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John Travolta (left) stars as ’Edna Turnblad’ and Nikki Blonsky (right) stars as ’Tracy Turnblad’ in the upcoming movie ’Hairspray.’
John Travolta might be playing a full-figured gal in “Hairspray,” but that didn’t stop him from trying to tease out his trademark sex appeal.
Let other actors like Eddie Murphy (“Norbit”), Martin Lawrence (“Mama’s House”) and Robin Williams (“Mrs. Doubtfire”) do drag for laughs. Travolta was adamant that Edna Turnblad turn heads and quicken pulses.
“Imagine, if you will, Sophia Loren gone to flesh,” says the actor. “Anita Ekberg, Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe — those were my models.
“I told the costume and make-up people, ‘Look, she can’t be grotesque; she has to be curvaceous. She has to have a waist so she’ll look like a woman. If you make her a refrigerator in a housedress, she’ll be a man or a grandma, and I don’t want either. I want a woman!’ ”
By the time Travolta was done with her, Edna was the foxiest femme onscreen.
“I sent the fat suit back three times,” Travolta says. “I said, ‘It’s not curvaceous enough. Give me that sexy thing, man. Make the butt bigger.’ Finally, I won that battle.”
As musical buffs know, “Hairspray” began its life as a 1988 John Waters comedy starring the late Divine as overprotective mom Edna Turnblad and then-unknown Ricki Lake as her daughter Tracy. The movie was musicalized for Broadway in 2002, with Harvey Fierstein as Edna and Marissa Winokur as Tracy.
In the latest incarnation of “Hairspray,” Long Island newcomer Nikki Blonsky takes on the role of a ’60s-era teenager who longs to sing and dance on Baltimore’s “Corny Collins Show.”
Tracy gets her break and lands a spot on the show, which, under her influence, becomes integrated to include African-American dancers. The movie, directed by Adam Shankman, co-stars Christopher Walken as Tracy’s dad, Michelle Pfeiffer as arch rival Velma Von Tussle and Queen Latifah as Motomouth Maybelle.
Even though Travolta caught the show during its Broadway run and loved it, he was hesitant about stepping into Edna’s high heels. Nearly 30 years after playing Danny Zuko in “Grease,” Travolta was afraid to try to top his earlier musical triumph.
“If you’ve already done a ‘Gone With the Wind’ or a ‘Titanic’ or a ‘Grease,’ you’ve hit the pinnacles of those genres,” he says. “So why would you want to ruin it with something that doesn’t work? I’m offered plenty of comedies and dramas that I can make a living off of; I don’t need to ruin my status as a musical (icon).”
Since “Grease” scored $400 million during its 1978 run, Travolta says he’s been seriously approached about only four other movie musicals.
“I said no to ‘Chicago,’ ‘A Chorus Line’ and ‘Phantom of the Opera’ because I didn’t see the workability of those movies,” he says. “And two of those decisions were the right ones. Obviously, ‘Chicago’ wasn’t the right decision, but the filmmakers never met with me to describe their vision.
“With ‘Hairspray,’ we had a year and two months of meetings, and I understood exactly what they wanted to do with it. I also needed to know that I could play Edna the way I wanted to. That was important to me.”
As he was figuring out just what kind of woman Edna should be, Travolta flashed back to his youth in Englewood, when he’d hang out with his mom Helen before she’d go off to teach drama at area high schools.
“I remember as an 8-year-old kid watching my mother getting into her stockings, girdle, bra and bustier and thinking, ‘Oh, my God, you’re kidding! What’s with all that work?’ ” says Travolta, who dropped out of Dwight Morrow High School at 16 to pursue a show-biz career.
“My mom would get out of breath just from dressing, and I remember the deep lines the straps made. I thought, ‘Wow, it must be tough to be a woman.’ As soon as I started working on Edna, I thought, ‘Poor mom!’ ”
Months before the cameras rolled, Travolta began a lengthy rehearsal process. He might have performed in some of cinema’s most famous dance numbers – “Saturday Night Fever,” “Grease” and “Pulp Fiction,” anyone? – but he’s the first to admit he wasn’t in the best of shape.
