign’s other “luminaries,” as they’re called, include Symone and GottMik of RuPaul’s Drag Race; actor Brandon Flynn; and activist-model Leyna Bloom.) “It’s funny to have a candle company that’s gendered in its name but then fighting against gender tropes,” says Dorfman, who identifies as nonbinary. “I just think it’s kind of a thing only a queer person can do.” (Boy Smells is run by cofounders and real-life partners Matthew Herman and David Kien.)
Dorfman in this month’s Boy Smells Pride Radiance campaign.
Courtesy of Boy Smells.The transition of Pride from a hard-won community celebration into an occasion to slap a rainbow behind corporate logos has caused people to bristle lately, but this Boy Smells partnership is in sync with the actor’s sense of “radical self-liberation,” as Dorfman puts it. “It’s nice to work with a company that’s just inherently gay, always. Yes, obviously there’s an activation during this topical month of June, and also year-round they’re doing the work.” Ten percent of the sales price per candle—including Dorfman’s Extra Vert, laced with fig, juniper berry, and basil—goes to the Trevor Project, which supports queer youth with crisis prevention and other services. “I had a really good friend who worked the hotlines at Trevor, answering the phone,” recalls Dorfman of that early awareness, which blossomed into an advocacy role during 13 Reasons Why.
Dorfman’s voiceover in the Boy Smells campaign film echoes that imperative: “I fight for the youngest, most fragile version of myself as a kid. And I fight for love.” In that same spirit, they talk here about the importance of queer narratives and affections of a sort—for a killer Raf Simons dress, King Princess as muse, and the heady smell of good sweat.
Vanity Fair: What do you make of the word genderful that Boy Smells putting forth?
Tommy Dorfman: That's cute. I use “gender creativity” a lot as a way to explore things beyond the binary—because the future is quite genderful and genderless. Boy Smells has always been inherently that in so many ways, with the fragrances that they just launched and the intimates line. Because I wear both parts of the intimates line: I wear what would be considered the parts for male bodies, what would be considered parts for female bodies. Honestly, the bralette’s amazing—can't go without it. I think this idea of uniquely allowing yourself to feel genderful is exciting. We’ve had periods, historically, of gender creativity being the norm and fluidity being more culturally normalized, and then we regress and we come back. It does feel as the world opens back up we have an opportunity for a renaissance and an ability to add flavor to everyone’s palette.
In the campaign, you have a line about wanting to smell like the good kind of sweat. What comes to mind? I know you have a dance background.
Did you grow up dancing too? Oh my god. Can we just talk about how ratched—but, like, in a good way—the studio smells in the summer? That fucking dance-camp nasty scent will never, ever leave my body. It’s forever ingrained in my being. It’s cerebral, it’s celestial, it’s transformative. That, to me, is that good, good sweat. I still take class now. [Before the pandemic] I would go to Ryan Heffington’s Sweat Spot in L.A. My friend Margaret and I take a lot of dance classes together. I work with a movement coach when I’m photographing, Melissa [Schade]—she’s worked with Ryan McGinley and Vogue and a bunch of different places. I take privates with her in L.A. right by my house, now that the world’s opened up.
There’s the sweat you have when you’re, like, moving apartments, and then there’s sweat that you have in sex or dance or love or cooking a meal outside. I think you can distinguish the pheromones between the two of those. It really is that sour, sweet, euphoric sweat that comes from doing something you love.
You’ve worked with different kinds of queer narratives—even in Daddy alone, with playwright Jeremy O. Harris and Alan Cumming.
Oh my god. Remember Alan Cumming’s fragrance? Alan Cumming had a fragrance that was just called Cumming, or something like that. It was insane! You could not do that anymore. Fucking crazy guy.
Dance, too: There was just a piece in the Times about queer female dancers who want to see themselves represented—they want a Juliet and Juliet. How do you see these conversations changing?
