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 You might find it hard to believe, but strikingly handsome 6’2”, 42 year-old Mike Ruiz was once a chubby little kid who was taunted by schoolyard bullies. “I knew someday I’d overcome my weight problem,” he says. “I also had a dislocated shoulder and broken arm at birth—it was always a little askew and I used to get taunted at school relentlessly—but I knew I would overcome that and I did.”
Mike spent years working on his body—and his body of work—to fulfill what he feels has always been his destiny. “It’s all part of my creative process,” Mike says. “I’ve designed my whole life to be a manifestation of all my fantasies—working in entertainment, making pretty pictures, the surreal and fantastical—so I adapted that as part of my personal aesthetic as well. I’ve created the body that I’ve always wanted. It’s like a creative endeavor, a sculptural endeavor.”
Mike says he realized he was gay when he was just five or six years old: “I remember from a very early age looking around at my blue collar family and surroundings, and thinking that there was way more out there for me.” He grew up in a small suburb of Montreal, Canada with two older brothers. At 12 or 13 he remembers having overwhelming urges to leave home and go to New York City, L.A. or Paris whenever he’d hear stories about Studio 54. “I knew I just had to be there with Bianca and Liza!,” he laughs. “I used to have very vivid dreams that I would hang out with those people. Like Brooke Shields would come over to my house in her Calvins and we’d be best buds. I’d wake up devastated that it was just a dream!”
Mike set out to make those dreams a reality in the early ’80s when, at the age of 17, he started modeling. He says fashion was “defined by the blond-hair, blue-eyed surfer type [back then] and it wasn’t until the whole Latin thing” came into vogue in the mid-90s that he could make a living at it. He moved to the United States a few years later and began, quite by accident, to parlay his modeling into a career behind the camera. Mike’s stylized photography has since been published in esteemed magazines like Vanity Fair, Flaunt, and of course, Instinct. He’s shot celebrities that run the gamut from J-Lo to Miss Piggy and everyone in between. His latest subject? Himself.
Mike self-shot this month’s cover and its related pics as well as the Tom of Finland-inspired fashion story. Next up for Mike is his feature film directorial debut, Starrbooty, with glamorous and gorgeous RuPaul at its titular “starr.” The film will be making the festival rounds this summer, so we enlisted the movie’s very own star-licious 6’7” diva in heels to talk with Mike about his life, his artistry and their collaboration on Starrbooty.
RUPAUL: Do you remember the first movie you saw as a little boy?
MIKE RUIZ: [Laughs] It’s totally appropriate and explains why Starrbooty is my first feature film, because the first movie I remember seeing in the theater is Mahogany.
You’re kidding! [Laughs]
I’m sure my parents dragged me to others, but that’s the one, of course, that stands out in my mind. That says so much! It does. [Laughs] It was a defining moment in my life.
Why were your parents going to see Mahogany in the first place?
Because my dad’s a closet homosexual. [Laughs] My dad secretly wanted to be Mahogany, because she was a success and he can’t stand it!
How funny—then you became a photographer. Did you always want to do that?
No. My dad was an avid photography buff, and probably because I resented him so much, I never had any interest in photography, ever. Which is weird, because my dad had tons of photography stuff—cameras, lenses—but I never had any interest in it until rather late in life. I was almost 30 before I picked up a camera.
What did you want to do before you were 30?
I wanted to be a star! I was kinda drifting. The funny thing is I remember when I was a little kid, I knew I was going to be in entertainment somehow, but I didn’t know in what capacity or how I was going to get there. What was the question again? [Laughs] What I was doing was modeling. I was a model/student/waiter for years. I tried a bunch of different things. I went to culinary school, but that didn’t pan out. I was learning to fly—I was going to be a pilot, but I got airsick, so I had to quit.
Really?
We had to go up and do these crazy maneuvers, and I’d have to ask the instructors to take me back down, because I was going to vomit. Which I did. Often. [Laughs] Again, people just assume because I was modeling, that that’s how I became interested in photography. Usually models who are interested in photography ask a ton of questions on the set, but I could have cared less. And then, when I was 27 or 28, somebody bought me a really nice camera for Christmas. Because I was traveling a lot as a model and I knew I should be documenting all this stuff, and this friend got me a really great camera, and from that point on I was obsessed. I was shooting everything in sight: flowers, bugs. [Laughs] That transferred to people. On my photo shoots as a model, I would take everyone aside and do my own little side photo shoots and complied a little portfolio, and the rest is history.
What was your first paying gig as a photographer?
The first thing that ever got published was a fashion story for an English magazine, Attitude. It was in 1994.
When did you realize, “I have manifested my love of Mahogany into a life for myself”? Today?
