Katya Zamolodchikova
| Katya Zamolodchikova | |
|---|---|
Katya on stage
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| Born |
Brian Joseph McCook May 1, 1982 Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Residence | Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Occupation |
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| Years active | 2006–present |
| Known for | |
| Awards | RuPaul's Drag Race Miss Congeniality 2015 |
| Website | Official website |
Yekaterina Petrovna Zamolodchikova (Russian: Екатерина Петро́вна Замоло́дчикова), also known as Katya (Russian: Катя) or Katya Zamolodchikova, is the stage persona of Brian Joseph McCook (born May 1, 1982), an American drag queen and actor from Boston, Massachusetts, known as a contestant and Miss Congeniality on the seventh season of RuPaul's Drag Race and a finalist on the second season of RuPaul's Drag Race: All Stars.
A native of Marlborough, Massachusetts, McCook graduated from Marlborough High School and attended Massachusetts College of Art and Design, where he studied video and performance art in the Studio for Interrelated Media (SIM) program, where he first became interested in drag. He has an older brother and a younger sister. He is of Irish ancestry and was raised as an Irish Catholic.
McCook created the Russian drag character Yekaterina Petrovna Zamolodchikova in 2006, creating the stage name from a combination of Russian names and one of his favorite gymnasts, Elena Zamolodchikova. When creating his drag character, McCook stated that he was inspired by "female comedians and just funny interesting women like Tracy Ullman, Maria Bamford [and] Amy Sedaris." The Russian-based aspect of his persona, however, was inspired by a professor McCook had in college. In episode one of McCook's respective RuPaul's Drag Race season, McCook said that this professor "never left the house without a full face of makeup [with] six inch stilettos in the snow." Since then, McCook went on to take several Russian courses and mastered the harsh accent of most Russians using a cassette tape called "Pronounce It Perfectly." McCook is not Russian, himself.
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