Actress Tammy Blanchard was born in Jersey City. She now lives in Bayonne with her 3-year-old daughter, and prefers the local vibe to the one in Los Angeles where her work sometimes takes her.
She laughs when asked why she doesn’t spend more time on the West Coast.
“I’m doing it my way,” she says, invoking Hoboken favorite son, Frank Sinatra. “If you can make it here you can make it anywhere. I’m an East Coast girl.”
Besides, not being in a sunny climate shapes our collective persona. “It’s real,” Blanchard says. “We’re dealing with stuff every day: Winters, falls, I love that.”
Dealing with “stuff” is important for an actress. The road to success is often paved with potholes of rejection and disappointment.
“It’s a magical experience, reaching strangers, touching their hearts, and hearing them laugh.” – Tammy Blanchard
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How to succeed …
That “something great” right now is her triumphant return to Broadway in the revival of the 1961 comedy How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, which recently opened at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre.
She has a year-long contract.
Blanchard last appeared on Broadway in the revival of Gypsy with Bernadette Peters in 2003. She earned a Tony Award for her role as Louise.
Blanchard began her professional acting career on the popular daytime drama Guiding Light, in which she played Drew Jacobs for three years.
“It was the longest running soap opera back in the day,” Blanchard says. “I played a rich, spoiled brat who gets disowned by her father.”
Lisa Brown, who played Nola on the show, coached the younger actors.
“She brought me into confidence in acting,” Blanchard says. “It was like going to school every day.”
Not long after that stint, Blanchard stepped into the role of the young Judy Garland in Life with Judy Garland; Me and My Shadows. She won an Emmy for that portrayal as well as a Golden Globe nomination.
The Judy Garland role brought back fond memories of when she was just in grammar school and got the chance to sing a solo of “Over the Rainbow” in a school show.
“It was my first moment with a huge crowd before me,” she recalls. “It’s the greatest song ever, the best of all time.”
When she was a junior in high school she got to actually play Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz.
Her first break came in a beauty pageant, the New Jersey Miss Teen pageant when she was 13. One of the judges helped her land a talent agency, which helped launch her career as a model. After doing print work, which included ads, fliers, and the covers of romance novels, she made it into commercials.
“It took them three years to book a commercial,” she says. “I was cute and sweet but too nervous and scared.”
But not for Dominos Pizza and Clearasil.
“You have to know how to sell a product, sell your face, smile friendly, be warm or gentle,” she says. “They’re always looking for a certain look. You have to have confidence and look confident when you walk in the room for a job.”
Silver screen
Blanchard has an extensive list of film and television credits, including The Good Shepherd, Bella, Cadillac Records, The Music Never Stopped, Certainly, Union Square, and Burning Blue.
She can most recently be seen in Rabbit Hole playing the sister of Nicole Kidman’s character.
In that movie Kidman plays a mother who has lost her little boy.
“I’m the hard-edged sister with a lot more strength than she has,” Blanchard says.
She learned a lot from Kidman. “I observed Nicole and how she handled a dramatic role,” Blanchard says.
She says her own tendency is to “sit with it a little. It would turn my stomach, and you could see it in my face.”
Kidman, on the other hand, has a “way of staying calm and peaceful with it, and when the moment arises, she lets the emotion out. She carries the peace and calmness with her on the set.”
Another actress who served as a role model was Jessica Lange, with whom Blanchard appeared in Sybil. “She’s a mother herself,” Blanchard says. “She totally took me in, personally and professionally. I looked into her eyes and could see the wheels turning.”
Her latest movie, Moneyball,is scheduled to be released in September. She plays opposite Brad Pitt.
“He’s such a gentleman, and I didn’t feel an ounce of ego,” Blanchard says. “He’s easy to work with, and he told me, ‘You’ve got the chops, Kid.’”
She’s a real fan.
“Everything he does is unbelievable,” Blanchard says. “He’s a chameleon, and charisma and charm flow from every pore in his body. He’s very sweet, and you can see the love that is within him.”
Leave them laughing
Blanchard says that acting in How to Succeedis providing her with the experience of making people laugh.
“It’s a magical experience, reaching strangers, touching their hearts, and hearing them laugh from their gut,” she says. “I call it emotional surgery.”
Blanchard says she learned a lot about stage acting from Bernadette Peters.
“I didn’t realize how much I’d learned until I started working in How to Succeed,” she says. “I learned how to work an audience and that it’s OK for them be another person in the play. Young actors are afraid to open up and let the audience in. You can throw a line or word their way, and they can catch it.”
Blanchard believes that How to Succeed, about a window washer trying to make it big, will resonate with today’s audiences. “People are trying to get ahead fast, make money, and be powerful in life,” she says.
The play stars Daniel Radcliffe of “Harry Potter” fame, who helps draw young women to the theater.
“They’re laughing at all the characters, all the jokes,” Blanchard says. “It’s pretty amazing to see that happen.”
Blanchard loves what she’s doing. “Acting for me is genuinely for humanity,” she says. “I love emotion, I love understanding other people’s situations. I love diving into other people’s lives or teaching someone.”
And How to Succeed is the perfect vehicle.
“I’m having a ball making people laugh,” she says. “What could be hard about that?”
Kate Rounds can be reached at krounds@hudsonreporter.com..