Influencer: Big Men Edition - Marquis “The Honey Bear”
Marquis "The Honey Bear" is a force of nature in the creative world. Actor, writer, comedian, and all-around entertainer, Marquis wears many hats and wears them all with style. From his Emmy-nominated work as a producer to his reign as Mr. Bear LA 2023, Marquis has been making waves in the industry. But Marquis isn't just about accolades. He's about using his platform to create space for queer people of color and bring joy to the world through laughter and entertainment.
We recently caught up with Marquis to chat about his upcoming film, "Ornithomancy," a project close to his heart. The film follows an anxious job seeker who makes life-altering decisions based on bird flight patterns. Marquis discusses the inspiration behind the film, his approach to comedy, and the amazing team he's assembled to bring his vision to life.
Absolutely stealing “Renaissance Bear”. I started acting when I was 4, with the tour de force revolutionary role of the old man who deals Jack beans in Jack & The Beanstalk... Even though I was probably on stage less than a minute, I fell in love with theater and performing; I quickly realized there were so many personalities I wanted to play that just didn’t exist at all, and if there were roles similar to the personalities I wanted to play, they were reserved for people who didn’t look like me.
I started writing stories in 7th grade, poems and song lyrics here and there until they became plays and rough semblances of TV pilots. By the time I was in high school I knew I wanted to write and act in my own work, and that I had to in order to play the messy characters I wanted to see for people who look like me. The mission is still the same today. Black queer folk, especially big bodied ones, are capable of being Carrie Bradshaws, Walter Whites, Larry Davids. I see myself as a leading gay, so that’s exactly what I’m gonna do, starting with my debut film “Ornithomancy.”
James Baldwin has been my guiding star since I was in high school, I even have a James Baldwin tattoo on my arm. I have many goals, but in the back of my gay black skull, making James proud is definitely a little one. Diana Ross inspires me till this day, but especially growing up watching her in The Wiz. I felt like Dorothy, I felt misunderstood and reserved. Her performance always comforted me and gave me hope, honestly The Wiz is just a queer black guiding star for me, and yes I do consider it queer!
I’m a creative writing major, and my final professor during my final college told us ‘after this class, no one is going to ask you to write again.” I was kinda gagged, but I understood what he meant! Writing is a lonely sport and there’s no active demand for it, so self motivation and a strong routine are very necessary. That’s what makes me so excited to put out an original film soon, because it's born out of being ready to put something out there that ideally makes people want more of my writing. That same final class, my final professor also let me know that I’d been saying a certain phrase wrong all quarter, and let’s just say, I now know it’s ‘fleshed out,’ not ‘flushed out.’
I got brought on as a freelance temporary writer for a gentleman working on an animated adult humor TV pilot, and I got brought on in a co-writer capacity because we had a good collaboration. Imposter syndrome was definitely brewing in my mind a bit, but mostly I was just stoked to be getting paid to write. That project helped me get my first manager, but ultimately the pilot didn’t go anywhere. Still a valuable experience, but nothing to write home about ironically enough.
I was extremely close to not doing Mr. Bear LA! I never saw myself running for a title, it wasn’t a goal I had. I ended up doing it because I so rarely feel daunted by putting myself out there in a performance capacity, and yet this was a bit of a scary concept. I signed up and told myself that win or lose, at least I get to turn some looks. The competition was so fun, I felt ready as hell, I brought in a suitcase of looks and tricks and was buzzing with excitement to put on a show. It was an unbelievable night and the title year that followed was even moreso.
The further I get in my career, the more it feels like a miracle that any on-screen project gets made. Hearing ‘that’s a wrap!’ is a literal rush, so much work goes into making those three words possible. I love being on a set, I love the scrappiness of it, I love the togetherness, I love when it’s all done, it’s the 8th wonder of the world.
The Emmy nomination is an incredibly layered experience. I’d been starry-eyed about the big entertainment awards since I was a kid, and being a theater kid obsessed with television, I grew up with my sights set on an Emmy specifically. Fast forward, I received the nomination at 22 years old, for the producer work I did as a 21 year old intern, 16 days into the covid lockdown of 2020… The nomination was a dream come true that I reveled in for a couple of days, immediately snuffed out by imposter syndrome and not being able to leave the house to celebrate this achievement. For a solid year, what I thought was my biggest dream became something I didn’t think I deserved, even though I knew I worked my ass off as a producer on the project in question.
