While attending high school and working part-time at an ice-cream parlor, she also secured a manager and become a regular on the audition circuit. When the time came, she was ready for it. "Of course I was a little nervous," she says of her first day on set, sounding anything but. And since she names Angela Lansbury and Julie Andrews as her favorite actors, it's no surprise that she was most excited about working with the character actors in the cast, rather than the toothy, tanned representatives of young Hollywood. "Christopher Walken," she sighs. "He's such a legend." She also leaps to the defense of Travolta in his cross-dressing role as her mother. "Seeing him dressed as Edna, it wasn't funny to me. There was my mother, you know? A lot of people say it's a drag queen or a transvestite or whatever. No. It's really a man acting as a woman. John is really acting in this." And then, adorably, she praises his courage for taking the role when "he's one of the biggest heartthrobs going." Not in your lifetime, Nikki, I want to say.
What Blonsky brings to the screen in Hairspray is sheer, effervescent delight. She holds the center of this noisy whirligig film with apparently effortless assurance and warmth. She is so good, it's hard to believe that her first leading role could also be her last. But it's equally hard to imagine Hollywood bending its rigid aesthetic standards to make room for someone so different among the spiky ranks of size zero wannabes.
Blonsky is perplexed by Hollywood's homogeneity. "Why do you want a million actresses who all look the same?" she demands. But she is undaunted. "I'm thrilled beyond belief to be different in this business. I pray that there will be more roles for bigger girls. I pray that the role of the love interest, the beautiful, sexy girl, will be played by a plus-size woman." One suspects her prayers are because she's eyeing those roles for herself, rather than the sisterhood as a whole, but she's so fervent in her ambition that you can't help crossing your fingers and hoping she gets exactly what she wants.
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