Matthew Huff

Matthew Huff is a freelance entertainment journalist whose through-line is centering queer voices and craft-focused conversations across film, television, theater and pop culture. He draws on years of editing and reporting experience at major digital outlets to produce interviews, features, lists and criticism that foreground LGBTQ artists and the stories behind their work. His portfolio at Parade and other publications shows a reporter who combines access to marquee talent with a consistent interest in how identity, performance and storytelling intersect.

Queer film and TV interviews

Huff’s film and television coverage is anchored in long-form interviews with actors, creators and pop culture figures, often framed around queer experiences and creative process. At Parade, he has profiled performers such as Alan Cumming, using the hook of his role on The Traitors to dig into secrecy, persona and the mechanics of hosting a hit reality show.

His interview with Benito Skinner about Overcompensating foregrounds the decision not to include a “big coming out scene,” opening space to discuss how queer stories can unfold without familiar tropes. Pieces with Chlöe Bailey and Michael Cera focus on craft - sex-scene choreography in Bailey’s case and accent work in Cera’s - showing his tendency to ask detailed questions about how performances are built rather than only about plot or publicity.

Huff also writes service pieces and lists for queer audiences, including roundups of the best queer movies of a given year for outlets like Grindr, which underscore his role as a curator of LGBTQ film and television as well as a interviewer. Earlier in his career, he has written list features highlighting LGBTQ celebrities who came out after years of keeping their sexuality private, extending this focus on visibility and personal narrative into his BuzzFeed-era work. On social platforms, he has articulated a personal commitment to interviewing “as many LGBTQ artists as humanly possible,” and he maintains running lists of these conversations, reinforcing that queer representation is not incidental but central to his beat.

Broadway, drag and theater profiles

Theater and live performance form another pillar of Huff’s reporting, with Broadway, drag and cabaret appearing repeatedly in his bylines. For The Advocate, he has written a cover story on Broadway Bares, explaining how the long-running striptease benefit has fought AIDS over decades and situating the show within queer performance history. His Parade pieces include profiles of Jinkx Monsoon returning to the stage in a dramatic role, Sasha Velour reflecting on 10 years of the drag show NightGowns, and Joey Fatone’s unexpected Broadway turn singing Backstreet Boys songs, each using a specific production to examine how performers reshape their careers in theater.

He covers behind-the-scenes challenges as well as glamour, as in reporting on a demogorgon-induced concussion during Stranger Things: The First Shadow or the logistics of staging a new musical adaptation of Death Becomes Her, where he speaks with actors like Jennifer Simard about reworking iconic screen roles for the stage. Huff also reports on major events like the Tony Awards, filing pieces that catalog the highs, lows and stranger moments of the ceremony while connecting them back to the broader theater season. Across these stories, he treats drag artists, TV actors crossing to Broadway and long-time stage performers with the same seriousness, emphasizing the labor, risk and community behind their work.

Awards season, festivals and TV pop culture

Huff is heavily involved in awards-season and festival coverage, both in his writing and in editorial leadership roles. At Parade, he revitalized film coverage, helmed awards show reporting, and launched dedicated verticals for Bravo, RuPaul’s Drag Race and Saturday Night Live, blending recaps, explainers and power rankings to track ongoing TV and reality franchises.

His film and TV features often align with awards cycles, as when he interviews Downton Abbey cast members reflecting on 15 years of the series, or reports on the “brutal” filming of The Legend of Ochi, detailing bear encounters, complex puppetry and animal rescue on set. Huff’s work includes oral histories and deep-dive features for outlets such as The New York Times and IndieWire, including a piece on getting movie titles wrong and a V for Vendetta retrospective that brings together filmmakers and actors to revisit a dystopian classic at a milestone anniversary. He has attended multiple film festivals in a professional capacity, hosted interview studios at events like Tribeca, and conducted large numbers of on-the-ground interviews - including sessions with drag queens on a moving tour bus - using these settings to capture artists at key moments in their careers. As a critic, his reviews for platforms like Rotten Tomatoes and The Report Card add evaluative perspectives to his reporting, but they maintain the same emphasis on narrative, tone and character dynamics seen in his features.

The result is awards and festival coverage that balances industry strategy with close attention to how shows and films actually play for audiences.

Running and endurance storytelling

Alongside entertainment, Huff maintains a parallel track of writing on running and endurance sports. He is the author of Marathoner: What to Expect When Training for and Running a Marathon, a guide that reflects his interest in demystifying long-distance running for general readers. His bylines in outlets like Runner’s World and Half Marathon Guide cover training, racing and personal experience, extending the narrative tools he uses in entertainment journalism into sport. In professional bios he is described as covering running in addition to film, TV, books and theater, and this dual focus surfaces in his career history and bibliography.

Even in this domain, his work stays close to lived experience and craft, positioning athletes and amateur runners as protagonists whose choices and routines merit the same detailed attention he gives to actors, directors and drag performers.