“I’m an old guy,” says the 53-year-actor. “I need more rehearsal than the young people do. I like to drill, drill, drill and have the numbers be like second nature. Then you can add the icing to it all.”
It was only after Travolta had all the right moves that he began transforming himself into Edna. Layer by layer, he added padding, panty hose and then the swinging ’60s outfits, including a pink-sequined mini-skirt and a polka-dot dress.
“The last thing we put on were the high heels,” he says. “That was tough. I went through so many pairs. They gave me these steep high heels, and I thought, ‘I can’t do it! I’ll break my ankle.’
“But then I remembered all the Broadway dancers I used to know wearing Capezio shoes. I said, ‘How about giving me a thicker heel?’ When they found the right shoes, I told them to make ’em in lots of colors and we’d be OK.”
Travolta was determined to look light on his feet even though he was wearing a fat suit that weighed nearly 75 pounds.
“It was very difficult because it was so hot under there, and I had to make the character look like she wasn’t heavy at all,” the actor says. “The humor and the delightfulness of ‘Hairspray’ comes from the fact that Edna doesn’t dance like she’s 300 pounds; she dances like she’s 110 pounds.”
Newcomer Blonsky reports that she never heard Travolta complain once despite facing four hours of hair and make-up each morning.
“John was in that fat suit for so long, it must have been grueling for him,” she says. “I felt sorry for him because we filmed this in Toronto in the dead of the summer. It was so hot, but he really set such a standard for the rest of us to try and live up to. I’m just so fortunate that I had my first movie experience with him.”
At its heart, “Hairspray” is about uplift, both in the corsety and metaphysical sense. Beyond the obvious celebration of civil rights, Edna is an inspiration because she doesn’t let her plus-size figure get in the way of her enjoyment of life.
Travolta, who has struggled with his weight all his life, could relate. “Food has always been something I loved,” the actor says. “I’m passionate about food, but my idea for Edna was that she would find it a sensuous experience. She sees the beef, and she says ‘Is that braised?’ and it’s a funny line.”
For the record, Travolta employs a live-in cook at his homes in Los Angeles, Maine and Florida, but he can whip up the essentials if he has to. “I can make you a mean cheeseburger or club sandwich,” he says. “I can do all your basic bar fare.”
Since first ascending to stardom as Vinnie Barbarino in “Welcome Back Kotter,” Travolta has had his ups and downs. The valleys include “Moment by Moment,” “Staying Alive” and “Battlefield Earth,” while the peaks number “Saturday Night Fever,” “Urban Cowboy,” “Pulp Fiction” and “Get Shorty.”
If Travolta was doing the calculating, he’d likely add the recent “Wild Hogs” to the list of high points.
“It’s the second-biggest movie I’ve ever done,” he says of the $166-million-grossing comedy. “It’s right after ‘Grease’ in U.S. box office totals.”
For his next film, Travolta is co-starring with wife Kelly Preston, 44, in a comedy called “Old Dogs.” In the film, the Travoltas’ daughter Ella Bleu, 7, is scheduled to play their youngster. (The couple also has a son, Jett, 15.)
“Robin Williams is in it too,” Travolta says. “We play two guys who work together at a sports agency. He doesn’t have a clue about how to be a father, so I try and teach him, but I don’t really know anything about fatherhood either. So the humor comes from two guys trying to find their way to being good dads.”
After that, Travolta expects to go back to the long-delayed “Dallas,” a TV-to-movie transfer in which he’ll star as Texas oil baron J.R. Ewing. Come December, if he’s lucky, Travolta will be on the Oscar campaign trail, lathering up interest in “Hairspray.”
“It would be cool to win best actress,” he says. “That would be the ultimate.”