Costa, from living on the street to shining in a musical

He lived in train cars and in boarding houses. He ate in soup kitchens and in shelters. She was discriminated against because she was overweight. She left her native Córdoba to make her way in Buenos Aires, where she discovered the deep underworld. But today she plays in the big leagues.

At 43 years old, known as Costa – it is her last name and stage name – she shines on the radio, on TV and now in the theater. Because In 2024 he fulfilled a dream and will leave a mark on diversity:

“I am the first trans woman to play a woman in a Broadway musical. This is making history from the point of view of struggle, determination and desexualization. I am truly privileged and I feel extremely happy because they have chosen me to be in Legally blonde“, she says, excitedly, at the beginning of the talk in her dressing room at the Liceo theater.

Speak louder. She is magnetic, fun, sensitive and thoughtful: “I am a hard worker. Everything I have is because I worked non-stop since I left Córdoba at 17 years old. I came to this city that is so big, so difficult and so different. And I made my way alone. I drank the wind, as they say. I earned everything I have alone, because no one can accuse me of having done a casting call…Well, no one wanted to. In any case, yes, I owe many important people the opportunities. “To Flavio Mendoza at the time: to my dear Lizy (Tagliani), to my dear Santi del Moro, to Vero Lozano, to the director Ariel Del Mastro…”

Costa doesn’t stop. He gets up at five fifteen in the morning, from Monday to Friday, to go to the radio to do The Moro club, on FM 100. Then, continue the day as a panelist on Cut through Lozano, broadcast by Telefé, – she also works on Big Brother – and from Wednesday to Sunday, at the Teatro Liceo, she wears the wig of Paulette, the hairdresser and fairy godmother of Laurita Fernández in the musical Legally blonde, based on the novel by Amanda Brown and the 2001 film starring Reese Witherspoon. Here the musical version came from the hand of Valentina Berger (Go Broadway), Carlos and Tomás Rottemberg and Mariano Pagani.

As a girl she had to fight different battles at home: “It was difficult for me to be accepted. But it didn’t cost any less for my sister, who is heterosexual. The mambo didn’t happen there, it didn’t happen because of sexuality, it happened because my old man was very authoritarian., very hard. You couldn’t have a thought of your own. And I faced it. I wanted to look different and I said: ‘It’s over, I’m going to put on makeup’ and I did it.”

The first time it came out painted was to see Dracula, by Pepito Cibrián. “They wouldn’t let me go to the theater because we didn’t have money. Mom was a seamstress, very hardworking, but she was not superfluous. And dad was lazy, among other things. And well, I cried so much from helplessness that I ended up with my face destroyed. Finally I went to a friend’s house. The mother not only invited me to the function, but she did my makeup. And I never stopped again,” she remembers.

You also had to fight it at school, San Patricio: “I was a standard bearer. She wore short hair, a green tie and I wore a scarf so as not to stain the collar of my shirt with the foundation. Because she was wearing foundation, blush and mascara. The head teacher told me everything. But I still painted myself the same,” she boasts.

“No I have very good memories of adolescence. She lived in a house where she didn’t want to live, with people she didn’t want to be with. I understand that my parents did what they could. My mother, poor thing, always with the horrendous role of mediator. Dad, forbidding me from going out. I used to escape through the window to go to theater classes. And if dad caught me, maybe he would hit me with the belt. He was violent, but he didn’t drink, he didn’t smoke. He was addicted to gambling. But I don’t have a grudge against him. Dad died 20 years ago. I had no trauma or resentment left. She did what she could and gave me her music. I stayed with your precious love. My artist is because of him, who opened the doors of art to me. At home they listened to music, folklore and tango. But the truth is that later life hit me much harder. And I faced pain and places I would never have wanted to be.”

At the age of 17, Costa set foot in Buenos Aires and had to face new challenges: “As soon as I arrived, I went to live at my brother’s house. But I felt that it was a lot of responsibility for him to take care of me, to take care of a trans woman. So I decided to go outside. I lived in Retiro, on the train platforms. Every day I looked for work. I ate in a shelter and also in churches. Be careful, it is not the same to be on the street because you want to or because you had no other choice. I could have returned to Córdoba; He could make me stay to live with my brother. I chose to be a marginall”, he emphasizes.

