For viewers of Logo’s The A-List: New York, cast member Mike Ruiz serves as the calm in the center of the storm, otherwise known as Hurricane Austin. The 46-year-old celebrity shutterbug returns to the fold of frenemies, fabulosity and fights when the second season debuts on Monday, July 25 at 10 p.m. on Logo.
And the sophomore season will definitely be heating up, when new addition Nyasha Zimucha steps behind the velvet rope of the boys club of Reichen Lehmkuhl, Rodiney Santiago, Derek Lloyd Saathoff, Ryan Nickulas and TJ Kelly.
Ruiz is no stranger to the world of reality TV, as he has been featured on RuPaul’s Drag Race and America’s Next Top Model, as well as being a sought after commodity for his visually stunning work with photography and has done spreads on everyone from Kim Kardashian to Betty White. And that’s literally to name but a few.
His photography career got under way one Christmas morning, after he spent the better part of a decade on the opposite side of the lens as a model, when he received a camera as a gift that started him on the path to show the world his inspired visions.
He has also trained his sharp focus onto using his celebrity status to highlight a number of worthwhile causes, such as The Trevor Project, the It Gets Better Campaign, Housing Works, Project Angel Food, Living Out Loud and The Men’s Sexual Health Project. In fact, he is scheduled to appear in San Diego and be honored at the upcoming Nicky Awards on Aug. 28 for his tireless efforts in raising awareness for the number of LGBT-related causes he supports, as well as for his activism and fundraising.
LGBT Weekly chatted with the handsome and friendly Ruiz about the upcoming season of The A-List: New York, his creative endeavors, and why he is the epitome of the adage, “what you see is what you get.”
San Diego LGBT Weekly: How are you able to stay drama free on the show?
Mike Ruiz: Oh, I don’t know. I think it’s all going to go out the window this year (laughs).
It’s just who I am. I can’t make something out of nothing, and I’m not that person. I ’m older and wiser than the other cast members, everything rolls off my back and nothing really gets under my skin the way it does for the other cast members. I feel like I’m of a greater service being the wise, sage older voice of reason.
What do you feel when you see the disparaging remarks made about you by your fellow cast mates during scenes you are absent from?
It doesn’t bother me. The reality is, and I probably shouldn’t say this, not everything is organic, you know what I mean? I opt to veto a lot of things that I’m asked to say, and not a lot of the other cast members do.
And, honestly, it doesn’t bother me. People will come for you, no matter what you do. The goal for me is to stay above the fray. I don’t have time to worry about what other people say, and everyone’s entitled to their opinion.
Last season, there wasn’t that much about me that was disparaging, because I wasn’t around that much. But I’m on this show, so I’m trying to be more involved and interact with the cast more.
I think it’s important, not only on the show, but especially in life, I try to make lemonade out of lemons all the time. When I agreed to do the show, I think they expected me to pony the same thing up. I felt like it was a rare opportunity to do something different.
How has it been to have Nyasha join the show – and who are you friends with offset?
It’s been fun. She’s a character and she just wants to be the center of attention. I understand that: she’s 25, and she’s doing the show for a myriad of reasons to create a brand for herself, and she’s not holding back! She’s a pistol. She’s a fully loaded pistol (laughs).
I am friends with Ryan and his partner Desmond, and I go to functions where Reichen will be. I’m kind of friendly with Reichen and Rodiney to a certain extent. I shot his calendar. We have vast differences in what interests us, so, I can’t say that we’re best friends and hang out all the time.
I appreciate pretty much all of the cast members for various reasons. Despite everything that Austin says and does, he has a very sensitive soft side that a lot of people don’t get to see. He’ll make cracks and stuff, but it all rolls off my back. I genuinely think he’s a good kid.
So with that said, there is something redeeming about every one of the cast members that would make me want me to hang out with them, in varying degrees.
Since you have cameras following your every move, do you ever feel any pressure with how to handle yourself onscreen, or is it a case of what you see is what you get?
