Willow Defebaugh

I want to start at the beginning. Where did the idea for the show come from? Was there a specific moment that lit the fire? Were the two of you in conversation and you were like, “We redheads have to come together”?

Bonnie Wright

​​We must unite for world peace [laughs]. It was six months after I’d published my book, Go Gently, that I had an idea. I knew I never wanted to present a show on my own and I knew I wanted a co-host or co-pilot. We followed each other, but we had never met in person. I DM-ed her and was like, “Hey, I want to make this show. Do you think you’d want to be in it?” 

Pattie Gonia

I just think that the duo of us is my favorite thing about this show. I was really excited to do this and had always wanted to dip my toes into the TV world, but wanted to do it with a co-host as well or with a cast of hosts. I also wanted to make something that felt like it represented the sides of the climate movement that I love most, which is people working on solutions, building community, and not just talking about it but doing things. I feel like that’s what this show really captured.

Bonnie

Predominantly 80% of my book is about the internal environment of your day-to-day life which is somewhat within your personal control. I finished the book with a chapter that talks about how we can only begin at home in order to have that foundational mentality, but unless we take this work out into the world, its impact won’t reach everyone. So I knew I wanted my next project to really be about that piece, to be about going outside, connecting with the people, doing the work, and showing people these positive stories that are being lived every day by people who recognize issues in their local environment. They are using their understanding of where they live to address the issues and doing it across different skillsets. We’ve become a little bit too interested in who we know and what we know and not actually what we can give in our skillset to the climate crisis in a way that works to all of our strengths. 

Willow

There’s a subtle cognitive shift that happens from not just, what can I do? but, what can I give and what is it that I have to offer? It’s such a beautiful thread in both of your works. 

Let’s get into some of the specific people that you met. Were there any folks that you met or learned from that really had a big perspective shift for you or even just surprised you?

Pattie

With everyone we met, a throughline for me was taking who you are and what you’re good at and applying it to what you care about in this world. Something I also saw along the way was resiliency—of people working on things for a very long time to make action happen. An example of that was the Yurok Tribe in Oregon. At the Klamath River, we got to go out on wooden canoes that Indigenous people had carved and used to harvest salmon every year. We got to learn about the dam removal in the river and how long it’s taken and how much colonization has taken away their right and ability to even sustain themselves with food. We also saw how they have won the battle against that. It was a really great example to show that the fight is long. It is often a marathon, not a sprint. I think I really need to remember that these days, too.

Willow

And wins are possible.

Pattie

Yeah, wins are possible. That only happened through community, through collaboration, through everyone giving what they could.

Bonnie

I also loved the canoes that we got to go in when we were with the Yurok Tribe and the carving craft that they would use to cut the tree. There were some people that have shown recent interest in actually learning that carving skill that was almost lost. I know that is very specific to that culture, but I think also remembering and relearning was something that I took from that story and from other stories—how a lot of these things were either forgotten not too long ago generationally or were remembering these things. People weren’t reinventing the wheel with a lot of things we were doing; they were cross-pollinating these things that were all there in front of us. It was just people collaborating to bring it together, which I found was really nice.

Willow

I love this piece you’re sharing about remembering, and not necessarily reinventing the wheel. I recently realized that the root of the word remember is member. It’s literally body parts coming back together. That fits so nicely with this vision of collaboration here, of pieces coming together and this wholeness.

Pattie

I also feel like it was remembering to just have fun. The show is not just focused on climate solutions and people and just this endless slog. It’s really showing the balance of fighting hard, mourning hard, and playing hard. What we really wanted to show as well, which happened naturally, was the play between both of us and the play and discovery of learning new things and meeting new people.

Everything isn’t climate related, but also everything kind of was. It was really fun to just go thrifting with Bonnie and to pick out a dress for a dinner party with her at this secondhand store. We wanted to show these practical things that we all know in the environmental movement that are easy life hacks that are more fun, like thrifting or trying new things with cooking that could be more vegetarian. But also, just showing that two people who are fighting for climate are also having fun is really important because a lot of people right now are wondering if they have permission to celebrate. I think it’s very important to remember that our queer elders, for example, knew that and baked that into the movement. In fact, that fun and that joy is what encouraged people to join the movement. 

And we did so through such things as literally putting Bonnie in drag for the first time, so you can look forward to seeing that in the show as well.

Willow

Okay, this is important. What is your drag name, Bonnie?

Pattie

Her name is Bonnie Wrong. She wears her wigs backwards. Her dress is backwards. Her eyelashes are on the bottom lashes.

