Ice Cream Store Clerk Makes Proud Mom Out Of John Travolta
The nationwide search for the girl to play Tracy Turnblad, the plump and perky lead in the big screen adaption of Hairspray: The Musical, is finally over. 17-year-old Nikki Blonsky was ambushed by Access Hollywood's cameras at her job at Coldstone Creamery, where she received the life-changing news that she had been plucked from obscurity to star opposite John Travolta in a muumuu:
"Adam Shankman, the director, popped up on the screen and he proceeded to tell me to make myself an ice cream cone because I got the part and I fell off my chair screaming," Nikki told Access. "The first thing that I had someone do was to pinch me and just give me a good hit in the back to make sure it was all real."
Hugs, cheers and tears flowed as family, friends and co-workers surrounded Nikki when she got the big news. And it wasn't long before the star-to-be was already signing autographs for kids in the shop. [...]
"When they tell you John Travolta is going to be playing your mother, it's like, 'Oh my goodness!'" Nikki beamed.
Such is the nature of the Hollywood dream machine: One minute, you're slinging ice cream; the next, you're seated in a makeup chair of the set of your own movie, watching a pit crew of hairstylists give John Travolta a full body shave as he asks you in his best high-pitched lady-voice if you honestly feel he could "pass."
