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The Business

Harvey Fierstein returns to 'Hairspray,' this time on live TV

The Business

KCRW

Tv & Film

4.6676 Ratings

🗓️ 3 December 2016

⏱️ 29 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Broadway legend Harvey Fierstein won one of his several Tonys for his performance as Edna Turnblad in Hairspray. Now, he's reprising the role for NBC's live version of the musical, which airs December 7. He tells us about the weighty task of transforming into Edna and changes he made to the script when adapting it for television.

Transcript

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0:00.0

From KCRW and KCRW.com, I'm Kim Masters, and this is the business.

0:06.1

Each one of those breasts is about six pounds, so that's 12 pounds there. Then I've got

0:11.6

a rubber behind. That's probably, you know, six or seven pounds. And then I have two hips,

0:18.0

which are basically foam, and they're not bad.

0:25.6

That is the unmistakable voice of Broadway playwright and star Harvey Firestein,

0:30.4

who is reprising his Tony-winning performance as Big Mama Edna Turnblad for NBC's upcoming live production of Hairspray.

0:34.1

Firestein also wrote the teleplay.

0:36.6

We visit the set where Firestein tells us about the heavy task of transforming himself into Edna and about some of the changes he made to take the script from Broadway to live TV. But first on the news banter, a Hollywood money man goes from big losses in relativity media to a cabinet appointment in the Trump administration. Stay tuned,

0:55.3

it's the business from KCRW.

1:02.3

I'm joined by my buddy and banter, Matt Bellany of the Hollywood reporter. Hello, Matt. Hi there.

1:07.6

So as you know, Stephen Mnuchin, who was known in this town as a money man, an investor who comes in and gives millions of dollars for films to be made. He had been established here as that and among other things. And he is now Donald Trump's selection to be secretary of the treasury. Yeah, it's a pretty stunning turn of events for a guy who's been pretty under the radar in Hollywood,

1:31.3

although he has put hundreds of millions of dollars into films going all the way back to 2005

1:36.2

when he invested in the Fox slate, which included the X-Men movies and Avatar and a bunch of others.

1:44.0

That deal ended in 2012,

1:46.2

but in the meantime, he had really expanded his purview in L.A. and into other areas as well.

1:52.4

Yes, he led a group of investors in the purchase of IndyMac, which was a notorious failed lender.

1:58.0

In the middle of the financial crisis, of course, when the housing bubble burst,

2:01.6

it turned out that IndyMac had a ton of bad loans and it was in desperate trouble. Steve Mnuchin led a

2:08.6

group of investors to buy it. A lot of people complained it was a sweetheart deal with the government

2:13.0

taking most of the risk, but then the less they bought it. He became chairman of it. He renamed it

2:18.2

One West. And in that capacity, One West loaned money to Ryan Kavanaugh's relativity. Now,

2:25.3

you know and I know, Matt. Ryan Kavanaugh is a reputation as a high-flying guy. Relativity

...

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