On TV Land's Younger, VIP Sutton Foster plays a 40-year-old woman trying to pass for a 26-year-old. "Are you totally flattered?" Host Ophira Eisenberg asked Foster on Ask Me Another stage in Brooklyn. "I [am] flattered, but also stressed out," Foster replied. "I was like, 'My job longevity depends on how long I can pull off this ruse.' So all of a sudden I was buying a lot of face creams and panicking."
Back when she was 26, Foster was far more successful than most 40-year-olds. She starred in Broadway's Thoroughly Modern Millie, and won a Tony Award for her performance. "After you win a Tony, do you still have to audition?" Eisenberg asked. "Yeah!" Foster replied. "I had to audition for The Drowsy Chaperone. I brought my Tony [to the audition] of course."
Although her brother Hunter is also a musical theater actor, Foster said singing was not in her genes. "My mom had always wanted to be a model when she was growing up," she said. "But her father said no. So when [I] showed any sign of wanting to do something unconventional, [my mother] supported me." As a kid, Foster starred in a local production of Annie, and went on to appear on Star Search as a teenager. "And I lost!" she confessed. "I lost to this guy Richard Blake, who's now a Broadway performer. So now every time I see him I give him squinty eyes, 'cause he beat me by a quarter star."
For her VIP game, we pitted Foster against her husband, screenwriter Ted Griffin, on the topic of well-known movie musicals.
This segment originally aired on September 9, 2015.
Interview Highlights
On playing a 40-year-old trying to pass as a 26-year-old
I always think that when Dustin Hoffman was in Tootsie, did you ever really believe he was a woman?
On the cookies she baked for the night's AMA champion
I wanted to make double-chocolate chip cookies, so I put in the Google "double-chocolate chip cookies."
Heard in Sutton Foster: Really, Anything Goes
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