The 1980s were mostly a great time for Michelle Pfeiffer. She established herself as one of the most reliable stars in Hollywood with her best ’80s movies, including the crime thriller movie Scarface and the fantasy movie The Witches of Eastwick.
But before she had made her name as one of the best actors around, Pfeiffer had an excruciating interview for her breakout role – a sequel to one of the best musicals of all time.
Pfeiffer played one of the main roles in Grease 2 as Stephanie Zinone, the leader of the Pink Ladies at Rydell High. But before she got the role, she worried that she’d blown her chances in the final stage of the audition process.
Looking back on the 1982 teen movie, Pfeiffer told Entertainment Weekly that the last phase was the dancing portion of the audition, and things started to go wrong for her.
“It literally was like you see in the movies where one line would come and they would dance across the stage and then the next line would come and they would dance across the stage. I kept moving further to the back, so I ended up in the very last line and stumbled my way through because I couldn’t remember the choreography. I left with my tail between my legs, feeling so humiliated.”
It clearly hadn’t gone as badly as Pfeiffer thought, though. She said: “Somebody’s assistant, I think it was [director] Pat Birch’s assistant, ran after me across the Paramount studio lot. I said something about being really embarrassed and she said: ‘Well, you shouldn’t be because she wants you to come back tomorrow’.”
Pfeiffer ended up getting the role, of course, and it paved the way for her best movies and subsequent success. By the end of the decade, she was a box office sensation and had secured a nomination at the Oscars. Not bad for someone who nearly blew a dance audition.