How Adam Shankman assembled ‘Drag Race’ avengers to make ‘Stop! That! Train!’

It’s taken charisma, uniqueness, nerve, talent, and a literal village for the first feature film from the RuPaul’s Drag Race universe to hit the big screen.

Between comedy legends, Hollywood icons, and drag queens, Stop! That! Train! has a cast list pushing 40 actors, including RuPaul (President Gagwell), Matt Rogers (White House press secretary), Rachel Bloom (Donna Dusk), Guy Branum (train traffic controller), plus Sarah Michelle Gellar, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Nicole Richie, Joel McHale, June Diane Raphael, Drew Droege, and Mayan Lopez — as well as a formidable slate of Ru girls, including Jujubee, Ginger Minj, Symone, Brooke Lynn Hytes, Marcia Marcia Marcia, and Latrice Royale.

Special OUT Digital Cover for ‘Stop! That! Train!’Albert Sanchez

In the great tradition of the satirical disaster film Airplane!, Stop! That! Train! bundles (most of) this cast aboard a luxury bullet train, speeding toward the impending doom of a “Stormaganza.” The film, co-produced by World of Wonder and Unapologetic Projects and distributed by Bleecker Street, is great, silly fun — and it’s also quietly positioned to make queer cinematic history when it makes its theatrical debut June 12.

Beyond its superstar cast and mainstream appeal, Stop! That! Train! has striking dichotomies, much like drag itself. For one, it’s a film centering drag queens that doesn’t bring up drag at all. As with John Waters’s filmography, the movie steers clear of topical political statements despite being inherently political. And, quite notably, the first Drag Race feature film in herstory has some distance from the Emmy-winning reality competition series despite featuring queens and references from Mama Ru’s queendom. If you can’t wait to see how this turns out, put your opera glasses on, sis.

Regarding the origin story of this off-the-rails comedy, director Adam Shankman (Hairspray, Disenchanted) was choreographing a couple of Rusicals on Drag Race when Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey — the co-heads of World of Wonder, the production company that created RuPaul’s Drag Race, among other LGBTQ+ films and TV shows — approached him to discuss a new project.

Adam Shankman, RuPaul, Christina Friel, and Connor Wright at the Stop That Train premiere

Director Adam Shankman, RuPaul, and writers Christina Friel and Connor Wright at the ‘Stop! That! Train!’ premiere in Los Angeles.Todd Williamson/JanuaryImages

“We have a script that’s really funny,” they told him, Shankman reminisces. “RuPaul would love if you’d take a look at it.” While considering it, Shankman cautioned the Drag Race moguls that he’d never done an independent film before. (Despite its starry cast and global theatrical release, Stop! That! Train! had a limited budget.)

“Ru wanted me to direct the movie,” Shankman reflects. “I’ve known Ru since 1994. We have history. We’re fans of the same stuff.” Upon reading the script and meeting again with Bailey and Barbato, Shankman was compelled to make it werk. While emphasizing that “the movie is not the show” (more on that later), he agreed to direct Stop! That! Train!, which could become chapter one of a cinematic Ru-niverse.

Despite the historic box-office success of drag-led productions like To Wong Foo and The Birdcage, there is a notable lack of wigged representation in modern-day theatrical releases. This is “perplexing” to World of Wonder execs Bailey and Barbato. “These artists can serve movie-star looks, know how to act, and can be some of the funniest people on the planet,” Bailey remarks. “Some of our favorite movies feature drag: Rocky Horror Picture Show; Tootsie; The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert; even Some Like It Hot and Mrs. Doubtfire. And not just our favorite movies, but movies beloved by audiences across generations,” Barbato adds. “These movies are for everyone, and we wanted to add to that canon. There just aren’t enough of them.”

Drag Race alums and ‘Stop! That! Train!’ stars (L-R) Marcia Marcia Marcia, Ginger Minj, Brooke Lynn Hytes, Jujubee, and Symone.World of Wonder/Bleecker Street

President Judy Gagwell came to life as a collaborative effort between RuPaul and Shankman. “It’s funny, Ru and I haven’t really talked about any of this. After the first two takes, it just got super easy and flowy,” Shankman says. “Besides what the movie required, I intuitively also felt Ru’s pressure points, and how I could support that.”

RuPaul’s hilarious walk-and-talk scene with Rogers in the Oval Office, for instance, was barely discussed. “I said, ‘OK, you’re literally walking around in circles as background actors put things in your arms,’” Shankman laughs. “’Keep holding them, and listen to Matt [Rogers] — what he’s telling you is urgent and very serious.’ Ru’s like, ‘Let’s do it.’ He just knew the assignment. I feel like Ru had such a good time shooting this.”