Things later began to improve: “I got a job in a McDonald’s from Villa del Parque and lived in a pension. He earned three hundred pesos in Mc Donald’s and my pension was one hundred and fifty. She was great. But there came the misfortune, in quotes. Because halfway down the block where I lived, there was a gay club.. Until then she had gone out very little. But when I saw that place, that it had a stage, that there was a man dressed as a woman, happy, who was paid to perform and was applauded, I went crazy. I said, ‘I want this for my life.’ And I started to be a fan, a cholula. I went every night. He helped in the dressing rooms. He wore the walkman to record the shows. And well, one day I went to work half drunk and they kicked me out. I lived for two months with the compensation. And one day I ran out of money. Of course, he lived a great life. She was already known in the environment. And when I was going to say goodbye because I wasn’t going to go anymore, a transformer, Gustavo Liza, told me: ‘Come tomorrow and I’m going to pay you to be my assistant.’ And that’s how I got my first job. It was the underworldr”, subraya.

At the time, Costa already had his own show. And after several presentations he meets Jean Francois Casanovas, from the group Caviar, with whom he worked on the La Plaza promenade. “I loved him deeply. He was a great teacher for us.”

Later, Flavio Mendoza discovers her in a bowling alley and takes her to ShowMatch already Extravagance. And in the middle of this, Lizy Tagliani introduces him to Santiago del Moro: “With Santi I started to make myself known. Then he takes me to Intractable. They didn’t want me to work there. They told her that a transvestite, seriously, no one was going to be interested in. And he laid the eggs. He said: ‘Well, if Costa doesn’t come, neither do I.’ She played it.

-What a story! Always against wind and tide…

-My life was like that. I don’t invent anything. Because everything I tell seems like an epic and it was an epic.

-Do you feel that progress has been made in 2024, that there is more acceptance?

-There are places that we have conquered. Well, In the deed of my house I appear as Mrs. Gonzalo Costa. Let’s see: for the trans community there is not so much work. And for trans boys there is no such thing, directly. We live in a country where there are missing children, Tehuel. Who talks about that? The only one is me. I have a trans nephew… We are more accepted, more visible. But not the boys. They end up in precarious jobs. But we also live in a very unfair country. There are people sleeping at the door of the theater. What job opportunity do you have? Families that live on the streets and that should make politicians ashamed. And I am worried about social exclusion.

-Are you afraid of losing your job?

-It doesn’t scare me, the work can go away. I put a crate of beer in a square and start talking. I’m not afraid of that. I was born in the underground and I am an artist. You may or may not like what I do, but you are not going to deny that it is moving. My school was the street.

-Did you have difficult situations of violence living on the street?

-Never, luckily. Today, everything is more difficult. Do you know what happens? The advance of the drug. We live in a very violent world and I think it has to do with that.

-It didn’t hit you that way…

–I never consumed. The night well understood is beautiful. Afterwards the night is tempting, but one chooses. I always say that I was doing a show and they were selling drugs in the back. I never bought and that is one of the successes of my life. Because as the daughter of an addict, I have that drive. If I watch a series, I have to watch it in its entirety. If I open a bottle of champagne, there have to be several… But I always had divine protection. I went through the mud and never got dirty. As I tell you, you may or may not like what I do, but I leave my life on stage.

-And was there time for love with so much work?

-I had boyfriends, nonsense, waste of time and money. I fell in love; they do not. Anyway, what I want is hardly possible. I want a novel love. After many years of psychoanalysis, Gustavo, my current analyst, continues to tell me: “Always the broken man, always the chubby man. always trying to repair.” And it’s true. That happens to me in all aspects of my life. I always try to repair the other. And it is impossible because the other is what he wants to be.

-You have a maternal side…

-Yes, but At the same time I have a fighting and quilombera thing. I have a low patience threshold. And in the profession it happens to me that I don’t understand how, when things can be done well, sometimes they are done wrong. I am very expressive and if I get angry I am capable of throwing clothes on the floor and screaming. And the day I stop loving you, I never love you again and it is irretrievable. But when I want, I cut off my arm for you. It’s my desperate way of loving, always looking for people to love me. Always feel that I am necessary to others.

-Doing a Broadway play was a dream. And with Legally blonde I feel like I’m an actress. Then I would like to play Katy Bates, the one Misery. With Cecilia (Milone) we owe each other a show together and I also want to put together a musical hall with my underground artists, making use of my popularity. Because I fed so many, why am I not going to do it with mine? A tribute to that beautiful journey where I was trained, where I learned, where I built a family.

-Do you regret anything?

-Sometimes, of not having enjoyed some moments. Of having remained in sobbing, in nostalgia, in the familiar. I love my family. That’s it. I regret not having spent Christmas in Buenos Aires with my father, for example.

-Would you like to die on stage?

-No, transvestites don’t die, we transform into glitter (Laughter).