Oscar-winning
Man on Fire actor Christopher Walken has edged out
Iris star Jim Broadbent in Adam Shankman's
Hairspray for the role of protagonist Tracy Turnblad's father Wilber Turnblad. The film is a screen adaptation of a Broadway musical that was adapted from a 1988 film starring Sonny Bono, Ricky Lake and Ruth Brown.
The music of the film would be written and composed by Tony winners Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman. “Chris was the person Scott and I wanted in the first place, and this is a happy ending to this particular saga. It seems like this part allows him to coalesce all his skills into one role. I am constantly pessimistic, but I look at this cast and feel like I've fallen into an old MGM musical,” said Shaiman referring to the
The Stepford Wives star.
Walken is a Broadway veteran too, having done about 14 theatre shows, the most recent being
James Joyce's The Dead. His other Broadway credits include
The Merchant of Venice,
Sweet Bird of Youth and
Hurly Burly, among others. Among his notable performances are those in
The Deer Hunter, which fetched him an Oscar for the best supporting actor in 1978, and Tom Hanks-starrer
Catch Me If You Can, which won him another Academy Awards nomination in 2002, besides several others.
Leading the cast of
Hairspray are John Travolta and Michelle Pfeiffer, with Queen Latifah, Amanda Bynes, James Marsden, Zac Efron and Nikki Blonsky completing the rest of the line-up. Travolta will play a drag queen married to Walken's Wilber. The two have earlier worked together in
Pulp Fiction.
The film revolves around a 'pleasantly plump' teenaged girl Tracy Turnblad, who manages to join the dance troupe of a TV show, the
Corny Collins Dance Show. She, however, has a nemesis in Amber von Tussle, who wants to see her downfall. Somewhere along the way, Amber's crush falls for Tracy. In between the comical happenings, the story has an anti-racism message. The musical version of the 1988 film won eight Tony awards, including those for best director, best music and best score.
Shooting for the film, the screenplay of which has been written by Leslie Dixon, will commence next month in Toronto and the release is slated for the summer of 2007.
