Christopher Rivas Talks Curiosity | Takeout and Talk

As delicious as performer Christopher Rivas’s meal looked, I was actually struck by what I saw in the background of the photo he sent me just before our interview. 

Right beyond the sky blue plate that held his red pepper goat roti, oxtail patty, and plantains from L.A.’s Bridgetown Roti was a line of twelve miniature elephants on the window sill. I thought to myself, ‘What a cute piece of home decor!’ Little did I know I had caught a glimpse of a meaningful image for the best-selling author, playwright and actor. (I’ll briefly note here that I ordered a pulled pork arepa with plantain chips from San Francisco’s Pica Pica). 

“There’s a lot of elephants in this house,” said Rivas, also the host of the Brown Enough podcast, which just started its fourth season earlier this summer. He proceeded to show me the standing, two-legged elephant tattooed on his wrist, calling the mammal his “spirit animal.” He then explained that the row of elephants I saw is actually a version of an African calendar, with each calf representing a month of the year. Traditionally, one would knock an elephant down to denote the passage of time. The Rivases, however, have opted to leave them up year-round. 

“I think elephants are a fantastic being to model oneself after,” said Rivas. “I like the way they are in community with their community. I like their power and their patience. I like that they’re very strong, but also very slow - I want to be slow and powerful. You know, not power through force, but power through power, through presence, through patience, through being gentle.” 

Rivas definitely has a powerful presence that has expanded across mediums these past few years, from conquering the publishing world with two books so far (Brown Enough and You’re a Good Swimmer) to appearing on TV (Call Me Kat) and on stage (The Real James Bond... Was Dominican!). He and I first chatted when his identity-themed book Brown Enough was released, where we focused on these persistent questions that seemingly all Latinos face about meeting certain (sometimes unreasonable) societal expectations. Considering he’s now repurposed that same Brown Enough title for his ongoing podcast, I ask him about it – does the self-doubt remain? Is he still fearful that he’s not “enough”?

“No, not even a little bit,” said Rivas, “because I got the medicine. Artists or people listening,  maybe you still haven’t gotten the medicine yet and so you are telling the same story over and over. But hopefully, if you’ve asked the question and you’ve explored it and you let it unearth something in you, you’ve evolved, you’ve moved past.”

“And so, I am enough: enough brown, enough Rivas, enough Chris – I don’t have that sort of question in me anymore. I would never write [Brown Enough] again, which is good. That’s why I’m working on another book. I’m interested in new conversations and new questions. But yeah, I don’t struggle in that way about my identity, my body, how I take up space – I feel pretty confident in that practice.” 

The question he’s now wrestling with is how to fully prepare for an upcoming performance of The Punchline, his new show co-presented by the LA LGBT Center on October 1. The premise: death in an hour. 

“The Punchline is stunning,” said Rivas. “I put 60 minutes on the clock. I show you the clock – it’s winding down. And I say ‘We’re all going to die together in 60 minutes,’ and the audience chooses how we get there. And it’s this piece about the ephemeral nature of life. And it’s very beautiful, and it'll never be the same show twice – that’s what’s really special. It is really this ‘choose your own adventure.’” 

From the outside looking in, it sounds like the adventure Rivas has chosen for himself is a fruitful one. In addition to workshopping The Punchline over the next few months (knock over some elephants!), he’s got another book waiting in the wings (sometime in 2027), and he just wrapped filming a movie in Chicago. He says it’s all in service of following his interests. 

“I will always go towards my curiosity – that’s how I like to live my life,” said Rivas. “I feel nourished by that. I feel expanded by that – I’m always learning and growing. So I’m always going to go towards my questions.”