First Look: RuPaul is President — and Queen of Hollywood — in Stop! That! Train!

EW has an exclusive first look at Mamaru and some of your favorite Ru girls in the upcoming film Stop! That! Train!

via: EW

Is the bus still runnin'? Not quite. But, a renegade locomotive is careening toward Los Angeles in its place. And Entertainment Weekly has a first look at RuPaul, several Drag Race queens, Rachel Bloom, and even Lisa Rinna (because, well, why not?) attempting to halt its maniacal rampage in Hairspray director Adam Shankman's new theatrical comedy appropriately titled Stop! That! Train!

To observe production of a movie with a plot that goes delightfully off the rails in more ways than one, EW visited the set of Shankman's new production on familiar ground in November 2025. Shooting at the same L.A.-area studio as RuPaul's Drag Race, Stop! That! Train! reunites RuPaul with several contestants who had starring roles on the Emmy-winning reality competition series before boarding the film.

The first queen EW watches film is fan-favorite recurring contender, season 2, All Stars 1, and All Stars 5 queen Jujubee, who, with All Stars 10 winner Ginger Minj, plays a pair of fabulously costumed stewardesses aboard the runaway train, the Glamazonian Express. All is well until a catastrophic "Stormaganza" threatens to derail the vessel, prompting the pair to join forces with first-class attendants to save the day.

Harnessing the camp of countless Drag Race acting challenges that came before her, Jujubee films a close-up reaction to a group of rowdy passengers reprimanding her, escalating the moment until her face is full-on twitching before a physical confrontation. This sends everyone watching behind the monitors — including Drag Race co-creator and Stop! That! Train! producer Randy Barbato — into a fit of laughter.

"Oscar! If not Oscar, Golden Globe!" he exclaims, beaming at the talent his World of Wonder production company helped shepherd from Drag Race all the way to Shankman's major movie set. "She and Ginger are too good. All the queens are."

But, therein lies an added layer of complexity. While Stop! That! Train! is cut from the same sequined cloth as Drag Race's acting challenges (and even Ru's own sexploitation spoofs, like 2007's Starrbooty film), the spice of the upcoming movie (hitting theaters nationwide in May) appears to be in its balance of earnest with the absurd.

As Barbato tells EW, the show's deep talent pool lent itself to fun along the way. Drag Race queens Symone, Marcia Marcia Marcia, Brooke Lynn Hytes, Latrice Royale, and Monét X Change all have significant roles. Guest judges Rinna, Bloom, June Diane Raphael, Charo, and Matt Rogers all appear, as does longtime panelist Michelle Visage "in '90s hair," he teases. And then there's Visage's season 11 panel nemesis, Joel McHale, who Barbato previews is "in a harness — and he's hot!"

Still, Shankman doesn't see the film as simply another flamboyant flex of Drag Race nostalgia, and even tells EW it's the only movie in his three-decade career featuring queer people as lead characters.

"I'm not trying to slip into any kind of Drag Race ethos. That's not what I'm doing," the Wedding Planner and A Walk to Remember helmer says, calling the project an "odd and special" mix of multiple drag queens going heel-to-heel with major comedians.

"I wanted queens that I knew could anchor the movie emotionally and so that their acting could feel authentic and come through the paint. I wanted queens that weren't always going to be acting for the back of the house," he says, adding that Ginger and Jujubee carry the movie as its focal characters — whom he refuses to classify as either in-universe drag queens or women.

Shankman invokes Julie Hagerty's performance in the 1980 comedy Airplane! as the turn he's chasing in the film, giving his cast a "ceiling where you can be in a close-up on them and believe what they're saying in their eyes, that they mean it."

That doesn't stop his stars from remembering where they came from.

"Drag Race acting challenges are always about standing out and being the big, brash, loud one. [Acting in] this is finding a different way to stand out, quietly," Ginger explains, calling herself and Jujubee the "straight men of the movie" amid "all the craziness" around them. "It's funnier when we're so sincerely in every moment that it is affecting us in a different way than it's affecting everybody else on this train," she observes. "It's more nuanced. It's real acting. It's not shmacting, trying to stand out for the wrong reasons."

Brooke tells EW she locked into Shankman's vision, and looked to iconic characters played by Oscar nominee Rachel McAdams and Academy Award winner Meryl Streep to zero in on her role as one of the elite stewardesses.

"It's a little Regina George. It's a little Miranda Priestly. That quiet, super bitchy, supervillain boss, but also fabulous," the Canada's Drag Race host says. Season 13 winner Symone, who, alongside season 15's Marcia, play the Karen and Gretchen to Brooke's main Mean Girl, says the format allows them to "flesh out our characters a little bit more," with Marcia calling the film "a very different beast" from Drag Race acting challenges.

'Drag Race' queens Marcia Marcia Marcia, Brooke Lynn Hytes, Symone in 'Stop! That! Train!'.

"It's important because, at this point, I don't think what we need as a nation is intellectual comedy. We need to just go in and belly-laugh and forget about things for a little while," Marcia says, with Symone adding, "It's cool that we get to do it through our medium."

The Drag Race references are still aplenty, both on camera and off. EW observes the other queens waiting in the wings, shouting, "You will never be glamor" and "props to ya, mama" between takes. When Jujubee misses her mark while speaking to Brooke's character and has to start over, Brooke even jokes that her scene partner's "inner saboteur" is to blame.

And yet, "there's no RuPaul in this universe. RuPaul is playing the president of the United States as a character. There are no drag queens. We just don't address it," Shankman stresses of Ru's President Gagwell, a fictional political force who isn't meant to invoke any commentary on real-world government figures.

"RuPaul would be the first one to say, just putting on drag is political," explains Shankman. "I think Ru taking on the role of the president was not a political statement. It was just the right role for Ru in the movie.... It doesn't mock anybody. It doesn't go after anybody. We're apolitical in that way. There's RuPaul, in drag, sitting in the Oval Office, making decisions."

Another serious matter is Ru's commitment to the craft. It's something the Queen of Drag doesn't take lightly, as Ru is both the in-universe president and the unofficial (but actually kind of official) default leader of the global art form.

"I already knew [RuPaul and I] were going to share scenes together from reading the script, and I would just imagine what it was like. It was totally not like what we did. RuPaul is so fantastic and such a great human," observes Jujubee. "So there's this version, and then there's the really playful little child.... We were sitting there and I made whale noises, and Ru did too after I did it, and I turned around and I was like, oh my God, you're one of us. She's always been one of us."

Regardless of where they fall on the spectrum of, is it a full-on Drag Race movie? or not, those involved owe a debt to the platform RuPaul's Drag Race first built in 2009.

Winning or not, the show can lead to real opportunities. This actually marks Symone's second theatrical comedy, as she previously had a supporting role in Billy Eichner's 2022 gay rom-com Bros, and Ginger previously worked with Shankman in a small role in Disney's Hocus Pocus 2 that same year.

Though Ginger feels "some of the girls from Drag Race were bitchy and upset that I won," she recognizes, "I'm still here starring in this Adam Shankman movie." And that kind of presence in Hollywood is important for all — not just those in the Drag Race family and fandom.

"The magic of Drag Race and what they've been able to do for the drag community is give us a platform and put a spotlight on us for the world to see," says Brooke. "I think this is a great, super logical next step for us to start doing movies, and show that we can be box office hits."

That's one train no one wants to stop in its tracks.

Stop! That! Train! is in theaters May 29 via Bleecker Street.