Michelle Pfeiffer thought she had botched it. She ran out of a “Grease 2” audition feeling, in her words, “so humiliated,” only to be chased across a studio lot with news that the director wanted her back.
Pfeiffer, 68, told Entertainment Weekly she arrived with “zero expectations.” Her agents had booked the audition “just for the experience.” The waiting area was chaos, packed with “actors and dancers and singers everywhere hanging out, coming in and out auditioning,” and the walls were thin. “All the other actors waiting to go in could hear your reading, could hear your singing. I was not a singer,” she said. She had started voice lessons on her acting coach’s advice but felt shaky. Dancing was no better.
The dance round played out like a movie cliche, with lines of hopefuls taking turns up front. Pfeiffer edged backward until she was in the last row. “I stumbled my way through because I couldn’t remember the choreography,” she said.
She left with “my tail between my legs.” Then came the shout from behind her. “Somebody’s assistant, I think it was [director] Pat Birch’s assistant, ran after me across the Paramount studio lot,” Pfeiffer recalled. When she admitted how embarrassed she was, the assistant answered, “Well, you shouldn’t be because she wants you to come back tomorrow.”
The callback led to the lead: Stephanie Zinone, boss of the Pink Ladies, in the 1982 sequel. Where the first film paired a good girl with a bad boy, this one gave the rebel to the girl. Pfeiffer says she felt insecure about her singing, yet “Cool Rider” is still one of the film’s best-loved numbers.
What came next
She went on to play opposite Al Pacino in “Scarface” and collected three Academy Award nominations in a row, for “Married to the Mob,” “Dangerous Liaisons” and “The Fabulous Baker Boys.” Her latest work includes “Margo’s Got Money Troubles” and Taylor Sheridan’s “The Madison.”
She told The Hollywood Reporter earlier this year that Sheridan wanted to know who her character, Stacy, was before he started writing, and that she wanted the same answer before signing. She called Helen Mirren, who had worked on Sheridan’s “1923.” Mirren told her “the scripts were great, the productions were perfect” and that she “was having the time of her life.” That settled it.