It’s pretty much what you see is what you get, and honestly, I’ve been really spread thin this season. I have a lot of stuff going on professionally, and the show’s just one of like 20 other things. Sometimes, I get a little wound up. I think that’s been evident a couple of times on the show. I don’t explode or become volatile, but it’s evident that I’m distracted.
What has it been like to chronicle your relationship on camera?
It’s been OK. To be honest with you, my partner and I are working together and I wanted to do it for professional reasons. Again, I committed to doing the show, so I kind of have to pony something up. I can’t be completely outside on the periphery all the time, so there were a couple of tender moments with me and Martin. And I’m OK with it, we’re not doing anything harmful; we’re certainly not disparaging to one another.
We’re very loving and supportive of each other. Hopefully that is evident on the show. But, it’s my private life, and I’m still on the fence about how I feel about revealing all of that.
How does the second season differ from the first? Are there any teases you can provide us with?
I think it’s going to heat up this season. The dynamics have all changed. Where there were rifts, there are now friendships. Where there were friendships, there are now rifts. There are new characters. There’s a whole new dynamic.
It’s a big upheaval, and I think it’s going to be a lot of surprises in how some of these relationships unfold.
How did you know that Christmas morning when you received your first camera that it would end up being your passion and career?
It was a progressive thing. I got that camera and I opened it up and was playing around with it that day, and pretty immediately I just found it to become a conduit for something. I wasn’t sure what at the time, but it was just like a conduit, like I plugged myself into something and the current was flowing. About a year into it, I decided to give it a go as a profession.
How did you become involved in the snapping of celebrities?
Again, that was a progressive thing. When I decided I was going to make a profession of photography, I compiled a portfolio and I got some fashion editorials for various magazines. And when I had a cohesive body of work together, I literally started going up to celebrities at the gym and most of them threatened to call security, but it panned out a couple of times. I ended up shooting a couple of celebs.
Then I called managing companies of record labels, or people I wanted to shoot, and I pitched these stories. It wasn’t actually coming from a magazine, but I’d say it was coming from a magazine and they were doing a story on the artist. If they agreed to it, then I would call the magazine and, in turn, pitch it to them. I was very resourceful that way, and that actually ended up being how I starting shooting all the time.
Who is someone famous that you haven’t done a photo shoot with, but would love to?
I was just looking at pictures of Megan Fox, and she’s just so mesmerizing and beautiful. I would love to work with her. She’s just an exquisite work of art that woman.
Directing music videos seems an obvious extension of your visual talents. How do you feel the two mediums complement one another?
I have to say I’m a stills guy and my video work is really taking stills and giving movement to them. I’m not really a storyteller, like from a Steven Spielberg standpoint. It wasn’t ingrained in me as a child to want to tell stories that way.
My whole thing is to freeze these surreal hyper-stylized moments in time, and music videos are just a progression of that. It’s basically just a bunch of montages of really beautiful stylized fashion scenarios.
What type of project would you like to work on next?
Well, I’m already working on a coffee table book of male portraits; they’re really super stylized sexy male portraits, and I’m hoping to have it completed and published by the end of August. And that will be benefiting GMHC.
And there’s my much-maligned T-shirt line (laughs). I wanted to do something splashy, and now it’s expanding. I’m doing hoodies and sweat pants, and they don’t have images of me on them – just a little logo and based on stuff that I like to wear.
A couple of things have manifested as a result of my efforts of being creative director for an all-girl band, The Bettys, and I’m giving them their aesthetic identity. I was made creative director of Meoko Vodka company, of which I’m also the spokesperson, and that’s cool. We’re doing a big launch for the ad campaign for that, and I’m doing a small capsule collection called Mike Ruiz for J. Cheikh for Fashion Week in the fall.
I’m branching out, and you never know how things are going to unfold, where things are going to fall, and I’m going with it. This past year has really been unnerving, because for the past 15 years I’ve been on the same trajectory with photography on one path. Now, I’m doing all of these other things that are not familiar to me, but it’s great. I’ve always been a big risk taker.
To see what is up next for Mike Ruiz, log onto mikeruiz.com, and you can watch The A-List: New York Mondays at 10 p.m. on Logo.
