Tonight at 9p on ABC Family Nikki Blonsky’s new show is going to premiere and I think it is going to be Huge! Huge is the story of 7 teens who are at a weight-loss camp. By the time it is time for them to go home not only will they have changed their outsides, but they will have a much bigger change happen to them on the inside. The show that also stars Hayley Hasselhoff is touching and real and they deal with the issues that every teen, no matter their size, goes through. I recently sat down with Nikki Blonsky and she talked to me about the show and how it has changed her and she has changed others!
Nikki plays Will, the camp rebel and she told me she is having a lot of fun playing the role. She said her character is totally against the grain, she has blue hair, wear all boys clothes, doesn’t want to be at fitness camp and she just wants to be left alone. But she isn’t going to get what she wants. Her parents are fitness freaks and they want their daughter to be the same, but that is not what she wants for herself. Nikki added this about playing Will, “She’s just a great character. She’s a character I think a lot of kids will be able to relate to because she hides a lot. She does have some insecurities, but she hides them. She buries them with her sarcasm and her wittiness and I think a lot of us do that in today’s generation.”
So is she like her character, she says she likes describe her and say, “she is half and half, I’m Will meets Tracey (from Hairspray)”.
Even though she plays someone who is spending the summer away from home, that is something she has never done before filming this show because she didn’t want to be apart from her parents. The third episode is all about sending letters home and I wanted to know if she has ever sent her parents any. This is the first time she has been away from them for both Mother’s and Father’s Day, so she had to send them cards because she wasn’t home and she thought it stinks. As someone who is also 3,000 miles away from her dad, I completely understand what she is talking about and I am sure we are not alone.
But before we get to third episode let’s talk about what happens during the first one. Tonight she will strip down to just a bathing suit in front of everyone at the camp and I wanted to know what it was like for her to film that scene. She enjoyed doing it and found it very freeing. Before she did the striptease she explained that she felt uncomfortable going to the beach and walking around in her bathing suit. Now after that scene she is like “Screw it! I could go to the beach. I could be in my bathing suit just like anybody else. I can go to the pool. It doesn’t matter what you size you are. Be in your bathing suit, enjoy the pool, enjoy the beach. That’s what it comes down to, about enjoying life and enjoying who you are” Amen, that really is all it is about feeling comfortable in your own skin.
Although we see a lot of Will on the outside in the first episode, she told me a lot of what is in the inside will start to come out in a few episodes. We get to know more about her, why she is the way that she is and she will get a love interest. But how serious will it be, you will just have to tune in every Monday to see.
As of now we have not seen who will be playing her parents and I was curious to see who she would think should play Mr and Mrs Fitness Guru. She told me that her two choices to play her mom would be either Ricki Lake or Ally Sheedy. Of course I thought the first would be great because of the Hairspray connection, but The Breakfast Club star would also be perfect. Maybe ABC Family would give us twist and have both of them play her moms?
I asked her what she wants people to take from the show and she said, “I just want them to be able to relate to it honestly. I want them to go these kids are going through issues that we are going through, you know they look like us. This is a ground breaking series, I think this is the first time a show has a full plus-size cast. Ever! I mean, I can’t think of a show that has done this before. So it is a full plus-size cast, we are going through real life issues and I think that is the most important part.” It is real people with real issues and it is about time a TV show like this aired.
Even though the show hasn’t made its debut, she is already getting fan mail thanking her for doing the role and she wanted to say, “Thank you guys. I will always keep making films and TV shows for my fans to please them and support them. You now they support me, I support them.” And she has supported them, she told me her message is “Follow your dreams cause you never what can happen.” And as we know an unknown girl desperately wanted to star in a little movie called Hairspray, and Nikki Blonsky did it and turned that role into a Huge success for herself. And she also helped someone else’s dream come, but you will have to listen to the interview to hear her inspirational story.
Thanks to ABC Family and the show Huge, Nikki will be able to make more people’s dreams come true and she will help more people feel comfortable about what they look like no matter how small or how Huge they are. So tune in to this delightful show that will make you look in the mirror afterwards and say, “I look damn good.” And you will also feel that way because it is an enjoyable show to watch. It is the perfect meat at 9p in the The Secret Life of an American Teenager and Make It or Break It sandwich!
Finally if you want to let Nikki know how you feel about the show, send her Tweet on Twitter @NikkiBlonksy1!!!
