From Broadway to Bunheads, Sutton Foster Explores New Sides of Herself
Sutton Foster may be best known for her work dancing on Broadway, but she doesn’t want there to be any misconceptions about her love of the arts, period—regardless of medium. In fact, Foster is not only a TV fan, but she called Gilmore Girls and Bunheads creator Amy Sherman-Palladino “one of my favorite writers” as well, so crossing over onto ABC Family’s Bunheads was a much more natural progression—and dream!—than you might assume at first glance. By Danielle Turchiano“It just feels like the right role, the right writer, the right project, and the right timing,” Foster said of her role as Michelle in Bunheads, despite having done television guest spots in the past.
“I’ve been living in New York for about 15 years. I absolutely love the theater. It’s my home. It’s what I always wanted to do, but I was coming to a point where I just wanted a new challenge, and this came across my path, and already it’s just been an incredible experience. I’m learning every single day something new, and it’s exciting that I’m 37 years old and I’m learning so much.”
Foster called Bunheads a “whole new chapter” in her life, but when you really stop and think about it, it’s not that different from her life onstage. There are still long hours in rehearsal and bright lights to perform under. There is still the mix of eyes on her: of young kids perhaps seeing the beauty of art for the first time, as well as those who have come to expect a certain quality from those performers involved. There is still pressure to pick up the elements very quickly, whether they be dance steps or Sherman-Palladino’s crazy, rapid-fire dialogue (out of her approximate 80-page scripts, Foster carries the bulk—and much of it with a dry wit that she calls a new side to herself). There is even a familiar costar in Kelly Bishop (the two previously worked on Anything Goes together, though they didn’t share scenes). Bunheads is allowing Foster to rediscover passion—and skills—anew in the craft she dedicated her life to years ago.
“I started dancing when I was 4 years old and then was in class until I was about 20, and then I was primarily dancing in shows, but not really studying and training,” Foster shared.
“[My character Michelle] is a ballet dancer trained at ABT [who] kind of lost her ballet way. So now I’m studying ballet every day and really training so people will see me as a ballet dancer, which no one’s seen before.”
For Foster, the biggest challenge adjusting from theater to television was not the amount of dialogue, or the repetition of take after take rather than just one live performance, or even getting used to Los Angeles over New York City. Instead, Foster said the hours of production have had her retraining her body, almost like an extended jet lag.
“It’s just different, waking up at 4:30 a.m. and being awake while it’s dark,” she pointed out.
“When you do a [Broadway] show, it’s two and a half hours of bam!—intense. And then with this, you still work, but you have a lot of lag time where you’re waiting for them to do setups, and then it’s like you have to be on. I’ve become addicted to Coke Zero and coffee! I drink a lot of coffee! It’s a different lifestyle, but it’s fun.”
Advice that Foster has for any theater kids looking to move into television is actually advice her ex-husband Christian Borle (who stars on NBC’s Smash) gave her before she started on Bunheads:
“You just have to keep moving forward, because there’s so much material, and as soon as you finish a scene, you have to let it go and move on to the next one. You can’t keep holding—like with the theater, you get a scene and you do it over and over and over and over and over again, for years sometimes. But TV moves so fast, and you have to move with it.”
Bunheads airs on ABC Family on Monday nights at 9 p.m.