This reporter only clocked that RuPaul and Rogers were walking around in circles on the second watch. “We didn’t have any set!” Shankman reacts, laughing. “Like, we couldn’t afford more set.”

RuPaul’s Drag Race All-Stars season 10 winner Ginger Minj, who portrays the train stewardess Tess, is the arguable heart of Stop! That! Train!, alongside her best friend and colleague DeeDee (Jujubee), as both battle the elements and mean-girl coworkers in order to save their passengers. Transported to an acting set, Minj recalls a very different experience than that of the high-stakes drag competition.

RuPaul and Matt Rogers in Stop That Train

RuPaul and Matt Rogers World of Wonder/Bleecker Street

“We were on a little bit of a break, and Jujubee started making whale sounds,” Minj says. “And then, from behind us, RuPaul started making whale sounds.” The bit “went on and on for a very long time,” Minj adds, which put them at ease. “RuPaul was there just to play with us…. We really clicked with her as a coworker, instead of her being the almighty RuPaul that she always is.”

Did those Rusical experiences with Drag Race queens inform how Shankman directed Stop! That! Train!? “No,” he replies. “I did nine seasons on So You Think You Can Dance as a judge. A competition show is about getting contestants through challenges and showing them in their best light. It’s all about them. Making a movie is about the big picture: how pieces of the puzzle work together, and integrating actors as seamlessly as possible.”

Shankman, who was fully involved in casting the queens of Stop! That! Train!, reveals that “everybody had to audition. They all sent in tapes. I saw lots of auditions.” A million (Ru-)girls would kill for that job. How did that go? “I think almost 700 girls have competed throughout all Drag Race franchises,” he muses. “Because I wanted to respect what World of Wonder has done, we focused on the girls who had been part of the show.”

Drag Race queens in a scene from Stop That Train

The queens share a tense moment in ‘Stop! That! Train!’World of Wonder/Bleecker Street

Searching for actors among queens, the director prioritized performers who could listen and anchor a heightened premise onto real feelings. And this cast followed certain parameters. “I didn’t let any of the queens do their own makeup. They all had to become part of this world,” Shankman explains. “There was no Ginger Minj. There was no Jujubee. The queens had to assimilate into a separate world that’s devoid of Drag Race. As crazy as it sounds, they’re not drag queens in the movie. It’s a completely different thing.”

These characters “don’t know they’re in a comedy,” observes Shankman, who asked the queens to “feel that what happened to their characters was really important to them, in a very real way.” The director was ultimately impressed by these newly minted movie stars and hopes they continue to shantay in the film industry.

“What’s so heroic and extraordinary about the queens that I worked with — who will hopefully be doing movies in the future, after all of this — is that they walk in as their own self, get into their drag self, and have to then become a character beyond that drag self,” Shankman says.

Shankman estimates that Stop! That! Train! was filmed in 19 days. “It wasn’t even three weeks.” He reasons that most star cameos were shot in “half a day each,” and even the film’s most active actors “worked for like five days, at most.” That was “the longest anybody worked who wasn’t a drag queen,” the director says, praising the queens for constantly showing up excited, focused, and eager to werk it out, often through shoots of “over nine pages a day.”

Adam Shankman and RuPaul

Adam Shankman and RuPaulWorld of Wonder/Bleecker Street

After all her runs around the Oval Office, would RuPaul now run for office? No, but Bailey and Barbato “would vote for President Gagwell…she fun!” echoing her campaign slogan in the film. Barbato says, “It’s a more appealing, entertaining, and humane campaign than anything the current regime has given us.” And Bailey adds that the film could offer some levity during an anti-LGBTQ+ (and anti-drag) political era. “In these dark times, sharing a laugh with an audience in a theater is not only something to take your mind off things; it can be healing. It can also cut through the crap: Camp can blast through the layers of bullshit and hypocrisy we are being subjected to right now.”

Is Shankman cognizant of the political undertones in a film fronted by a drag president-turned-action-hero who might save humanity from an unstoppable train gone off the rails? The director validates all interpretations, but maintains that he “just wanted to make people laugh, and the movie is hilarious.” Generally, this is all about “underdogs in peril fixing a problem and saving lives in the silliest possible way,” he rightly argues.

Last but not least, is Stop! That! Train! the first movie of a cinematic Ru-niverse? Shankman would “of course” return for a sequel, but notes that it “depends on if the community comes out and supports, buys tickets, and makes it a success…. If this does well, there are infinitely more opportunities. But those will only come if people are willing to come to the theater, sit their tushies down, and laugh together, celebrating these incredible artists.”

Stop! That! Train! hits theaters June 12.

This special digital cover story is also part of OUT’s July-Aug 2026 print issue, on newsstands July 7. Support queer media and subscribe — or download the issue through Apple News+, Zinio, Nook, or PressReader starting June 18.