Reaching that milestone much earlier than intended, plus not ever being able to celebrate it properly, helped me in the long run to put less stock in accolades. I always figured that an Emmy nomination would be a reward for a decade of hard work in the hopes of eventually ‘making it’. Now I don’t think of my projects as something to be validated by voting bodies, the validation I seek is in genuine laughter and deep thought from the people who get to see my work. I am still a homosexual who loves attention and I practice my award acceptance speeches in the mirror constantly, so you won’t see me turning down nominations or awards anytime soon.
Happy to say right now my debut film “Ornithomancy” is shaping up to be the best collaboration I’ve been a part of; production is in full swing and I love getting to make this film with dear talented friends. I would cry for a week straight… Not straight… I would cry for a week forward if I could collaborate in ANY capacity with Issa Rae or Quinta Brunson. Both of them are the reasons I’ve been motivated to make my own showcase of comedy and put it online, truly my heroes and a big reason why I moved to LA. Shoutout to the boys too, would love to hop on a Yorgos Lanthimos or Brian Jordan Alvarez project, their sharp comedy feeds me.
I wouldn’t call them ‘slumps’ per say, what happens most often is that I get overwhelmed by not being able to hammer out an idea to match the perfect vision in my mind. I have hundreds of documents with ideas for tv, movies, and plays, but my adhd makes it hard to focus on one thing at a time. I have a lot to give creatively, I want to do everything in this lifetime, so more accurately my creative slump is frustration that my brain can’t churn out one thing before bouncing to the next.
I get past these slumps by recognizing that slumps are part of the process of making art and being human. My best ideas come when I give myself room to breathe, I’m fine with giving myself time to be inspired. Play video games, grab a drink with your friends, order some good food, suck a dick or cock, just be easy on yourself!
Sheeesh how much time do you have? As the entertainment industry moves the goalpost for entry to newcomers and becomes more rigid in what stories get platformed, it’s hard to feel like I'm in the entertainment industry right now. The simplest answer is that it’s hard to be taken seriously as a leading man, and black queer stories are often shot down because they aren’t considered “sellable.”
I overcome by doing what I’ve always done, create art with the goal of pleasing myself first and foremost. I can’t impress others if I can’t impress myself, that’s all I can do right now. Another reason I’m so excited to make this film, I want it to kick open a door and be an introduction at large to the industry that I’m here whether they want me or not.
“Joy.” I’ve always wanted to be synonymous with that word. Laughter got me through so much as a fat poor closeted gay Jehovah’s Witness kid, I always felt like I was in the richest family because we always had an abundance of comedy. Fashion also helped me to express myself even though I was repressed in so many ways, wearing something flamboyant from the thrift store always made me feel untouchable. Humor and fashion made me who I am today, and as an adult I try to spread both in a way that brings a bit of joy to people’s day. Another reason I love yellow, it’s the color of joy.
Marquis Gallery
Photos 1-4 (Photographer: Daleon Studio [Instagram: @daniel_daleon_studio])
Photos 5-6 (Photographer: Rakeem Cunningham [Instagram: @rakeemc])
It’s a long one, I’ll try to do the sparknotes! I grew up as a Jehovah’s Witness, so my childhood was limited in so many ways, and there was no room to question my sexuality without feeling like I was some sort of demon. For a long time I thought I only had two options. One) stay in the closet, marry a woman, have some kids, and be a Jehovah’s Witness family and ultimately miserable. Two) Run away from my mom and brothers, and live a life as an ultimately miserable gay man.
I was obviously the gay kid to anyone who had even a shred of critical thinking skills. I was a theater fanatic, I only played girls in fighting games, all my friends at school were girls, my favorite show was Hannah Montana, and I wore bow ties to class unprovoked, the only thing that would make it clearer would be vomiting up rainbows.
My mom started to realize this, but it didn't help that she caught me looking up “gay boys kissing” and “Mike The Situation Jersey Shore shirtless” on the family computer. In fact, I actively dislocated my hip trying to run away from the family computer while these things were pulled up, when I heard her unlocking the door to the home. Needless to say, she saw the compromising browser history, but we tabled it to get me to surgery, it was a very quirky week.
Eventually my mom pulled our family out of the Jehovah’s Witness faith, a faith I tend to refer to as a cult, but I have a feature film I’m writing about that experience, so no need to expand at the moment. She did this for a few reasons, but a significant one was that she didn’t want me to be mistreated for being gay, even if she didn’t accept it herself. As the years passed, my mom started watching Modern Family and Glee with me, and I could see her heart changing rapidly. She always used to say ‘you’re gonna make your wife so happy one day’ and one day, she started replacing “wife” with “partner”, and I knew immediately what was going on.
I wanted to go to my first pride parade, but wanted to stay in the closet, so I asked my mom if I could go to support my gay friend. Immediately, she asked me if I was gay. I gave a 10 second pause, and confirmed it with the tiniest “yeah.” She accepted me with open arms, and we spent the next 2 hours laughing about moments she suspected I was gay over the years. I owe everything to my mom’s change of heart once we left the religion, and now she probably loves gay people more than I do! I took her to her first drag show for her birthday last year, I’ve never seen her so happy. I wanna cry just thinking about how far we’ve come.
It was a whirlwind year that opened so many doors, exhausting in so many ways but I loved every bit of it. It was also just surreal winning considering I was 24 and had only lived in LA for a year at the time! The title gave me a spotlight I hadn’t had before, and it was cool that I got to
use it my way. I was a bit worried that having a title meant people would expect me to reign back on my theatrics or my femininity, but I leaned full force and it was met with a lot of appreciation.
The highlight was creating Black Bear Joy, a charity club event for black bears to take up space unapologetically. We had two packed events at Eagle LA, and it was a bit emotional seeing that much joy and melanin in one gay space on that side of the city. Black Bear Joy is still one of my proudest accomplishments, I absolutely want to do more, but I made a very conscious choice to focus this year on performance pursuits, such as stand up and the film. I don’t think I’ll run for another title, I feel I did everything I wanted to do, but that title year truly did change my life for the better.
Photographer: Motorboot Photography (Instagram: @motorbootphoto) Image Source: https://www.bearsla.org/title-holders
I love being a bear, but my bear journey was not sunshine and rainbows! The bear community as a concept used to upset me and I didn’t identify with it for a long time, due to how often I saw bear ‘preference’ used as an excuse for casual anti-blackness. Reaching gay adulthood in Seattle amplified this lack of feeling at one with the bear community, I didn’t feel embraced in so many spaces there unfortunately.
Moving to LA is what made me feel like the bear community was my home, it’s not perfect but it’s simply more diverse out here. I was warned that I would face pushback during my title year by people who didn’t believe I was bear enough, happy to report no one ever said such a thing to my face. I’m extremely confident in myself and I don’t apologize for the space I take up and that was a big part of the platform I ran on. So maybe that’s why I didn’t encounter pushback, because it’d be lost on my ears. Like I said in my Mr. Bear LA competition speech ‘I could give a flying fuck if you think I’m bear enough, I am what I eat.’
I’ve been big and small and big again a few times in my life. When I was a big kid, I was pretty comfortable, but ultimately I made an effort to shed a ton of weight for health after I dislocated both my hips when I was 11 during the referenced gay incident. Oddly enough, I was only ever noticeably uncomfortable in my skin when I was skinny, because then everyone I knew made such an effort to vocalize how worried they were when I was big, and that they hoped I didn’t gain it back.
Knowing that all these people had such strong opinions about me being big caused me to go from losing weight organically to an unfortunate eating disorder. I’d miss meals all the way up until dinner trying to not be the big kid again. Thanks largely to the pandemic, I’m back to being a big guy and I love it. I’m big and healthy and feel comfortable and beautiful. I don’t know where my body is gonna go, but I think I feel best when I have some weight on me, helps me to not get blown away by the Santa Ana winds.
Body positivity means that you deserve to love your body in any form, but it’s understandable if you don’t sometimes. Like general positivity, it’s impossible to expect it 100% of the time. I’m always gonna ride for body positivity, but can I get some hype for body negativity?! It’s normal too, it’s equality! But forreal, I love my body so much and I want that for everyone of size.
Obviously yellow holds my heart, it’s a main character color and that makes me feel unmitigatedly sexy. I also love showing skin, I have so much of it since I’m fat, might as well show it off! I feel equally sexy in a floor length dress or a leather look that covers 3% of my body, the duality of gay.
Thank you! I ebb & flow, maybe it’s ridiculous but The Honey Bear is like the extroverted part of me. Marquis loves being at home playing video games and can self-isolate very easily unfortunately. The Honey Bear is the heightened version of myself that I channel when I’m online, going out, or doing gigs, and I try to bask in it as much as possible.
Marquis Gallery
Photos 1-2 (Photographer: Jordan Service Photography [Instagram: @jordanservicephotography])
Photos 3-4 (Photographer: Talon [Instagram: @talonreedcooper])
Photos 5-6 (Photographer: Rakeem Cunningham [Instagram: @rakeemc])
We’re fully funded thankfully, we reached surpassed our goal so fast with over 400 supporters! I wrote Ornithomancy as a one person play back in 2019 for a 24 play festival; I wrote this story while I spent the night in a theater attached to a stripmall, and the show was performed on stage within that same day, so it all came together very fast. I was very fresh out of college at the time, so job hunt frustration was at the front of my mind, so the story was a fictional depiction of the stress I was going through.
The speed that I had to write made me less precious about it, and that allowed me to put my voice out there in its least refined form, which made me realize that my writing voice is absurd and morose. I actually did not act in the original version of Ornithomancy, the role was performed by the amazing Naleisha Pedro-Rabena, and the life she poured into this character was an absolute marvel!
I moved to LA to be a screenwriter, filmmaker, and performer. Shortly after I moved here in 2021, I landed a cushy full time job as a web comic editor; my first full time adult job with benefits, it was a new feeling to have job security, so I got really comfortable in this position over the next 2 years. I loved being an editor, but I felt increasingly unfulfilled; as much as I loved editing and helping artists with their passion projects, I felt that I was helping other people’s dreams come true while mine collected dust.
I was laid off from my job as a web comic editor back in January, which presented me with a moment where I had to decide if I should rush into another full time job, or actually use this scary new amount of free time to bring my projects to life.
I’ve written many things since the first version of Ornithomancy back in 2019, but whenever I thought about my favorite piece of writing, it always came back to Ornithomancy! Even though the original story was a one person show made haphazardly in a matter of hours in asleep-deprived fugue state, it always stood out to me because the story is simply the best depiction of how my brain works and how I see the world.
The story is about an anxious person interviewing for their ‘dream job’, who happens to base all of their major life decisions on the flight pattern of birds. So the whirlwind of being laid off, finally feeling ready to show off what I can do through film, and already having a story about the absurdity of job hunting, made the choice to adapt the story to a film feel like the stars were aligning.
I had to read The Iliad by Homer Simpson in high school. In the book they use ornithomancy in context of the war; a bird flying left meant they would likely lose, the right being the opposite.
That and the gay shit are the only things I remember from that book, but I always thought it was such a cool idea, especially since I’ve always been obsessed with birds.
Birds are the freest creatures in the world, juxtapose that with humans, we’re grounded by conventions like jobs, working to live keeps us flightless in so many ways. So I thought it’d be cool to use this ancient divination based on free creatures, and use it in a contemporary lens to observe the absurdity of professionalism and adult responsibilities.
I’m a slut for dialogue, I’m a yapper through and through and that translates to my writing. I tend to utilize conversational humor a bit more than physical humor which you’ll definitely see heavily in this film. So to make sure that the humor feels organic to the conservations I’m writing, I talk out loud as I’m writing these scenes. Hearing how things sound as I’m writing is invaluable to humor, at the consequence of me appearing a little quirky since I’m essentially just talking at my laptop as I write.
This film is incredibly fictional but it is self-referential, so you’ll see a lot of my real anxieties and struggles with making decisions on screen. It’s pretty healing to write out what I’m dealing with and poke fun at it, that’s generally my approach to my problems in life.
The character I play confronts his intensely supportive boyfriend, his uppity roommate, his overly cool mom, and distant dad, culminating in a very taboo interview where professionalism is thrown out the window. Each of these confrontations is a conversation with an anxiety I have, and I find that when you turn your stressors into fictional people, it becomes very easy to say the things you wish you could say in real life, and there’s a ton of raw humor in that.
Of course! I met my director S. Vollie Osborn when a mutual friend of ours suggested that we should do a D&D campaign together, and S. Vollie was and is still my dungeon master!
I met my producer Logan Ellis through the 24 hour play festival that he facilitated, where we both watched the original version of Ornithomancy come to life. Finally, I met my other producer Chris Register when I showed up at his place for a memorial day weekend party very early into my move to LA.
Special Thanks
We extend our heartfelt gratitude to Marquis "The Honey Bear" for sharing his time and wisdom with us. Your honesty and openness have enriched our understanding of your extraordinary journey. As an actor, writer, comedian, and all-around entertainer, you inspire us with your talent and resilience.
