I saw 'Hairspray' at the Pantages in L.A. It came to the Pantages right before I did the movie, and just being in New York sometimes and seeing the marquees and everything like that, I'm like, 'I really, really have to go experience a Broadway play.'
My hairstylist uses the Bumble & Bumble hairspray, which is the best smelling hairspray there is!
Sometimes when I'm dancing and don't put in enough hairspray, I wind up looking like a... what's the animal with needles? Porcupine.
I got the regular call, that they were doing a Broadway musical of Hairspray, and would I come and audition. I was familiar with the movie, because at the time it came out my lover wrote for Premiere magazine, and we had to see everything.
I really love 'Hairspray.' I love the idea of this teenage dance show where you have to go through all these competitions to get to the next level.
When you realize that the uncut 'Porgy and Bess' started me off, that I'd have the opportunity to do a ton of 'Stoppard,' 'Hairspray,' that I'm able to do 'Il Trittico' at the Met - how do I top that?
'Hairspray' was a movie turned Broadway musical turned Hollywood remake, and that is the 'Lion King' circle of life as we know it in Times Square, the creative loop that swings for the stars and sometimes crashes into the upper deck.
I did 'Eubie!' on Broadway with the Hines brothers, 'Comin' Uptown' with Gregory Hines, and then 'Hairspray.'
I find it a great antidote... lipstick and mirrors and hairspray.
People looked at my early pictures and called them the most disgusting things ever, and now 'Hairspray' is being done at every school in Britain and America.
