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Michelle Pfeiffer has revealed how she landed her first big role in “Grease 2,” and it was an awkward start to a legendary Hollywood career.
During a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, the 68-year-old actress discussed her breakthrough role, and why she said that she felt “humiliated” after first auditioning for the part. She explained that going into the audition, she “had zero expectations of landing this part,” but was sent by her agents “just for the experience.”
“It was such a cattle call — there were actors and dancers and singers everywhere hanging out, coming in and out auditioning, and there were very thin walls,” she said. “All the other actors waiting to go in could hear your reading, could hear your singing. I was not a singer. I was taking voice classes to really improve my stage voice at the recommendation of my acting coach. And I certainly was not a dancer.”
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After the singing portion of the audition was over, Pfeiffer then had to undergo the dance portion, describing it as what “you see in the movies,” where people form lines behind each other, with each line taking turns performing in the front row.
Pfeiffer lacked confidence in her dancing abilities, and “kept moving further to the back,” eventually ending up in the last row, adding that she “stumbled my way through because I couldn’t remember the choreography.”
“I left with my tail between my legs, feeling so humiliated,” Pfeiffer said. “And somebody’s assistant, I think it was [director] Pat Birch’s assistant, ran after me across the Paramount studio lot. I said something about being really embarrassed, and she said, ‘Well, you shouldn’t be because she wants you to come back tomorrow.'”
Ultimately, Pfeiffer landed the lead role of Stephanie Zinone, the head of the Pink Ladies, in the 1982 movie. As opposed to the first film, where a good girl falls for a bad boy, the sequel turns the concept upside down, with Pfeiffer playing the bad girl who falls for a good boy.
While Pfeiffer felt less than confident in her singing abilities, many fans of the film still look back fondly on her performance of the song “Cool Rider” in the movie.
She later found greater success starring opposite Al Pacino in “Scarface,” and later earned three back-to-back Academy Award nominations for her roles in “Married to the Mob,” “Dangerous Liaisons” and “The Fabulous Baker Boys.”
More recently, the actress starred in both “Margo’s Got Money Troubles” and Taylor Sheridan’s “The Madison.”
“[Taylor] wanted to know who Stacy was before he started writing. I wanted to know who Stacy is before I committed. And so we went back and forth like that for a little while, and it became clear to me I wasn’t going to win this battle,” Pfeiffer told The Hollywood Reporter in March. “So I asked Helen Mirren [who previously starred in Sheridan’s “Yellowstone” spin-off “1923”] to speak to me about her experience.”
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“And she just glowed; she couldn’t say enough nice things,” Pfeiffer recalled. “She said the scripts were great, the productions were perfect. She was having the time of her life; she loved Montana. So I took a big leap of faith, and I committed. I thought, ‘Well, the guy has a pretty darn good track record.'”
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