Sure, "Hairspray" star Nikki Blonsky missed out on a Golden Globe and came up short on her legitimate shot at an Oscar nomination. But that won't prevent the effervescent newcomer from celebrating the continued success of the blockbuster movie musical come this weekend.
That's because Blonsky, along with fellow "Hairspray" cast members John Travolta, Michelle Pfeiffer, Queen Latifah and several others, are up for the Best Motion Picture Ensemble statuette at the 14th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards.
In the guild's equivalent to a Best Picture honor, "Hairspray" will face off against the casts of "3:10 to Yuma," "American Gangster," "Into the Wild," and "No Country For Old Men." That's stiff competition, no doubt, but there's also no second-guess that when the 19-year-old Blonsky steps into the Los Angeles Shrine Exposition Center Los Angeles Sunday, she's already entering a winner -- considering that a year and a half ago she was scooping ice cream for a living in her native New York.
"I wake up every morning saying, 'Please let this be real, and if it's not, it's such a cruel joke,'" Blonsky said, laughing in a recent @ The Movies interview.
While the film features one of biggest ensemble casts of the past year, the role of Tracy Turnblad is pivotal to "Hairspray" in that she is the film's catalyst.
A short, spunky and proud-to-be-plus-sized heroine who almost single-handledly dismantles a racial divide in 1962 Baltimore, there's a lot that rests on the shoulders of Blonsky to carry the film. On top of that, she was in the company of a cast that in addition to Travolta, Pfeiffer and Latifah, includes other notables like Christopher Walken, James Marsden, Allison Janney, Amanda Bynes and Brittany Snow, and other hot newcomers in Zac Efron and Elijah Kelly.
So, for the lack of better words, landing the role was a hair-raising experience for Blonsky, especially considering that she had previously tried out for the role on Broadway -- only to be turned away because she was considered too young for the part.
But, as Blonsky heard from her grandmother on many occasions, "everything happens for a reason." And that reason would be that she would get her chance once again -- and this time it would be on a worldwide stage.
"It was interesting because I had just lost my grandmother the day before my 'Hairspray' audition on Broadway," Blonsky recalled. "And when I didn't get the part I was OK because my grandmother always told me that, 'Everything happens for a reason,' and a year and a half later, I got the movie. I said to myself, 'Boy, was Nanny right.'"
Not only was Blonsky's grandmother instrumental to the success of her role in "Hairspray," her mother was, too. Actually, make that mothers, because, as Blonsky accepted her Best Young Actress trophy at the recent Broadcast Film Critics Association's Critics' Choice Awards, she thanked not only her real-life mother, but Travolta, who played her mother, Edna Turnblad, in the film. And there's yet another mother figure in Blonsky's life, too.
"There are two people who I really look up to and really take their advice to heart, and that's John Travolta and Queen Latifah," Blonsky said, humbly. "John would give me advice all of the time, and Queen was there the night of the Critics' Choice Awards. I was so nervous that I was literally holding my mom's hand and Queen's hand. So when I won, it was like celebrating with family because I got to hug her, too."
It shouldn't come as a big surprise to hear Blonsky say she's been offered the role of "Hairspray" on Broadway in light of the film's success. But for the time being, the actress is just content to leave her hair down for a while.
"I love the way our version of 'Hairspray' came out on film and right now, I just want to continue to make more films and work in television (she currently stars in the new Lifetime TV movie, "Queen Sized") once the writers' strike is over," Blonsky said. "And while I love film and TV right now, theater is definitely something I think about all the time. It's in my blood being from New York. It's definitely something that will happen sometime in my future."
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