I think my capacity to settle for shit is gone at this point, and so I’m constantly looking for opportunities to challenge scripts that I’m sent or things I’m auditioning for or with my collaborators: writing projects, directing projects, other things I’m working on. Opening up the dialogue around, “What does it mean to make a few adjustments to this story, to these characters?” I can’t wait for theater to come back full-force because you can get away with so much more on stage. I would love nothing more than to revisit Mary Zimmerman’s Metamorphoses in a non-gendered way, or go back to the classics and that sort of Juliet and Juliet; Romeo and Romeo—or, like, the right person with the right person.
Going back to Boy Smells, fragrance is historically so gendered. What drew you to the Extra Vert scent?
This sort of herbal, mint, fig, juniper berry combo—I think using food groups in this way is inherently non-gendered. Although, I have to say, fig is the most feminine fruit of all. In conversation with mint, they sort of cancel each other out, in a way. And basil is just very much of the earth—but there’s nothing gayer than the Mediterranean to me! [laughs]
The campaign also talks about Pride Radiance—which is a quality your skin definitely gives off. I imagine your performing background shaped your early experience with beauty?
Well, I had really bad acne. That sort of became a central theme for me—probably from sweat and stress and living in a dysphoric world and definitely not treating my body very well. Overworking it but then also doing a lot of [substances]. I’ve been sober since I was 21—so eight years this week—but so much of my high school and early college [years] were just abusing my body. When I got sober, I went through this other puberty in my early 20s. This is where I really feel like I became aware of skin care because I got adult acne, which was not cute. Beyond the love-your-skin aesthetics of it, my acne really hurt, so I needed to figure out a solution. Hydration has been so key to that—I drink so much water. That feels first and foremost part of my skin-care routine. Then I switch it up. It’s sort of what works for me in each moment. My hormones are shifting a lot right now: I don’t know, just growing up and [being] embodied in a different way. I was using SkinBetter Science for a long time. Now, I’ve sort of moved into the Biologique [Recherche] land. I also use Biossance, which is a really good price point, I think, for an all-natural, healthy skin option. The Body Shop tea tree oil spot treatment is amazing because I’m still prone to breakouts and ingrown hairs.
As far as beauty stuff, I have a strict daily regimen. I like a tinted moisturizer but I don't want something that’s heavy, so I’ve been using Lune+Aster. It’s incredible. It has hyaluronic acid and all these [vitamins] and the most incredible all-day coverage. It just leaves your skin looking dewy and amazing. Then Fenty contour, Milk Makeup blush, and a Surratt eyelash curler and brow gel and I’m out the door. It’s easy because I travel so much. It just fits perfectly in my bag.
What is ahead for you these days?
I just wrapped this cool short-form series for Channel 4 in the UK, which comes out in September. They did Skins and Black Mirror. I’m in Lena Dunham’s new movie Sharp Stick, which shot last year, so that’s coming out this year. She’s maybe my best friend and mentor, so it was fun to play a small part in that. I just photographed two of my favorite people for different magazines, just for fun. Then there are two movies that I’ve written that I’m directing in the next sort of year and a half. One of them is based off a book, which I’m really excited about.
Who or what is feeding your creativity right now, whether peers or even fashion? I saw that amazing Raf Simons dress you were wearing in Mexico City.
Who am I vibing hard with right now? Honestly, that Raf dress did so much for me and my body and my mental health when I found it. King Princess right now. Caroline Polachek, visually, I find really inspiring. I don’t know if you’ve watched her music videos, but someone just turned me on to them this week and I’m deeply, deeply enamored. Janicza Bravo gives it to me every day of the week, whose movie Zola is coming out this summer with my friend Jeremy [O. Harris]. Then I’ve been watching old Paul Mazursky films. I feel like my definition of femininity is shifting—and my own expression, in ways—in my day-to-day. An Unmarried Woman, for example. I think that movie is around the same time period as Annie Hall, and it’s this strong, ethereal, unburdened, unbridled woman. Empowered, but also chic, in sort of nude tones. I’m starting to move more into neutrals in a way that I hadn’t been in my past, and finding sort of a grounding and a solitude in that kind of uniform. It’s inspiring, just being in a T-shirt and underwear around the house, dancing and feeling free-spirited.
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