cover story - NIKKI BLONSKY
A Good Hair Day
Teen actor Nikki Blonsky talks about going from high school drama student to Hairspray star virtually overnight, and how happy it’s made her. Really, really, really happy
By Marni Weisz
One year ago, Nikki Blonsky was working at an ice cream parlour in Great Neck, New York. Two days before this interview, she was on Oprah.
The transformation from anonymous, 17-year-old ice cream scooper to someone Oprah Winfrey would fawn over began when Blonsky was chosen from more than a thousand hopefuls to play Tracy Turnblad, Hairspray’s chirpy, chubby Baltimore teen who refuses to see her full figure as an impediment to snagging a role on a popular 1960s dance show. It’s the same role that gave Ricki Lake her first big break in writer/director John Waters’ original version of the film.
“The fact that I’m in this movie still blows my mind, but the fact that Oprah was excited about it, and her audience was excited about it, that was just truly incredible for me,” says Blonsky over the phone from her daisy-wallpapered bedroom in the Great Neck house where she still lives with her parents. “It’s very funny, my room is actually a lot like Tracy’s,” she says.
Maybe Oprah’s excitement shouldn’t be so incredible.
Buzz for the big-screen adaptation of the Broadway musical that was, itself, based on Waters’ rather subversive 1988 film has been building for the past year as shots of the film’s other star — John Travolta — have leaked out.
What’s so exciting about photos of Travolta on a movie set? Well, he’s stepping into the role played in Waters’ version by drag queen Divine — Edna Turnblad…Tracy’s mother.
Packed inside a fat suit, massive wig, dress and makeup, Travolta is almost unrecognizable as an overprotective mom who shares her daughter’s hairstyle and body type.
“It looked really realistic. You would never have been able to tell that John Travolta was under there,” says Blonsky, recalling the first time she saw Travolta in drag. “I was in my costume, and he was in his, and we looked at each other and said, ‘My gosh, we look alike, we do, we look like mother and daughter.’ It was pretty amazing, and from that moment on I think Edna and Tracy were just born.”
Although she’s been taking vocal lessons since age eight, until Hairspray, Blonsky had only done high school plays — Carmen in Carmen, Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd. There’s also a great YouTube clip of her singing “Master of the House” as Mme. Thenardier in a Great Neck South High School production of Les Misérables.
Blonsky was just 15 when she saw Hairspray on Broadway and knew that one day she would play Tracy. Of course, she had no idea they would make a second film. When she saw a casting call on a Broadway website she sent in a tape and hoped for the best. “I went in for a couple of callbacks over a period of about three months, and then finally I went in for a screen test,” says Blonsky.
By the time director Adam Shankman (Bringing Down the House) had decided Blonsky was the one, he was already thinking ahead to the Hairspray DVD, and realized this fairy tale moment should be captured for future use. So he arranged for a camera crew to go to the ice cream parlour where Nikki was working.
She was shown a taped message from Shankman on a laptop, thinking it would be about the next stage of the audition process. Instead, Shankman told her that she had the part. Blonsky responded with appropriate screams, and the whole thing played on Entertainment Tonight the very next day.
“I think I’ve probably seen it about 30 times,” Blonsky says of the clip. “I literally still sit there, ‘Am I gonna get the part? Am I gonna get the part?’ And when I get the part I scream with the tape.”
Blonsky is pretty hoarse today, but it’s not from screaming. It’s because she’s done five interviews back-to-back. Yet she’s more than happy to keep talking about the movie. In fact, Blonsky is happy about pretty much everything, and says she’s always been that way.
Peppering the interview with phrases like “Tracy is that best friend that I’ll always keep in my heart,” “Now I have my dream come true,” and “I just want to share with the world my complete happiness and joy with what’s going on,” Blonsky fits the image of the perky high school theatre student — you know, the one who keeps her feet on the ground but keeps reaching for the stars?
When she finds out that I’m in Toronto, where the movie was shot, Blonsky exclaims, “My favourite city in the whole world! Toronto is gorgeous; it’s like my home away from home. I know when I want to relax and get away from everything, go to Toronto.”
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From left, Elijah Kelley, Zac Efron, Amanda Bynes and Nikki Blonsky in Hairspray
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Aside from her great pipes, it was that enthusiasm that made Blonsky so right for the part. Listen to her talk about the film and you feel like she’s talking about her own life.
“It’s about acceptance,” she says. “It’s about a 17-year-old girl…and she’s a little bit on the heavyset side, but she has certain beliefs and believes in them wholeheartedly and believes people can do anything no matter what size and shape, it doesn’t matter, if you have a dream go for it.”
Tracy’s dream is to dance on The Corny Collins Show (think American Bandstand), but all the other dancers are tall, thin and professionally primped by uptight station manager Velma Von Tussle (Michelle Pfeiffer).
“She doesn’t look like any of them, but it eventually comes down to the dance, it comes down to the talent, and Corny — who’s played by James Marsden, who’s amazing — sees that Tracy is a good dancer and wants to put her on the show no matter what she looks like,” explains Blonsky. |
There’s also the matter of Tracy as civil rights activist. This is 1962 Baltimore, after all, and up until now The Corny Collins Show has been largely segregated, with black performers only appearing occasionally as part of “Negro Day.” Tracy leads the movement to integrate the show and stands up for her friend Penny Pingleton (Amanda Bynes), whose relationship with one of the black performers, Seaweed (Elijah Kelley), raises eyebrows.
The film retains much of the John Waters kitsch — aside from Travolta’s unusual performance, quirky Christopher Walken plays Tracy’s dad and Waters himself has a cameo — but Blonsky says Shankman tried to give their version its own tone.
“I think it’s a really real tone, approachable, I think it’s relatable,” she says. “A lot of movies today aren’t as approachable as they should be for people of all ages.”
Approachability. Not exactly what Waters was going for 19 years ago, but the positive messages about nonconformity, universal acceptance and individuality remain the same.
Before her first movie has even hit theatres, Blonsky has already learned to be cagey about upcoming projects — and to defer to a greater power.
“There’s things that I’d love to be a part of and I’ve been reading some scripts and keeping busy.... And I’m working with my great agent, who takes care of me, and we’re looking forward to the future,” she says.
And as for this movie star moving out of her parents’ house?
“I guess I’m going to let Hairspray come out before I make any big decisions,” says Blonsky. “But I’m also an 18-year-old kid who wants to test the waters and see what’s out there. Eventually some day I’m going to have to branch out.”