[Laughs] Pretty recently. I’ve been directing a lot of things other than [Starrbooty], like music videos, and I was on the set and there were trailers and crew everywhere and they were all looking to me. I just got this wave that, Oh my God, I’ve done it. Everything prior to that was a step to get to that point. For the first time, I felt like I was there. I felt like Mahogany at her party!
“I’m a winner, baby!”
Then I started to drizzle myself with hot wax. It was just this uncontrollable impulse I had. [Laughs] That’s when I realized that I really kinda did it. I’ve always been really self-deprecating. People would say that they had seen something I did and liked it, and I would always downplay it. For the first time I gave myself props. I never went to college. I never had any training as a photographer or as a director. I’m like, I did a pretty fricking great job pulling the rabbit out of the hat from nothing! For the first time, I felt like, Wow, I created all this!
When you think of Starrbooty, what’s the first thing that comes to mind?
[Laughs] A plethora of things! It was fun. It was a blast. I think it’ll have a lot of appeal, but for me it was completely self-indulgent. It gave a voice to every sort of irreverent thing that I wanted to give a voice to. It was really cathartic in that respect. I’m just so excited about this whole thing. I didn’t write it, but I might as well have, because it’s totally my sensibility and point of view and the things that I find funny and visually appealing.
When we’ve worked together, over a period of time, I came to realize we had the same sense of humor. So when the Starrbooty thing came together, it was so perfect, because I knew you’d get it: the irreverence and pop culture, and the movie would be colorful and delicious to look at it and sensational. Does that sensibility enter into your work that really pays the bills?
More and more so, as I kind of climb the ladder, I’m offered a little more of that creative control. People hire me off of that sensibility, but of course, they always want me to interpret a watered-down version. So I don’t have a lot of opportunity to really kind of go there as much as I did on this movie, which is why this movie was so cathartic for me. I just dilated and released everything that I’ve always wanted to! [Laughs] Which is why I love working with you! Like that music video we did—every shot was a total reference to my sensibility. It’s great working with you.
What would you do differently with Starrbooty if you had it to do over?
The final version surpassed my expectations, so there’s nothing I would have done differently, given the budgetary constraints. I think we did a pretty stellar job of doing a feature film with pennies, and making it look good, and making it as funny as it is.
When I see it, I want to, A.) add more penises. [Laughs] Because there are a lot of penises. And B.) I would have given Candice Cane a musical number during the dinner scene, ’cause she’s so fabulous. She does actually have a musical number in the movie, but I’d want just a little bit more for her. But overall I agree—I think it’s so fantastic and so stupid and hideous—it’s everything I love! [Laughs]
I hope people get the irony of that, because that’s what we set out to do: a super low-budget, early (dare I refer to) John Waters, handheld guerilla piece. That’s what’s funny about it. That’ s the appeal. I wouldn’t have shot it on 35 if we had the option, because I think it would have lost something: the whole underground approach to the way we did it.
So, say Starrbooty goes on to be a worldwide blockbuster. Where do you see her going in the sequel?
If it does become a blockbuster, I’m hoping Paramount or Universal will give us a budget so we can have lots of car crashes and chases, and then more of the same—just raunchier and nastier, but on a bigger scale.
[Laughs] Bigger dicks?
Bigger dicks! Bigger drag queens!
I see Starrbooty going to hell, perhaps.
Yes, that’s a given. [Laughs]
If your mother saw Starrbooty, what would she think?
She would think it was hilarious!
Where does she live?
She lives in heaven. [Laughs] So she’s already seen it and loved it. My mom was a total inspiration to me and incredibly supportive of everything I did. I get my twisted sense of humor from her, and from my dad. They were both completely irreverent and appreciative of toilet humor, so they would have definitely appreciated this movie.
You grew up in Montreal, right? It’s a sexy and irreverent town, right?
There’s a real dichotomy in that town, with hardcore Catholicism on one side. I isolated myself downtown, so I was never exposed to that oppressive side of it. It was very liberal.
Do you have family up there still?
Extended. I don’t get up there much, but I was up there for the International Gay Games. It coincided with Gay Pride, so it was crazy. It was great to be back—I hadn’t been back in 10 years.
Really? Why so long?
Just because I travel so much for work, and I don’t really have anything drawing me up there. I have some friends up there, but they come down here to see me. I never had a reason to go.
Are you an American citizen now?
My dad is American, so I have dual citizenship, which I’ve maintained to this day. I left there a long time ago—I left 20 years ago, in 1987.
Who did you make this movie for?
When we made it, a year and half ago, the audience was a lot smaller than I think it’s ultimately going to be. I think in the short time since we made the film, the social climate has opened up a lot. I think anybody would respond to it at this point—it’s hilarious. People aren’t as freaked-out about drag queens and trannies. God knows every other Tyra show is about trannies. [Laughs] It’s kinda become a mainstream thing, so I think this potentially has some mainstream appeal.
