http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/16/arts/television/rocky-horror-picture-show-remake-fox-laverne-cox.html 2016-10-11 17:47:10 ‘Rocky Horror’ Remake: Is It Time to Go Back to Camp? The movie, which is set for broadcast on Oct. 20 on Fox, features Laverne Cox as Dr. Frank-N-Furter. === TORONTO — In the predawn hours of a mid-April night, punky revelers weary from a spirited session of jumps to the left, steps to the right and vigorous pelvic thrusts were scattered on a ballroom floor at Casa Loma, a fearsome Gothic-style castle here. High above the bodies, elevated on a crane, stood a gyrating This was a contemporary take on At its original release, “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” (adapted from Richard O’Brien’s stage musical “The Rocky Horror Show” and directed by Jim Sharman) found few converts. It flopped, despite its spirited rock ’n’ roll score and early memorable performances from Susan Sarandon, Barry Bostwick, Meat Loaf and especially Tim Curry, who originated and defined the role of the lascivious, irresistible Frank. Yet the film, Forty-one years later, the Fox network has prepared a “Rocky Horror” remake that it will show on Oct. 20, directed by Kenny Ortega (“High School Musical”) and led by Ms. Cox, a prominent transgender actor and activist, as Frank. Other members of its cast, which draws from the worlds of TV, music and theater, include Victoria Justice (“Victorious”) and Ryan McCartan (“Liv and Maddie”) as the inexperienced visitors Janet Weiss and Brad Majors; Reeve Carney (“Penny Dreadful”), Annaleigh Ashford (“Masters of Sex” and Broadway’s “Sylvia”) and the pop singer Christina Milian as Frank’s attendants Riff Raff, Columbia and Magenta; and Ben Vereen, the acclaimed song-and-dance man, as the rival scientist Dr. Scott. Simply by sticking to its original text, the remake may still have the power to provoke. It is arriving at a time when viewers are increasingly aware of transgender people and the issues they face, and legislatures around the country are moving in opposite directions on whether to support or deny them rights and protections. The participants in this new “Rocky Horror” (which carries the subtitle “Let’s Do “It’s not like we’re a bunch of outsiders,” Mr. Ortega said in an interview a few days after the “Sweet Transvestite” shoot. “It’s people who have a great love affair with this project, and we’re coming at it with great sensitivity, care and appreciation for all that it’s meant.” Coming on the heels of the successful and squeaky-clean live broadcasts of “The Sound of Music” and “The Wiz” (on NBC) and “Grease” (on Fox), this redo of “Rocky Horror” — a beloved if quirky musical that is not held in quite the same regard as those other enduring stage works — is its own strange experiment. It will test whether a decades-old musical about science-fiction B-movies and all kinds of sexual awakenings is still relevant or has grown quaint, and whether a “Rocky Horror” movie made with some polish and preparation is still “Rocky Horror” at all. “‘Rocky Horror’ really has a mind of its own, and that mind is the fan base,” said Lou Adler, a producer of the original film and the remake. “They would like me to do nothing — they want it to be theirs, and in a way, they have every right to,” Mr. Adler said. “I’m just trying to, in the right way, expose it to as many people as possible.” While Ms. Cox continued to strut her stuff for her ballroom guests, Mr. Adler, a longtime music producer for Carole King and the Mamas & the Papas, sat in one of the castle’s vast hallways, recalling how he first saw “Rocky Horror” in the early 1970s as a London stage musical (featuring Mr. Curry as Frank and Mr. O’Brien as Riff Raff). In recent years, and over several administrations at Fox, Mr. Adler had discussed the possibility of a film or TV remake, with some wariness about whether “Rocky Horror” still had something to say to a contemporary audience. “In 1975, it broke through to a lot of people,” he said. “It had real effects, socially and culturally. I don’t know if that movie would have the same effect on 18-, 19-, 20-year-olds now.” Mr. Ortega, who has directed and choreographed concert tours for Michael Jackson and Gloria Estefan, was introduced to “Rocky Horror” when the stage musical came to the Roxy Theater in Los Angeles in 1974. To make the film again with the same script, same characters