Friday, April 9, 2010

NO, "WE'RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER" IS NOT BEING ADDED AS A FINALE:I love Rent and NPH, but his decision to cast HSM alum Vanessa Hudgens as Mimi in his upcoming Hollywood Bowl production of Rent seems a bit off. In a statement there, NPH promises that we will see a "dark, edgy, and very different side of Vanessa Hudgens" in the production. I'll leave aside jokes about other "sides" of Ms. Hudgens that made their way around the Interwebs.
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13 comments:

  1. Watts4:21 PM

    I know nothing of Rent or the character Mimi, but Hudgens was very good in one of my favorite mismarketed, underappreciated movies of 2009: Bandslam.  I didn't even realize she was one of the HSM kids until I saw her name in the end credits and put it together.

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  2. isaac_spaceman5:18 PM

    I've seen Rent exactly one more time than I've seen HSM, and I'm not in the target audience, I get that.  So obviously there may be some kind of musical-junkie thing to which I'm not attuned. 

    From the outside, though, there doesn't appear to be anything about Hudgens that disqualifies her from the role.  I don't know if Hudgens can hit the notes, but then again I don't remember the role being particularly vocally demanding.  I think Rubin-Vega sang it in a little girl voice anyway.  I assume that the problem is more that Hudgens seems too teenybopperish to people who love this musical, and I submit that that's just because you're getting old.  She's 21, two years older than Mimi, and putting an actual young person in that role (as opposed to, say, Daphne Rubin-Vega, who was something like 37 when the show opened) might be a good thing. 

    And don't forget that people mocked the show for casting Doogie Howser himself, because he was a squeaky-clean teen TV star and totally wrong for the role.  How'd that turn out for you?

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  3. Adam5:22 PM

    In a decade, VH will be the most beloved second banana on tv?

    I think people are just a bit too excited about seeing her do the "Out Tonight" number.

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  4. isaac_spaceman6:10 PM

    Yeah, there's no better way for a guy to get a cheap thrill than to spend a hundred bucks on some musical theater at the Hollywood Bowl. 

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  5. bill.6:48 PM

    I'd agree this was an underappreciated movie. I'd disagree about Hudgens. A lousy uncharismatic and uninteresting actress and the worst singer in the movie. Aly Michalka was much better.

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  6. gretchen7:06 PM

    I was just going to post the same thing as Isaac about her age -- Mimi is 19, and Vanessa Hudgens is much closer to that than Daphne Rubin-Vega or even Rosario Dawson (she was the actress in the movie, right?)

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  7. Anonymous8:00 PM

    I actually don't have any problem whatsoever with Vanessa Hudgens playing Mimi. 

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  8. KCosmo8:00 PM

    Darn.  That was me.

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  9. isaac_spaceman8:04 PM

    Dawson was, I think, 25 or 26 at the time, which is close enough to Hudgens's age not to matter. 

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  10. Hannah Lee9:18 PM

    I don't have an opinion about Vanessa Hudgens one way or the other, but NPH apparently worked with her recently (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1152398/).

    So whether she's right or wrong for the part, he's at least making an informed decision.

    On a slightly different subject, NPH these days is walking a fine line between "striking while the iron is hot", and "overexposed" (which is close to, but not quite the same thing as, "too much of a good thing").  For me, the Oscar appearance tilted the scale toward overexposed...it will be interesting to see how it goes for the rest of the year. This Rent project could go either way.

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  11. bella wilfer2:47 PM

    I am actually excited about this casting - she's close to Mimi's age, she's not a bad singer/actress (if not a great one), and she'll bring a whole new generation of kids to see RENT.  I was 15 or so when RENT came around the first time and my friends and I were obsessed. I can probably still sing the whole score.  Would be cool to see if this type of thing makes the TWILIGHT-generation come around to something like this (my guess is at the end of the day RENT is too "of its time" to become a massive deal again, but I bet this show will gain it a lot of new fans).  I think it's a cool, smart choice and either way it'll be fun to see how she does.  I'm in (and will update all you non-LAers on the results in August)...

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  12. Watts6:09 PM

    Michalka was definitely much better, but I didn't think Hudgens was that awful.  Let's put it this way - not realizing who she was I didn't sit there thinking "How did this kid get cast here?

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