Bonnie

The makeup is terrible, yeah.

Pattie

It was quick drag at its finest. And it was also just play. So much of this show is just a road trip with friends and showing people that it’s not all fight.

Bonnie

It was my intention, which definitely happened, to just fall in love again with nature and human beings. I feel like we’re constantly told we can be the problem, but to actually like us and to like people and to like the places we go was just really important to me, and I felt that during the process of making it.

Pattie

That’s what it’s all about. It’s about connections. It’s about supporting each other. I think that all happened because of a connection to nature and a connection to place. I keep on thinking about the sand dunes up in Oregon with Queer Nature. That was unbelievable. We got to go out with Pınar and So and do some wildlife tracking and just to see how many different languages a landscape is speaking all at once that I often don’t listen to or don’t see because I’m not paying attention to it. I think about that with every environment I’m in now.

Willow

There’s such a mire of shame around environmentalism that people have around getting involved. I think so much of that comes from people at this point just feeling ashamed for being human when they think about the climate crisis. We need people to understand that humans are also pretty amazing. And we also know how to party. 

What does it mean to you that this show is coming out now in this particular, dynamic moment in this country and in the world?

Pattie

I see how needed something like this show is to remind other people that there are people out there that are fighting. There are people out there that are doing what they can where they can. I think we need more relatable stories like that. I also think we need more shows or more content that show friendship and joy as well. I love how much our friendship is showcased in this show just as much as climate is. I think that that can borderline on the cheesy world in TV, but also I think it’s just so needed, especially in an unscripted world where it’s just reality TV or bust. So it felt really fun to do that. It’s such an epic battle behind the scenes, but it’s worth it because the people that will watch this really want this. It’s just interesting to me how hard and important it is to create media like this in this world. 

Bonnie

To me, the story needed to be told. I knew that people were going to say: This isn’t commercial enough. People don’t want climate stories. They just want reality TV in the non-scripted world. But you have to make it anyway. Because if you don’t give the audience the opportunity to want to watch this show, how will we ever break that cycle of watching those other shows that will only get green-lit and funded? I think we are, across so many other industries, part of this generation that we do need to break the gates down or the gatekeepers of certain worlds or the people who say, Oh, no, only this sells. Well, maybe not actually. So I think the whole making of it and the potency to why now is even more passionate to me. There’s urgency to it. Telling a story that’s beautiful and fun is urgent. The time is now.

Willow

What is the hope that people take away from watching the show?

Pattie

A hope is that this show is a gateway for someone who cares about the planet to have other people sit down with them and watch it and be able to see people doing amazing things and feel that much more invited in. There’s really big potential with this show to do that; to watch this with family and see what’s out there and to meet different people beyond just us.

I also think my hope is that people are reminded that action works. If you feel like apathy to spare, that’s exactly what this system and capitalism and billionaires want. Solutions work and people united will never be defeated. We got to see that over and over again in people’s stories, especially with climate policy and big climate work happening and Indigenous resistance. People united is an incredible thing. 

Willow

You highlighted a really pretty unique aspect of film and TV here, which is that it can bring people together. You can say, “Hey, family, it’s movie night. Can we try watching this together?” which is different from just sending an article to someone. It’s an experience that people can actually share with their loved ones. 

Pattie

I think that’s what the genius of shows like Queer Eye is. You go to see the transformation of these people, but then people watching can also be like, “I now know and can see queer people.” So now people can be like, “I now know and can see gingers. Gingers exist.”

Willow

[Laughs] Representation.

Bonnie

Nothing beats just being together. You can be in silence together, you can be chatting together, you can be dancing together, anything. It was really important for me to bring the show together so that people can remember that love, care, and affection. I hope people feel that love of everything that comes through and the silliness and goofiness that the two of us have, too.

Willow

I love the focus on people seeing themselves in other people while watching the show. I think that it’s so crucial right now. I think our differences are weaponized to drive people further and further apart in order to seize power, and getting people to see these reflections of themselves in other people, it’s an important goal.

Bonnie

So often we compare people now. We compare each other through their political views, their experience, their job. But going through different landscapes, it was fascinating seeing the different ways people were being affected by the geography of their environment, but also how many similarities there were. No matter if it was the ocean that they were fighting for or a tree, there were just so many similarities, and they were all applying similar ideas. So it was really nice to bring all those landscapes together and show the interconnectedness of it all.

Willow

And our love of nature is something that everyone can rally around.

Bonnie

It’s a part of everyone’s life. It truly is.