Keala Settle spills on The Greatest Showman Broadway adaptation

The Greatest Showman star Keala Settle has spoken about reprising her iconic role on stage.

Keala Settle starred as Lettie Lutz, the bearded lady, in the 2017 musical movie which also featured Hugh Jackman, Zac Efron and Zendaya.

After proving a huge hit on screen a stage adaptation has been rumoured – but will Settle be a part of any potential Broadway production?

Appearing on the eleven theatre podcast, Settle shared: “It was a two-digit hour day for filming in the ring.I had seven people on me. My dress was 25 pounds. I had a corset on, bound by a corset underneath. I was put into a dress which was tightened back as well. I was double-bound.

“I had boots that had no protective bottoms so, to this day, I have problems with the balls of my feet because of the dancing we kept doing over and over again. I couldn’t sit down unless I had a specific chair, and people had to lift my dress and tell me to back up basically like a lorry doing ‘beep, beep, beep’. ‘Yep, you’ve hit it, go on!’

“They had to take my shoes off every take so I could put Uggs on. And on top of it, there was a person with a glue pen that would keep applying alcohol to my wig and my facial hair because it kept sweating off. The hair and the makeup people were there because they were tagging each other and the beard was attached to the wig. I had a fan person there and I had someone holding a drink of water for me.

“So, that’s just filming. If you think I’m going to do that eight shows every week, sod off matey! There’s no way in hell I’m doing that. Now if they’ve got an easier way to do it… bring it on! Otherwise, naaa!”

On singing the Oscar-nominated global hit song, This Is Me, Settle added: “Looking back on it, I’m obviously really grateful for it as I’ve had an opportunity to sing it around the world and hear people in different countries that speak different languages singing it back to me – which crippes me with joy because they can still understand it and know what I means because of the emotion in that song.”

Meanwhile, Settle also spoke on wanting to return to a production of Les Miserables: “The time I had there was hard because it was when I was losing my mother, but yeah. If I had the chance to do it again, I would for like a month or two, I’d totally do it. Same (vocal) option, everything. I’d do the same thing.”

Listen to the full podcast streaming now at elevenpodcast.com