If you think you know the Tiger King story because you watched the Netflix series, think again! The new Peacock series, Joe vs. Carole, aims to give you a broader understanding of the feud between Joe "Exotic" Schreibvogel and Carole Baskin.
John Cameron Mitchell plays the exotic animal aficionado, and he tells ABC Audio people are going to see something they didn't expect.
"You're going to see real people dealing with real situations. Bizarre ones. But you might find yourself able to identify and say, 'wow, that could have been me,'" he explains.
Adds Mitchell, "You got to see these as real, well-rounded people who are survivors, who are admirable in one way because they've created their own world, but...really horrible...because the paranoia and the hostility doesn't stop on both sides."
"They both could have stopped that war," he continues. "And it kind of destroyed them both."
The 58-year-old actor reveals he wasn’t exactly a fan of the original Netflix series because it felt like watching "freaks on the side of the road."
"[It] felt like Real Housewives, and I don't like those shows because I want to care for somebody," he says.
And if you're wondering how they get those tigers to act in the show, well, they didn’t -- and they’re not tigers. Mitchell says they used Great Danes as stand-ins for the wild cats and the rest was done with CGI, adding the dogs were cooperative -- most of the time.
"They're very docile. Didn't always follow instructions. But one, when I'm doing my gubernatorial election speech, every take came right up where it was supposed to, so I could pet it," he shares.
(Trailer contains uncensored profanity.)