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Check out Mike’s photography at mikeruiz.com .
For the complete story, and to read RuPaul's interview with Mike Ruiz, pick up a copy of Instinct today!
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Instinct Online 
written by Marcus Klein on July 01, 2007
stunning...really.
written by ryanjcob23 on July 03, 2007
Why don't you try reading a couple of these cover stories, dumbass! Instinct is one of the only magazines that DOES try to find substance in its cover guys. I think their cover guy stories go above and beyond the usual. Get a life... or at least know what you're ranting about before you go off.
written by shayerahol on July 04, 2007
substance? their cover boys have substance? In the famous words of jennifer holliday, "haha!"
Modeling "was" defined by blonde, blue-eyed surfer guys back then. Like that's changed. The gay standard for beauty is still measured by how white, young and muscular you look. This coverboy mike ruiz can easily pass for white. If I didn't read his name, I wouldn't have realized he's Latin. This zine is at it yet again. Once again this unrealistic body image is disgracing cover after cover after cover. Style once again triumphs over substance. This magazine, with its clone of coverboys, is the exact reason why there is such a thing as body dysmorphic disorder! Sadly it along with the other publications exert a significant influence on the queer populace.
The queer society is again being subjected to these lookist, ageist, sexist, weightist and racist ideals. Speaking of racist, I just reread your previous issue. It again featured one white gay guy after the next. But lo and behold, they featured a person of color, an Asian male. And what does he do? He distributes flyers and cleans houses. Why does he do that? Because he's an illegal immigrant. A criminal. Out of all the persons of color to feature, this zine picks, essentially a wanted criminal on the run. There is a glut of white representation and very little representation of people of color. How irresponsible and downright racist to feature this person in an article. It is so racist and so offensive!
written by ? on July 05, 2007
I like this
written by Francisco on July 07, 2007
This man at the age of 42... mmm, he looks amazing and I hope that when I turn 42 I would look just like him... Keep up the good work man.
written by Jason on July 11, 2007
hey Shayer,
Well, RuPaul doesn't fit into the beauty stereotype that you're saying this rag only portrays. Also, in the July issue with Mike Ruiz on the cover, I noticed:
1. Large pics of Alfre Woodard, George Lopez, Niecy Nash, Paula Abdul, Carey Sherrell. John Amaechi and LL Cool J in the party section
2. An interview and large pic of Kelly Rowland
3. A 51-year-old African-American guy in the Cornered section, as well as another guy who's 38
4. A feature on three drag queen comedians
5. An illustration of an African-American man for a picnic feature
In the June issue, I noticed:
1. A large pic and multiple letters about Carey Sherrell
2. A Latino man and his father for "Dad of the Month"
3. A large picture and interview with Kimberley Locke
4. A large picture of Alexis Arquette in the party pages
5. A large picture and interview with Anika Noni Rose
6. A large picture and interview with Martha Wash
7. An African-American man in the Cornered section
8. A Latino man in the couples quiz
9. Multiple ethnicities, body types and ages in the "pride memories" section
10. The article on a Filipino illegal immigrant
11. A 10-page fashion feature with guys of various ethnicities
12. An illustration featuring an Asian man in the advice column
It doesn't sound like we're looking at the same magazine here!
written by lee1321 on July 11, 2007
shayerahol, I?m not attempting to pick a fight with you, I simply have a question. You pigeon-holed June cover model Jonathan as a ?dime -a-dozen type?, however do you actually know the man? Have you had a personal experience with him that would allow you to come to such a conclusion? As someone who has met Jonathan in person, I can assure you he is no dime-a-dozen pretty boy. He has a brain in his head, is a great conversationalist and he?s a genuinely nice guy. It?s a bit sad that you can rant on and on about gay stereotypes, when in actuality you?ve been perpetuating one the entire time. I?m not saying there aren?t PLENTY of gay men who perpetuate worse stereotypes; however just a word to the wise: don?t make assumptions about people whom you don?t personally know. This may have come a little bit after the fact, but still holds true judging by the posts you?re still publishing on this.
written by lee1321 on July 11, 2007
I apologize in advance for all the question marks in place of apostrophes and quotation marks, it didn't post correctly for whatever odd reason.
written by Mark on July 18, 2007
Wow, you are very sexy. I am great friends with your brother Thom. He is sexy too. I guess good looks runs in your family.
written by Dereck Feemster on August 02, 2007
great looking guy kiss kiss
written by Sarah on April 21, 2008
I think that Mikes photography is amazing, mysterious and well defined and that if people can't see talent in it, then his biography will be lost on them too.