The actor and artist Bobbi Salvör Menuez navigated two very different on-screen premieres last Friday. One was the Sundance debut of Adam, a queer comedy based on Ariel Schrag’s 2014 novel, which stands among the redhead’s meatiest film roles to date. The other unfolded on Instagram, where a freshly minted handle doubled as a public announcement: @hi_its_bobbi. Previously known as India, Menuez (who uses the pronoun they) has been a familiar presence in shows like Transparent and I Love Dick, not to mention a fixture in New York’s downtown creative scene. Navigating an identity shift in the midst of a rising career has been an evolution in the making.

“I figured out I had a new name about a year ago,” wrote Menuez in the post, unpacking the thought process behind the quiet reveal. “Mixed feelings about the politics of ‘coming out’ aside, I share this here to integrate parts of myself that have formerly been private.” The accompanying black-and-white portrait shows Menuez with a buzz cut and a blank expression, embodying a kind of carte-blanche freedom.

In Adam, Menuez plays Gillian, the ethereal, Botticelli-haired love interest of the male protagonist (Nicholas Alexander). The first feature from former producer and director of Transparent, Rhys Ernst, it centers on a circle of Brooklyn friends in 2006, who live in a world of marriage-equality marches, women-only S&M clubs, and viewing parties for The L Word. Among them, Gillian is regarded as something of a legend, having previously made national news for taking her girlfriend to prom in small-town Oklahoma. When Adam, an awkward high-school virgin in town for the summer, falls for the lesbian, she mistakes him for a trans man, and a relationship ensues. After a couple of half-baked attempts to correct the error, he naively keeps up the ruse, only for it to come uncomfortably undone.

Speaking by phone from Park City on Friday, Menuez reflected on the dual reception so far—peals of laughter for Adam, heartfelt emojis for Bobbi. “Luckily, I’m with a film here that is all about trans literacy, with a trans director, and a heavily trans cast, so of course I’m in the most supportive company possible,” the actor said. Here, Menuez talks about sidestepping the tropes of a rom-com female lead, the queer appeal of glitter makeup, and why the buzz cut takes a load off.

Vanity Fair: Congratulations on the film. What drew you to this project?

Bobbi Salvör Menuez: I already knew Rhys, having done Transparent and through the world of Topple and the queer scene in L.A./Hollywood. I heard about the script and I was really curious—[given] the sensitive topics that the film touches on—who’s going to do it, and who’s going to know how to do it right? Rhys and I had a Skype session, and then we met up in person the summer before we went into production [in late 2017]. I felt like we could have really honest, candid conversations about the film, which was very different than other stories we’ve been given on the screen about what is a trans narrative.

Adam is set in 2006, when you were barely a teenager growing up in the city. Were you already encountering that kind of fluid exploration of gender?

I’m trying to remember, I think I had just fallen in love with a girl for the first time, so I was kind of in conversation with my own queerness already. The average American’s trans literacy was in such a different place than it is now—pre-Caitlyn, etc., etc. My parents are younger, creative people who raised me in New York, so I was always kind of raised around queer people. I had my non-biological gay uncles and aunts who I would have sleepovers with, so it was always kind of normal to me. But then, of course, there was a little bit of wrestling between how do I be myself and how do I be the thing that people want me to be—because I was a teenager and wanted people to like me.

We first glimpse your character at a march and later at a party. There’s something about the glitter eye shadow that you’re wearing and the serendipity of the moment that, in the wrong hands, could play into that old trope of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Did you have any wariness about playing the female love interest?

Definitely. There is still a lot of room to go around making every type of gendered character as complex as the male lead usually gets to be. There were all these ways in which Rhys and I approached tackling the character of Gillian to make her more complex and not just someone who’s facilitating Adam’s becoming. But what was exciting to me was that actually it’s less about the relationship between Gillian and Adam. The love story that is more center stage for me is the one between Adam and Ethan [a roommate] as friends, learning about a type of male friendship that straight men might not think that they have access to.

Gillian experiments with makeup, whether it’s glitter or black eyeliner. What is your relationship to makeup? In the past, you’ve talked about clothing as a way to change characters.

I’ve never related to makeup as something that affirms my sense of self. It’s always been totally costume to me, and technically it’s just something I’ve never been good at. If I’m ever putting on makeup, which I don’t really do in my personal life, I feel like a clown—which I think is fun, to approach it that way. I remember one time a makeup artist told me that glitter is the chlamydia of the makeup kit because, when I was a teenager, I used to just pour it on my head, and it was always on me when I would go to a shoot. Everyone would be like, “God, you’re getting glitter in all my brushes!” To me, glitter is camp. It’s tied to queer aesthetics in this way that I think is really beyond gender.

How did you land on the name Bobbi?

There are certain decisions in my life that I approach with a lot of scrutiny and for some reason, picking a new name, I just approached it with no scrutiny at all. I tried it out and it felt good, and it’s continued to feel better and better. As I started to integrate it into my life, I just found that it was really an important part of me stepping into my own embodiment as a trans non-binary person.

What’s the backstory behind that portrait on Instagram by Michael Bailey-Gates?

Mike’s been a friend of mine for years and years. Whenever we’re in the same place, we like to play around and make images. He’s always been someone who has made the photos of me that feel the most identity-affirming and the most playful and the most supportive. I just love him as a person. We were in town at the same time, and I was like, “Hey, I haven’t let anyone take my photo since cutting my hair”—because I just felt unsure about how I wanted to be photographed. They weren’t necessarily for this, but they worked for this moment.

Tell me about cutting your hair. Was it last summer?

It was super long, and then I cut it medium and ended up cutting it shorter and shorter. I was like, I actually can’t afford to keep getting nice short haircuts! I just went to the pharmacy near my house and got whatever buzz kit they had and did it at home. I was really resistant to cutting my hair short because [of] this question of legibility: I am the thing that I am—why do I have to cut my hair short for people to see that? But then once I gave myself the short haircut, I was like, wait, why did I ever have long hair?

Why is it so great?

In this really basic sense, it’s lighter; it’s this limb that you’re not carrying around anymore. There was this way in which other people’s attachment to my hair felt really heavy for me, and the way that my long hair was this very particular kind of Eurocentric beauty symbol. It was loaded, and I just felt relief in letting it go. Now, I cut it every two weeks, and I mess around with it sometimes. I buzzed a checkerboard for a friend’s wedding in the fall—that was pretty wacky and fun. It’s easy upkeep.

How old are you now—25?

Yeah, I’m 25.

There’s this notion of the quarter-life crisis—

Oh yeah, a Britney moment.

—but on the contrary it seems like you’re settling into something more comfortable?

Yeah. I don’t feel like it’s a crisis moment for me. I feel the most grounded and centered in myself I’ve felt in a long, long time. So it definitely feels quite the opposite.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

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