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 James Marsden
Spotlight By: Rick Mele
James Marsden grew up in Oklahoma, the heart of the Heartland, with two brothers and two sisters, and is best known for playing the business end of a steamy superhero love triangle in the wildly popular X-Men franchise. No wonder the guy’s so down to earth. That’s not to suggest Marsden is bland – quite the contrary – but merely an old-school type who’s a different breed than most of today’s more calculating celebrities. Marsden’s humility is an endearing, almost surprising quality; it’s refreshing to hear an actor speak without the usual pretension or guile. Suffice it to say, when Marsden discusses the prospects of his new musical Hairspray, a remake of the 1988 John Waters classic, it’s far from the same old song-and-dance. To see him in Hairspray as Corny Collins, host of the eponymous dance show that Tracy Turnblad (Nikki Blonsky) obsesses over, you might think that Marsden had been singing all his life, rather than starring in superhero movies. But, while Marsden hadn’t “done a musical since high school, really,” there was one singing role he credited for landing him the part. He says, “There was a TV series that I had sang [sic] on – the last season of ‘Ally McBeal,’I did some Sinatra singing – I think that’s what [director] Adam Shenkman saw… he saw that tape, and he saw a little Corny, and got excited I guess. But it isn’t until now that I really cut loose and did the whole… triple-threat thing [laughs], if you can call it that.” That, and a working relationship with the producers won’t hurt. Marsden was familiar with composer and executive producer Marc Shaiman: “I knew Marc Shaiman for about 3 or 4 years. Not close, but he was an acquaintance…. I ran into him once - I think I was drunk - and I said ‘We’re going to work together some day!’.” Little did he know he’d soon be right. “I knew that [producer Neil Meron] was doing it, and I knew they were casting for it, and I just told my agents that I really wanted to do it. It’s a great group of people, [I thought] it would be a nice contrast to the X-Men movies.” Indeed, there’s a world of difference between the laser-eyed Cyclops and a crooner named Corny, one that Marsden was excited to explore: “Even more so than just going ‘Guys, look, I can sing, I can dance,’ it’s ‘Guys, look, I can play this character.’ I can be in a movie that’s not a superhero film. I’m like ‘Why am I a superhero? I’m 150 lbs. and 5’10”,’ [laughs] you know?” “[Hairspray] was a nice departure from, I guess, some of the normal summer fare that we’re used to, a lot of which I’m a part of. It was just fresh and new and different, and unabashedly positive and colorful. If you don’t like these kinds of ... |
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