NEW YORK (AP) — Celebrity blogger Perez Hilton is taking his skills mocking celebrities to the stage.
He’s starring in an unauthorized off-Broadway musical parody of the ’90s sitcom “Full House,” playing Danny Tanner.
“I’ve been doing what I do now for 11 years,” Hilton says, “So it’s fun to challenge yourself and take advantage of all the opportunities that present themselves.”
Hilton relocated to New York from Los Angeles in 2013, in part to reconnect with the stage. Long before doodling on his first celebrity photo, he graduated from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts’ acting program.
“Would I love to do Broadway? Yes. Do I think it’s likely going to happen in the immediate future? No,” he said. “And if it doesn’t happen, I wouldn’t be disappointed.”
He started blogging in a coffee shop in September 2004 and now has about a dozen employees feeding five websites, a radio show and a weekly podcast.
Hilton, who starred in the 2012 off-Broadway revue “Newsical the Musical,” has been taking voice lessons and is a fixture in the audience at most Broadway shows.
“I see every musical. The plays? I have to be sure they’re good before I go to,” he said.
When he heard — online, naturally — there was going to be a musical parody of “Full House,” he reached out to the creators, asking for a role. But not the one you might expect.
“He wanted to be one of the Olsen twins, but we talked him into Danny Tanner. We thought it would be more age-appropriate,” said co-creator Tobly McSmith.
Hilton, whose real name is Mario Lavandeira Jr., was a fan of McSmith’s previous parodies of “Saved by the Bell” and “Showgirls.”
In the new show, he plays both the squeaky-clean and fictional Tanner in Act 1 and the foul-mouthed real-life actor who played him, Bob Saget, in Act 2. (Hilton remembers watching the show (1987-1995), while growing up.)
What he misses from the ’90s is not having a cellphone or being on social media, a strange admission from someone whose sites have kept us online: “While I enjoy social media, it’s just become another job.”
The musical is on three nights a week at Theatre 80 downtown, leaving Hilton plenty of time for his “day job” and raising two young boys.
He says fatherhood and being 37 has mellowed his style. “I’ve become less snarky,” he said. He doesn’t scrawl inappropriate things on photos anymore and has created Perezitos, a cleaned-up site for parents and children.
His bite is still present, however. He recently went through a three-week, Kardashian detox cleanse, refusing to talk about reality TV’s favorite family.
“It felt really good. Now I’ve reintroduced them into my diet, but in a more sensible fashion,” he said.
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Online:
http://www.fullhousethemusical.com
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Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits
