Stephanie Koenig met Brian Jordan Alvarez 11 years ago when they were both cast in a student film at the University of California, Santa Barbara, even though they had both already graduated from college. Their friendship was instant.
“We were laughing so hard and it showed,” Koenig said in a recent video interview. “It was fate. I remember walking out that night and going to my car, and I knew I had met a good friend and something really special was happening.”
It’s still happening, but on a much bigger stage. When Alvarez created “English Teacher,” the new FX comedy in which he plays a gay teacher navigating the politics of a high school in Austin, Texas, he cast his frequent web comedy collaborator Koenig to play fellow teacher Gwen Sanders.
Gwen, Evan Marquez’s (Alvarez) best friend, is a ditzy but highly intelligent girl who’s full of optimism and an energy that would fit right in on a classic Hollywood screwball comedy. Koenig also wrote one of the season’s best episodes, “Powderpuff,” which airs Monday after the pilot (both episodes will be available to watch on Hulu). It gleefully demonstrates one of the series’ strengths: a deft ability to wrap a hot-button topic (in this case, sex) in a friendly package without watering anything down.
In FX’s “English Teacher,” Stephanie Koenig stars as Gwen Sanders alongside her friend and frequent collaborator Brian Jordan Alvarez, who plays Evan Marquez.
(Steve Swisher/special effects)
Koenig, fresh off a strong supporting dramatic performance as the likable Fran on Apple TV+’s “Lessons in Chemistry,” now has a major platform to showcase her considerable comedic chops, including a talent for physical comedy that seems a natural result of countless hours as a competitive dancer growing up in Rochester Hills, Michigan.
When asked if she and Alvarez share a sense of humor, Koenig answers earnestly, “No, we don’t.” But it’s pretty obvious they’re on the same comedic wavelength. After a decade of collaboration, including several web projects, the best friends now share the spotlight and the classroom.
Asked what makes Koenig funny, Alvarez flipped the script in a video interview: “What's not funny about her? Everything she does is funny,” she said. “She has these thoughts that you see in her eyes, and it makes you laugh and laugh.”
He also praised her acting skills. “She and I often talk about how the best performance is the one we wouldn’t be able to recreate if asked; [its] “Just a little series of expressions that come from real thoughts that the camera caught,” he said. “She does a lot of that. She’s so free on camera, but she’s also so trusting.”
Brian Jordan Alvarez on co-star Stephanie Koenig: “She has these thoughts that you see in her eyes, and it just makes you laugh and laugh.”
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
Furthermore, he adds, “his writing is exceptional.”
In fact, it’s her writing that drives “Powderpuff.” It comes from a folk tradition in Texas (and the Midwest, where Koenig grew up), in which high school girls face off on the football field and football players dress like cheerleaders.
Drag shows have become conservative. black beastmy In Texas, some condemn him for being a bad influence on today’s youth. But in “English Teacher,” it’s a group of LGBTQ+ students who are complaining, arguing that athletes dress as women as a joke and belittle students who are actually trans or nonbinary.
So when the football players come to Evan for help, he decides the boys are going to be “authentic and respectful in their performance” and “do their best.” With the help of a local drag queen named Shazam (played by real-life drag superstar Trixie Mattel), he gets the boys to go beyond simply wearing dresses and makeup. Meanwhile, the school’s football coach, Markie (Sean Patton), brings in Gwen to train the Powderpuff players. Except after learning about the girls’ fears and listening to a true crime podcast, practice turns into self-defense demonstrations that end with some variation of “boom, you’re dead.” “Powderpuff” intersperses these sessions with the drag lessons in a double-montage sequence set to Laura Branigan’s ’80s anthem “Gloria.”
Stephanie Koenig as Gwen and Sean Patton as Markie in “Powderpuff.” “When it came time to outline and pick who was going to write the specific episode, I was like, ‘Pick me, Coach.’”
(Steve Swisher/special effects)
“It’s a beautiful image to see a group of athletes dressed in drag and dancing,” Koenig said. “It was very exciting. When it came time to outline and choose who was going to write the specific episode, I was like, ‘Pick me, Coach.’”
The episode also demonstrates the series’ refreshing tendency to take an unexpected turn when it’s expected to. “What the show does so well is take a topic that people have opinions on, but then go in the opposite direction of where you would expect,” Koenig said. “It takes a left turn. This episode was obviously something that was going to work with that approach.”
There’s also a bit of behind-the-scenes irony in the football scenes. While Gwen is portrayed as inept in the world of football, Koenig and her sister actually learned to play from their father (“He wanted boys, but he got two girls,” she said).
However, as a young woman, Koenig spent most of her time practicing jazz dance. She studied drama at Michigan State University and, after graduating in 2009, moved to New York with the idea of trying to make it on Broadway as a way to launch a career in film.
“I waited in those lines with no action at 4 in the morning in the freezing cold,” she said. “I was living in an apartment in Queens and I thought, ‘This is it.’” Then her boyfriend at the time gave her some valuable advice. If she really wanted to act in movies and television, to move to Los Angeles. She did when she was 23.
“I don’t regret anything,” she said. “But I wish someone had told me earlier: ‘No, no, no, go straight to L.A.’ You have to be here for so long to get your footing, and moving here when you’re 23 is kind of catching up.” (In fact, filming for this story took place at the Hideout in downtown Los Angeles, where she was working as a waitress while trying to catch her break.)
Stephanie Koenig at the Hideaway, where she worked while trying to break into Hollywood. “You have to be here for a long time to make a place for yourself, and moving here when you’re 23 is kind of like catching up.”
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
She met Alvarez soon after arriving, landed roles on shows like “The Offer” and “The Flight Attendant” and wrote and directed a spy movie parody (2021’s “A Spy Movie,” starring her and Alvarez) for the web. A pilot collaboration with Alvarez was nearly picked up but didn’t materialize. Then came “English Teacher.”
In a sense, both Koenig and Alvarez are the poster children for the YouTube era. They spread their work to a loyal audience in snippet after snippet, including the absurdist comedy series “Stupid Idiots” (written and directed by Koenig, starring Koenig and Alvarez).. When it came time to make bigger moves, they were polished and ready.
“I’m so grateful to YouTube,” Koenig said. “We were able to find our own fans. I’m grateful that I didn’t work in the beginning of the industry, because I had to use my voice to get seen and get work. I had to direct and write. I had to put myself in my own shoes and just show what I could do.”
