Dancing queens on the big screen
By Lawrence Ferber
PGN Contributor
© 2007 Lawrence Ferber

See also related coverage:
New 'Hairspray' is lighter than aerosol

ADAM SHANKMAN (RIGHT) DIRECTS AMANDA BYNES AND ELIJAH KELLY Photos: ©2007 David James/New Line Cinema

At least one person involved in the new musical film “Hairspray” wanted his roots to show: Adam Shankman. The film’s openly gay director, Shankman first made a name for himself as a Hollywood dancer and choreographer on films like “Boogie Nights” and “She’s All That,” but with 2001’s “The Wedding Planner,” he stepped into the shoes of director. So when the opportunity to direct “Hairspray” came his way — a reworking of the Tony-winning Broadway smash based on John Waters’ 1988 film — he twirled back to choreography as part of the deal.

“When I first got hired, they asked if I wanted to hire a choreographer,” he recalls. “I was like, are you kidding? I’m not going to let anybody near this thing! I wasn’t ever going to just direct — that wasn’t going to happen. And it was like being reborn. The choreography literally poured out of me.”

Set in early 1960s Baltimore, “Hairspray” follows a zaftig, irrepressible teenager, Tracy Turnblad (Nikki Blonsky), as she attempts to become a cast member on a popular local TV dance program, “The Corny Collins Show.” Succeeding, she vies for the attentions of sexy star Link (Zac Efron), helps bring her frumpy mother, Edna (John Travolta), out of the house, and struggles to bring racial integration to the show with help from friends Penny (Amanda Bynes), Seaweed (Elijah Kelley) and “Negro Day” host Motormouth Maybelle (Queen Latifah). But Tracy’s goals won’t be achieved easily thanks to the TV station’s scheming and bigoted Velma Von Tussle (Michelle Pfeiffer, also making a return to dancing) and her beauty-queen daughter, Amber (Brittany Snow), who will go to any lengths including seducing Tracy’s prank-shop-owner father, Wilbur (Christopher Walken)!

The Los Angeles-born Shankman — whose directing credits also include 2003’s “Bringing Down The House” and 2005’s “The Pacifier” and “Cheaper By the Dozen 2” — recently discussed his work on “Hairspray,” Travolta as a BBW/MILF and just how gay things got on the set.

PGN: Was it easy to balance the two roles of director and choreographer?
AS: Yeah, really easy. I didn’t have to get into anybody’s head except my own in terms of figuring out what I want to do. And it just made it easier to direct everything after I had planned [the dancing] out already physically.

PGN: Were you a fan of the novelty dance styles so integral to “Hairspray’s” time and setting?
AS: I am. One of the things that was really challenging about doing this — because it’s a period piece and about the dancing of the period — was to try and cinematize them. The steps are very small and you create an entire musical with 20 numbers in it with such a limited vocabulary. I’m definitely a fan; I just wish there were more steps I could pull from.

PGN: What inspired your take on the film’s look?
AS: Magazines of the era. I wanted everything anchored in reality. And of course from John [Waters]’s movie, which was largely shot where all the real characters [that inspired it] were from and lived in Baltimore’s Highlandtown. He drove me all over Highlandtown. And he couldn’t believe I recreated Baltimore so accurately in [the shooting location of] Toronto.

PGN: I have to say this movie paints Baltimore as a kind of nice place, even with a few rats on the streets.
AS: Yes, I think because everything is seen through Tracy’s eyes and Tracy sees Baltimore as beautiful.

JOHN TRAVOLTA AND NIKKI BLONSKY

PGN: How did John Travolta look in his early Edna makeup tests? Were any of them frightening?
AS: I’ll tell you what’s really scary — some of the early Photoshopped [experiments]. [One looked] basically as if Barbra Streisand ate Rhode Island. I spent so much time figuring out how heavy his face should be, and by the time we got him into the suit, I knew what I was gonna get. I also realized that crazy big smile he does through the whole movie that became the basis of his character. He just loved running around doing that crazy smile because it made everybody laugh so much. He was a total joy and delight and I wish I could dish about him a little bit. Other than the fact he was miserable in the costume, he was totally a joy to work with.

PGN: If I may use popularized urban slang, do you identify Edna more as a BBW [Big Beautiful Woman] or MILF [Mother I’d Like to Fuck]?
AS: John’s whole thing was about Edna being sexy — or once upon a time she was sexy and reclaims it kind of. So I’d say there was probably MILF-yness going on. A lot of playing with those birdseed tits. Everybody on the crew was taking a handful.

PGN: When you had Michelle Pfeiffer doing her song/dance numbers, which are amazing, would you sneak in a little “Grease 2” move just so you could see if she caught it?
AS: No! Velma is so unlike that character. I did have the greatest talk, though, with Michelle about Adrian Zmed [who plays Johnny Nogerelli in “Grease 2”]. She was like, “He’s the greatest guy ever, you have no idea. I loved him.”

PGN: Nikki Blonksy is quite the find. What is she like off-screen?
AS: She is exactly like Tracy. She’s all sunshine and smiles and happiness and kind of ballsy and sexy. And frankly that’s why she got cast. Our biggest struggle was her understanding to just put on the wig and go out there — you don’t need to act. You are this girl!

PGN: I heard that the girls who previously played Tracy — Ricki Lake in the film and Marissa Jaret Winokur on Broadway — had to eat a lot during production because they would keep losing weight from all of the dancing.
AS: That happened to Nikki, too. I don’t know how they did it with Marissa, but John Waters made Ricki Lake eat Dove bars in between takes. We hired Harley Pasternak, who is like that new trainer to the stars, to help keep her heavy but healthy. So it was a lot of granola, healthy calories. She’s a super-healthy girl. I feel bad because she had just lost 55 pounds and I said not only can you not lose weight, you have to put some more back on. For a teenage girl, can you imagine? Although she would have killed her parents to be in the movie.

PGN: How come Zac Efron didn’t take off his shirt even once?
AS: If we had set the movie on the beach, that thing would have been off all the time. But there’s not a lot of reasons to take off your shirt in Baltimore.

PGN: How gay was the set? I realize there are certain things we can’t get too much into but ...
AS: Well, only inasmuch as I am gay, [songwriters] Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman are gay, [producers] Craig Zadan and Neil Meron are gay and we’re making a musical. Pretty gay right there. But one of the things so fabulous about this big gay movie is there are no gay [characters] in it. The sensibility is so there, but who seems to freak out for this movie is straight people. I feel like to make a movie that is about empowering and celebrating difference is about as good a thing as I can do for this [GLBT] community as anybody on the planet.

PGN: What sort of extras will we see on the DVD?
AS: The rehearsing, exhaustion, putting John Travolta together, a cut musical number — a ballad for Nikki called “I Can Wait” where she’s locked in the basement. We have something like 300 hours of B-roll. So there’s like a two-hour documentary on it. I just saw the first 40 minutes; pretty amazing. It takes you all the way from the real “Buddy Dean Show” [on which Waters based “Corny Collins”] to this “Hairspray.”

Lawrence Ferber’s blog can be read at ewelthorpe.blogspot.com.