Christina Aguilera acts! Cher returns! Song, dance, naughty jokes and skimpy costumes galore. What more reason do you need to see the backstage musical Burlesque when it hits theaters Nov. 24? USA TODAY’s Susan Wloszczyna goes behind the curtain for more Burlesque details.
Aguilera’s Ali runs away from Iowa in search of fame and ends up waitressing at The Burlesque Lounge on the Sunset Strip. But not for long. “Christina really takes it all off in terms of makeup and hair for a lot of the movie,” says director/writer Steven Antin. “She looks like a girl right off the farm.” That is until Kristen Bell’s headliner, Nikki, shows up tipsy one night and Ali must fill in.
Ali helps turn what once was a lip-sync club into a singing-and-dancing revue after she displays her vocal fireworks onstage in numbers like But I’m a Good Girl. The 12-song soundtrack includes four originals written by Aguilera.
Cher is Tess, owner of a retro club who has a modern-day problem: She can’t make the payments on her over-mortgaged property. It took Antin three tries before the Oscar winner for 1987’s Moonstruck would finally agree to take the part, her first major movie role in more than a decade. When she read the script, she told Antin, “This character is me. I can do this with my eyes closed.”
Together, Ali and Tess manage to transform the Burlesque Lounge into a success. After meeting Cher for the first time on the set, Aguilera says, “I found her kind and warm, welcoming me with open arms - which was nice, coming in as a newcomer.” Meanwhile, Tess - also a performer - “sees a lot of herself in Ali’s character.” For the record, Aguilera’s favorite Cher films are Mermaids and The Witches of Eastwick.
Stanley Tucci is Sean, the lounge’s stage manager, a go-to guy for the gals and best friend to Tess. “They have a history,” Antin says. “He is gay but they were once involved.” Other men in the cast include Cam Gigandet (Twilight) as Jack, Ali’s piano-playing love interest; Eric Dane as entrepreneur Marcus, who tries to woo Ali away; and Alan Cumming as Alexis, the gender-bending doorman.
Every night, Tess and Sean put together the costumes for that evening’s performance. “The closet is every girl’s dream, filled with fabulous outfits,” Antin says of the hangers mostly filled with vintage and secondhand wear. Its contents? “Swarovski crystal-beaded dresses, corsets and bustiers, sailor hats and mismatched gloves.”
VIDEO: ET Exclusive on set interview with Christina
Christina Aguilera is back in the spotlight after a four-year break with her new hit album Bionic and the upcoming movie 'Burlesque,' and the multiple-Grammy winner reveals to ET's own Kevin Frazier whether or not she plans to expand her family!
"Bionic is definitely my baby at the moment," says Christina. "Eventually, in the future, I do want to expand on my family and have another one, but for now, Bionic is the baby and 'Burlesque' is the other baby."
"I couldn't be happier about … the fact that the album's inspired by my son, and the future, and the feeling of the movement of electronica music, in a sense," says Christina, "but still maintaining that rawness of having those definite ballads that evoke that pure, honest emotion. … Being able to just pour my heart out into the beauty and emotion of a song is very important to me."
What kept her from the spotlight for so much time? Christina explains: "The first year we spent touring, getting pregnant, living that out, becoming a mother, taking the first year to sort of do the mom thing, feel what that's really like, and then be inspired for my new record. Then I accepted the movie 'Burlesque,' and that was almost a year away from the public eye."
Christina stars opposite Cher, Kristen Bell, Eric Dane, Alan Cumming, Julianne Hough and more in the upcoming big-screen musical, in theaters this November, and she says of the 'Burlesque' experience, "Acting is a completely different animal, but it definitely is something -- it gave me a lot of tools to now use in my world of music."
And Christina says that when she goes home at night after work, her two-year-old son Max with hubby Jordan Bratman gets all the attention a child deserves from a loving mother: "I sing my son to sleep with 'Mary Poppins' [songs]," she says, "and rock and cradle him and cover him up in bed and do really silly things that we won't even mention."
Watch ET for more with Christina Aguilera!
http://www.etonline.com/news/2010/07/88762/index.html
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