RuPaul's Drag U Stars Jujubee and Nina Flowers on Makeovers and Emmy Snubs

Now that RuPaul's Drag Race has injected charisma, uniqueness, nerve, and talent into the lagging art of reality competition shows, Logo will debut Drag Race's first spinoff series tonight, RuPaul's Drag U, where queens from the original series return to assist everyday women upgrade to more confident, arguably fabulous versions of themselves. And who better to talk to about "fabulous" than season two's second runner-up JuJubee and season one's runner-up Nina Flowers?

After all, Drag Race wasn't just a funny show for drag queens looking to outdo each other on a national stage in front of the legendary RuPaul -- it was an ebullient exploration of the drag world, the meaning of female impersonation, and the vitality of witty self-presentation. Can Nina and JuJu bring some of that magic to Drag U? They talked about it to Movieline.

Hey, ladies! I'm excited to see you guys with RuPaul again. Tell us, was it different being on TV when you weren't competing, or was there a competitive vibe between you and the other queens when you helped out these women?

JuJubee: Yes, I do miss the competing aspect of it. Helping these women out, I became a pageant mommy about everything, like, I'd sit in the audience thinking, "You can do it. You can totally do it." And the excitement was there for me. It made me reminisce. It was a good time.

Nina: I was only on for a very brief time. I wasn't there for too many episodes -- I just did one -- but actually, no, in my opinion, I didn't think I was competing. I was excited for the lady I was helping on the show, but I never felt that I was actually the one competing. I was just trying to make her absorb all she could, and I was helping her to get through the whole situation.

Were you nervous to mentor other people in front of RuPaul, who ostensibly mentored you on Drag Race?

Nina: I was very excited when I got the call to be on the show, and after being through Drag Race, which was such a great experience and a great time, when I went to Drag U I felt I was prepared. I wasn't nervous at all. Au contraire, I was really excited that Ru was around. I was excited to see the other girls and to work with the ones I'd never met before, because there are some girls from season one and two.

JuJubee: I was a little nervous! I wanted to make mama proud. It challenged me, but like Nina said, I was excited to work with everybody. It was fun to change women's lives.

How did you get along with the women you worked with? How did you find ways to connect with them?

JuJubee: The women I had, I just clicked with. I'm a people person, so I love people. It was just me getting to know them, which really helped me, because I always found something interesting about them or something we had in common. And we just go from there, and I felt like I did a pretty good job doing it.

Nina: Well, I faced a little bit of a hard time connecting with the lady I was helping, who might have felt intimidated. From the very beginning, there wasn't an immediate connection. That made it hard for me to work with her because I was sensing that she was not really comfortable with me. I have sort of a fierce look, and it took some time for me to win her over with my personality and teach her that you can never judge someone by the way they look. You have to get to know people. It turned out really well, and it was a great satisfaction to see her deal with all her insecurities. I did experience a little bit of [a] challenge, but it paid off.

When you got the call to be on the show, did you start thinking about specific things you could teach the women that would be different than the other queens?

Nina: Honestly, I didn't go on the show thinking I would just come and teach them how to be me. In a sense, I felt I was like a competitor -- I went into the show not knowing what the task was going to be. I thought we were going to help women, and I knew the woman I was working with had a really low self-esteem. The first thing that came to mind when I was asked to do the show, I thought, "I think I can help this person to feel better about themselves." I really wanted to work on her attitude, her self-respect, so that was my major goal -- to help this person walk away from the show with the self-respect and love you should feel for yourself.

JuJubee: You know, I think all of us have a common ground that we can help these women with. I'm a really positive person, just like Nina is and a lot of the other girls. That's how I spoke with them. "Girl, you're fine and you look great, but we can make it better." I always started out like that. It was never like, "Girl, what's wrong with you? Let's fix this."

They probably wouldn't have responded well to that.

JuJubee: They probably would've thrown me across the room.

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