Fosse/Verdon Super Fan Lisa Rinna on the Fosse Role She Still Wishes She Could Play
The FX series Fosse/Verdon has given a whole new generation of TV viewers a chance to fall in love with the work that Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon created for the stage and screen during their intensely creative and equally tumultuous partnership. It’s also given longtime Fosse devotees a chance to reignite their passion for his distinctive choreography-and perhaps no one’s enjoying it more than the actress, entrepreneur, and Real Housewife legend Lisa Rinna.
Even a casual visitor to Rinna’s Instagram account, which boasts nearly 2 million followers, knows she’s got an interest in dance and isn’t shy about sharing her own moves-or her keen interest in Fosse’s work and the new series-with her followers. What they might not know is that even though Rinna and her husband, the actor Harry Hamlin, starred in a Broadway production of Chicago-which Fosse co-wrote and choreographed-in 2009, her interest in Fosse started long before she landed the role of Roxie Hart.
“I saw [the 1979 semi-autobiographical Fosse musical] All That Jazz back when it came out and it was so profound to me,” Rinna tells T&C. “The images were so powerful, and that was probably my first introduction to Bob Fosse. But ever since I’ve been aware; took dance classes growing up, and every teacher would talk about Fosse. He’s been a recurring theme in my life.”
A post shared by Lisa Rinna (@lisarinna) on Mar 27, 2019 at 4:46pm PDT
While Fosse might have been a regular presence in Rinna’s life, he wasn’t always an easy one, she says. “There’s nothing easy about doing Fosse. It’s hard, and it’s very stylized and there’s a certain challenge to it. For me, Fosse’s moves are unorthodox and they’re not how your body always naturally wants to move. I was sore all over.”
Still, Rinna doesn’t discount the possibility of submitting herself to Fosse’s grueling choreography again someday. “How about Cabaret,” she says. “My dream part would be Sally Bowles. That’s a role I would want to play.”
A post shared by Lisa Rinna (@lisarinna) on Mar 21, 2019 at 7:52am PDT
Recently, her interest in Fosse deepened when Hamlin shared with Rinna a series of meetings with the man himself he’d never previously revealed. “My husband got to meet Fosse, which I didn’t know until recently. He was up for a role in [the 1983 movie] Star 80,” she explains.
“It didn’t come up until I was in this recent Fosse mania and he said, ‘Oh, I met Bob a couple of times.’ I was like, what? He said, ‘I met him for Star 80 and he was always wearing full black and had a cigarette lit in his mouth the entire time with ashes falling down his shirt.’ I hung on every word; it was magical just to hear about it. Harry said he asked Fosse, ‘Why are you making this film,’ and Fosse said, ‘I have to.’ He was moved to make stories that were dark.”
That darkness and how it comes across in Fosse/Verdon is part of what Rinna says makes her such a fan of the series. “I like the flaws they’re showing,” she says. “I might like his flaws more than anything. We don’t know enough about Fosse and Verdon. We love their work, and we’re fascinated by it, but when people are so amazingly artistic, we want to know what makes them tick.”
And while Fosse/Verdon will only run for eight episodes this season, Rinna says she has plans to extend her own Fosse renaissance beyond just watching the series. “I’m going to take tap dance lessons,” she says. ”I’m already planning to do it.”
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