Digital Media Center
Bryant-Denny Stadium, Gate 61
920 Paul Bryant Drive
Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0370
(800) 654-4262

© 2024 Alabama Public Radio
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Sutton Foster: Really, Anything Goes

Sutton Foster
Josh Rogosin
/
NPR
Sutton Foster

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

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

News from Alabama Public Radio is a public service in association with the University of Alabama. We depend on your help to keep our programming on the air and online. Please consider supporting the news you rely on with a donation today. Every contribution, no matter the size, propels our vital coverage. Thank you.