and same music, Mr. Ortega said, “There has to be a reason” — one that he said would have to originate with whoever was chosen to play Frank. “We put a list together of awesome, triple-threat people that we thought would have the spunk and good humor to inhabit the character,” Mr. Ortega said, that included Jonathan Groff, Matt Bomer and Lady Gaga. Adam Lambert, the rock musician and stage actor, was seriously considered for the role. But, Mr. Adler said, he felt it was inevitable that Mr. Lambert’s performance would be compared with Mr. Curry’s. (Mr. Lambert appears in the new film as “When the idea for Laverne came up, that took that away,” Mr. Adler said. “Win or lose, she was not going to be compared to Tim.” Ms. Cox, a star of Netflix’s “Orange Is the New Black,” said that seeing the original movie and Mr. Curry’s give-it-all performance had been important personal milestones for her when she was an undergraduate at Indiana University in Bloomington. “I was gender nonconforming,” she said. “I was wearing dresses in college and had a shaved head, and there was this character who was this wonderful validation of who I was.” Ms. Cox, who later graduated from Marymount Manhattan College, said the song “ Still, the initial announcement of Ms. Cox’s casting in “Rocky Horror” elicited some wary responses from potential viewers who worried the project might be mocking transgender people. This unease was hardly helped by Amid a broader conversation about identity, Mr. O’Brien, who considers himself gender fluid, said in a March interview with British media: “You can be an idea of a woman. You’re in the middle, and there’s nothing wrong with that.” Ms. Cox said that when she was approached about “Rocky Horror,” she had some apprehension about playing a character who identifies as a transvestite, a term sometimes used as a slur against transgender people. (In the remake, Dr. Frank-N-Furter is, like Ms. Cox, a trans woman, and uses the pronoun she.) But after Ms. Cox researched earlier transgender activists like Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson, who, in the ’70s era of “Rocky Horror” founded the Street Transgender Action Revolutionaries and referred to themselves as transvestites, she became more comfortable with the idea. “I certainly don’t identify as a transvestite, and that word should never be used to describe me,” Ms. Cox said. “But as an actress, I play a lot of things that I don’t necessarily identify as.” She added, “I’ve never gotten to play the role of a scientist who creates life, who’s sexy and sensual, and who murders someone in front of everyone and goes on later to eat them for dinner.” “This is a fantasy,” she said. Ms. Cox spent several weeks training privately with dance, acting and voice coaches to prepare for her screen test last fall, and most of her co-stars were auditioned several times before they joined the project, starting with the cast recording session at Mr. Adler’s home studio in Malibu, Calif., this past winter. Compared with its low-budget predecessor, for which friends and family members were recruited to fill out the ensemble of Transylvanian partygoers, the new “Rocky Horror” is much more meticulously choreographed by Mr. Ortega and Tony Testa. If their results lack the endearing sloppiness of the original, that’s the point. As Mr. McCartan said of the first “Rocky Horror”: “They didn’t make that movie thinking, this is going to last for 40 years. It was brilliant because it was rough around the edges. The hope is that our movie is going to be great because it’s precise. We already have a little bit of contrast there.” Still, no one is sure how this remake will play in the current cultural environment. Ms. Ashford, who starred in the Broadway musical “Kinky Boots,” spoke of her experience performing in a number from that show “We all got home, and there was this Twitter firestorm,” she said. “It was shocking, what some people’s response was to seeing these beautiful men in drag as beautiful women. It was a great reminder in that moment, how powerful our art is in opening people’s eyes.” But if this “Rocky Horror” works, Ms. Ashford suggested, then the floodgates could be open to all kinds of other TV musicals. “Part of me is like, ‘Great, can we do “Sweet Charity” in two years?” she said, citing the risqué 1960s musical full of swiveling Bob Fosse choreography. “I’ll be ready. I’m stretching right now.”