Out director Adam Shankman is no stranger to box office success with such hits as "Cheaper by the Dozen 2," "The Pacifier," and "Bringing Down the House" on his resume as well as the highly-regarded "A Walk to Remember" starring Mandy Moore.
But Adam really knocked it out of the park with "Hairspray," one of the highest-grossing musicals of all time. He directed a cast that included newcomer Nikki Blonsky and other young stars including Zac Efron and Amanda Bynes and such screen vets as John Travolta, Michelle Pfeiffer, Christopher Walken and Queen Latifah.
We had a chat at this week's Hollywood Film Festival Awards.
Greg: There's aleady been a "Hairspray" movie and a stage musical. Was it daunting for you to take the musical movie on?
Adam: "I went for it. I felt like this was my assignment. John Waters told me to make this one my own. And so I just went to the material and decided to go for it. If I had any doubts, the movie couldn't have been made. It had to be, 'This is how I see it. This is how I want it. This is what it's gonna be.'
Greg: There were some who were critical of the casting of Travolta as Edna, that they wanted to see a real drag queen play it like Divine did in the original movie.
Adam: It's ridiculous. He's the greatest. The role is always played by a man and John is the greatest movie musical star of our generation. It's literally like perfect casting. I don't think audiences would have responded to the character if it had been a real drag queen. I think that's embracing the other material and we already got that. We did that one already."
Greg: Well, what do you do for an encore? What's next?
Adam: I'm doing an Adam Sandler movie called "Bedtime Stories." That's a big [2008] holiday movie, a lot of CG and kids. It's very sweet. So I'm just starting that and as a producer, I have 'Step Up 2 the Streets' out in January and a movie called 'Seventeen" with Zac Efron that we start shooting on Dec. 3."