Jonathan Van Ness has never had passive interests. 

As a child living in Quincy, Illinois, they were consumed with collecting rocks and stamps. They religiously watched morning talk shows like TODAY (Katie Couric and Ann Curry were their “No. 1s”). Watching Tonya Harding’s 1991 triple axel ignited a lifelong love for figure skating and gymnastics. They saw a Barbie doll for the first time and became passionate about hair. But it wasn’t until they were 28 years old that they discovered curiosity could actually become a full-time job. 

In 2015, Van Ness was on the cusp of stardom. They were still three years away from the premiere of Queer Eye, a role that would eventually make them a household name; Van Ness had been starring in Gay of Thrones for two years, a web series that recapped the hit HBO show Game of Thrones and would eventually earn them three Emmy nominations. The show stoked their passion for entertaining people, and in 2015, while working full-time as a hairdresser in Los Angeles, Van Ness looked for something that would expand their repertoire. That “something” was the Getting Curious podcast.

“I have always been obsessively curious about trying to understand the world,” Van Ness says. “I thought the podcast would be a great way for me to continue to learn outside the salon.”

The podcast Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness will drop its 250th episode this week. But the televised version has only just begun. Premiered on Jan. 28, it’s a show that explores anything and everything Van Ness is passionate about. The episodes start with a broad topic (bugs, hair and figure skating, for example) and then dive deep into a central question (Are bugs gorgeous or gross? Why is hair so major? Why don’t you love figure skating as much as I do?). Through interviews, adventures and skits, Van Ness (with the help of experts and some famous friends) explores the past, present and future of these wide-ranging topics.

“I wanted to create a universe where you can have deeper conversations, but also have them live next door to, like, a fever dream about making donuts with your friend,” they say. “I wanted to be able to encompass joy and curiosity next to real conversations — sometimes uncomfortable ones — because curiosity has the ability to elicit such a range of feelings.”

Though the podcast and the television show share the same name, they’re quite different. In the podcast, Van Ness interviews one expert for an hour, while in the television show, they speak with multiple experts for about half an hour. Getting Curious is primarily filmed in Manhattan, which is practically one of the show’s stars — in each episode, Van Ness gets out of the studio to explore a new place, like the American Museum of Natural History or Hudson Yards. 

This wasn’t the original plan for the streaming version. Pre-pandemic, Van Ness envisioned taking the show global, meeting with experts from across the world and filming bugs in nature, for example. That could be the plan for a possible Season 2: “I want to go into labs and go into hospitals and learn about their cool stuff,” they say. “But obviously, a lot of labs and science-y places were like, ‘We’re kind of going through it right now.’” 

Episodes can be about whatever Van Ness wants, but they say they have to be “really curious about it — it can’t be a lukewarm passion.” And Van Ness is obsessed with almost everything — except math. “Numbers stress me out. I do think geometry is cool, though!”

Van Ness says one of the scariest moments in the show is in Episode 6, “Are Skyscrapers Huge Divas?” when they visit the active construction site of a skyscraper set to be 60 stories tall. With no walls, no elevators and unfinished flooring, Van Ness says they were terrified about someone on the crew tripping and twisting their ankle — or worse. “My mouth is actually getting dry just thinking about it,” they say. “I could feel my heartbeat in my earholes — I could literally feel my heartbeat in all seven chakras.” But one of the best experiences, they say, was meeting with Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley at Capitol Hill, where they discussed her journey with hair and self-acceptance. 

Getting Curious marks the first time that Van Ness is the executive producer of a television show — something that made them “grow 20 years and [become] 25% grayer.” But Van Ness wanted to grow their producing skills in a familiar world — the so-called “Getting Curious universe.”

“It felt like a really big leap from Queer Eye,” they say. “In Queer Eye, I kind of know what’s going to happen — I’m going to do somebody’s hair. But with Getting Curious, I don’t know where that curiosity is going to lead me. Curiosity is very fluid.” Van Ness says that episodes often go in completely different directions from where they began. For instance, they originally thought that Episode 6 would focus on different kinds of architectural styles of skyscrapers; instead, it’s a thoughtful exploration of equitable housing and gentrification in New York City. 

Getting Curious isn’t just a celebration of one expert, or one topic, or one person — not even Jonathan Van Ness. It’s a celebration of curiosity itself — and of following that path wherever it takes you. This happens in Episode 3, “Can We Say Bye-Bye to the Binary?” when Van Ness meets up with performance artist Alok, two-spirit activist and educator Geo Neptune, and activist Joshua Allen at New York City’s historic Stonewall Inn. They talk about the history of nonbinary and two-spirit people as well as their hopes for the future of their communities. What Van Ness originally thought was going to be a segment is actually the episode’s emotional core. 

“It really choked me up, because it just felt so amazing to be in Stonewall with those people,” Van Ness says. “So many queer spaces went through so much in the pandemic. After everything those spaces did for us, to not have any energy or any bodies there — it just felt really special to be back in that hallowed area. Those few hours were probably some of the most special — not just of my career, but of my life.”

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