It’s Thursday, March 28, and it feels like the whole world is just biding time until Cowboy Carter rides into town on Friday.
The hype is real for “Act II” of Beyoncé’s most ambitious musical undertaking to date, a follow-up to her club-ready Renaissance album that promises to be a proper country hoedown. Our bodies are ready.
Lead single “Texas Hold’Em” has already inspired the gays of the internet to get their yee-haw on, with plenty of folks saddling up for their own take on choreo. And in the process of consuming every Cowboy Carter-related video we could this week (we’re excited, okay???), we came across a new spin on the track that had us ready to—in the words of Bey—”take it to the floor now”:
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Meet Gregor Lopes, the handsome deaf queer Latino performer who’s helping us see “Texas Hold’Em” in a whole new light.
In a clip posted to Instagram earlier this month, Lopes donned his hoedown best to shake it and sign in American Sign Language to Bey’s rodeo romp, and we are obsessed. Hey Gregor, is it too much to ask to get a full album’s worth of ASL covers after Cowboy Carter drops tomorrow?
But Lopes doesn’t stop with Queen Bey. His page is full of other fun ASL videos, including the work he does with SignUp Captions—a service that provides free sign language on on Disney+ and Netflix titles—and a whole lot more booty-shaking, like his cover of the Spice Girls classic, “Wannabe”:
Of course, Instagram isn’t the only place you can see Lopes turn it out. He’s also a seasoned screen actor and stage performer, who has done work the reputable deaf theater companies, like the Deaf Austin Theatre (DAT), DeafBroadway (which is putting on a highly anticipated ASL performance of the musical Rent at the Lincoln Center in NYC on April 1), and LA’s DeafWest, recognized as the theater where Troy Kotsur cut his teeth prior to winning the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Coda.
“Being deaf in the queer community has, at times, created a sense of isolation and low self-esteem,” Connor McLaren says.
Speaking of Coda, the Best Picture-winning film is said to have helped raise the awareness of deaf people in culture, but reports of have shown the 56% of deaf people consider themselves “rarely or never” depicted in media. Lopes is using his platform to speak out on the lack of inclusion and representation for the deaf community, and continues to challenge notions around otherness and differently abled individuals by staying booked and busy.
Born in Brazil and raised in Florida, Lopes has spoken openly about experiencing homelessness in the past and his struggles to find a place in the world.
Though he always had a passion for performance, Lopes initially pursued medical school before dropping out in 2021 to live his dream as a full-time actor. Despite having little professional experience, he decided to audition for a DeafWest production of Beethoven’s opera Fidelio, and booked the gig—a role which changed his life forever.
“Some environments are kind of dreadful,” Lopes told the LA Times in 2022, speaking to the difficulty of trying to do his job while always having to advocate for himself as a deaf person. “[At DeafWest,] I don’t have any limitations. ‘What do you need? We’ll give it to you.’ We are well taken care of.”
Dickie Hearts is a queer Deaf actor and filmmaker with a passion for telling intersectional stories.
Beyond Fidelo, Lopes’ credits include Oedipus with DeafWest, Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella with DAT, Company with DeafBroadway, and The Music Manat The Olney Theatre Center in Maryland, which earned a theater award for Best Ensemble. He’s also appeared in a number of screen roles, including I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead, Hell In Vineyard, and the short Puerto Rican Jew.
Whatever’s next for Lopes, we can’t wait to follow along. Whether he’s line-dancing to Beyoncé or tearing up the stage, we love seeing another talented performer out there advocating at the intersection of the LGBTQ+ and deaf communities.
We’ll leave you with Lopes’ cameo in Kelly Clarkson’s ASL cover of “I Dare You”—which features some more familiar faces, like Nyle DiMarco and The Quiet Place‘s Millicent Simmons—and then scroll down below for a few more of our favorites from his Instragm:
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