Whether on stage or TV, Joshua Warr sure knows how to make an impression. In the New York nightclub scene, the MAC Awards nominee is known for his emotional renditions of classics, which he makes sure to personalize so that they fit perfectly into the stories he’s telling. Onscreen, in shows like The Americans and the vastly underrated Hunting Season he makes acting seem effortless, and given his choice of projects one would expect him to be an intense young man with a slightly dark output. Instead, he’s an eloquent artist who isn’t only excited to talk about his work, but he also genuinely seems interested in listening to what you have to say. No wonder audiences keep coming back to see his shows!

New Yorkers will once again have the chance to see Joshua Warr’s “Love and Warr”at 54 Below on August 20th. To mark the occasion we spoke to him about the changes the show underwent since its debut, his newest poison of choice (in spirits form) and his collaborations with alter ego Stormy Weatherz.

You’re doing “Love and Warr” again, have you done any revisions or added anything to the show since you last performed it?

The show has been gone through many updates because we lost our drummer to Immigration (laughs) literally I felt like I was in Hedwig and the Angry Inch. He was from Australia and had a little bit of time left on his visa, but he left which worked out for me because I hadn’t given him his check, so I owe him money now. I hope the Australian mafia doesn’t come after me. We also lost our guitarist, cause his wife is having a baby, so we had to find new musicians who are very different. I’m excited to see and hear what kind of energy they will bring to the band, but the show hasn’t changed much.

Are we going to see any more duets with Stormy Weatherz perhaps?

Absolutely. That is one of my favorite parts of the show, bringing Stormy out of her ribbon cutting tour all over the world. She brings such joy to the show, there’s talk of Stormy appearing on some promo videos for the show, but we’ll see. She’s a lot to handle.

When you think of something to add to your cabaret show, how do you decide if you will do them as Joshua or Stormy? Has it become an automatic process?

I feel like Stormy is this monster who allows me to do things Joshua wouldn’t do. I’ve had shows where I didn’t even tell my creative team that Stormy would come in, when I was developing “Love and Warr” I wanted to challenge stigmas and the community. Cabaret is such a beautiful artform where people are allowed to push the boundaries, so when I was wondering what to do I decided to do a duet between me and Stormy of “Something Stupid”, which I’ve always loved. Stormy has some Nancy Sinatra to her too, so it was perfect. We recorded our duet in a studio and I wrote the scene while I was tipsy on tequila, so if you ever drink it, start writing because it’s amazing. I started drinking tequila at a bar and suddenly saw like four or six different versions of this scene, they were funny, if a little too inside-jokey. I like making people laugh but I want them to get my jokes.

Before I move on to a serious question I need to ask how do you drink your tequila?

Last night it was my friend’s birthday so we were doing tequila with lime and soda. The lime is very important, so that’s why I sound like Bea Arthur right now. If I’m doing shots it needs to be a really good tequila, something like Don Julio. I love a margarita, especially a frozen one, and they’re everywhere in Hell’s Kitchen, but those are terrible for your waistline cause they’re 100% sugar. Lately I’ve been enjoying unadulterated tequila soda. One night I was out, didn’t know what to get so I started ordering tequila, OJ’s like I was a freshman. All that orange juice by the end of the night wasn’t pretty, so that’s never happening again.

That sounds ghastly, but how do you feel about palomas?

Oh my gosh, I love that you just said that. I love palomas! I don’t know if you ever went to Hell’s Kitchen before it moved to this new area, but I went there once and had a paloma and it was one of the best drinks I’ve ever had.

Aren’t they life-altering-amazing?

Yes they are. You reminded me I haven’t had a paloma in years so now in your honor I’ll have one, just not tonight. I can’t do any more tequila.

Now let me get to my serious questions, “Something Stupid” is a pretty creepy, incestuous song, so I want to ask about the layers of performance. Are you ever “just” Joshua when you perform as Joshua? If we add Stormy to the mix, do we end up with three layers of Joshua as Joshua the performer as Stormy?

My acting training is the Meisner technique, so it’s easy for me to go onstage and be me. I can change the objective of what I’m trying to achieve with the audience but it’s always going to be me. There was a slight change with the show I did in 2009 which was a very conceptualized version of the seven deadly sins, so all of the songs represented either one of the layers of Dante’s inferno or one of the sins. People didn’t like it because they thought I was putting on a mask and airs, but I wasn’t thinking I was better than anyone just because it was a conceptual show. Some people loved it though, so in my second show which I did with my friend Josh, we thought it would be neat if he played a New York City nerd, and I was the diva, and the concept was that we both were booked at the same theater on the same night because we have the same name. How did we make it mesh with our very different personalities? So for my next show I wanted something more bold and daring, so it’s 100% my story, of crazy love, crazy toxic relationships and a breakup that destroyed a lot. It’s not sad though, it’s my voice and soul, but it’s also a fun show! When Stormy shows up that is completely performance though, I am not Joshua when she’s on, I give her all the credit for stealing the show.

The Americans is essentially a show about acting and performance disguised as a spy thriller, so it makes sense that someone who puts on so many layers to perform as you do, gets to be in it. How was the experience?

I did Law and Order and The Americans last year. Both experiences were incredible, I played this little gay punk gangster out on the Christopher Street Piers who was giving Danny Pino some attitude, and then I played Matthew Rhys’ character in The Americans at age 17. So I go from playing this 22-year-old punk to playing a 17-year-old Russian straight boy going through KGB training in 1959, as an actor that’s the stuff you want, you want the dichotomy. I love comedy and drama, cabaret and straight theatre...art brings me joy. They also told me they were gonna show my butt and they never did, my one disappointment is I didn’t get a prime time TV butt shot, but I guess there’s always a next time. In my scene my character is having sex with a prostitute who is so disinterested, I was like “come on, they couldn’t get me someone who was into it!”, but actually it’s because in such a multilayered show I found out that when KGB agents were going through their training, the final step was that they would have sex with women and men to get the information they needed. So my character was having sex with men and women, being scared out of his mind, and it was so much fun to play that! I told my mom she would be so proud of the back of my head, she gave me a great neckline.

Will we get to see a third season of Hunting Season?

The crazy thing is I meet all these young gay kids and when I ask them about the show, they don’t know it exists. What is wrong? I can’t believe it hasn’t picked up at the level I thought it would, it’s such a fun, racy show and I love working with Jon Marcus, he knows everything about gay culture and cinema. I hope there’s another season because I keep asking them when I’ll get my shirtless scene, because they keep putting me in bow ties and shirts.

So basically what I’ve learned from talking to you is that you wanna be naked all the time.

Listen, I’m the biggest prude, I don’t even like having sex with the lights on (laughs).

You can see Joshua Warr in "Love and Warr" on August 20. For tickets and more click here.