Dustin Snipes / Sharp ShotKristin Chenoweth wants the movie adaptation of the Broadway musical Wicked to be made pronto.
Why?
Because Chenoweth wants to play Glinda, the role she originated in the original Tony Award-winning show.
"I did create it," Chenoweth tells me. "I originated it. It would be hard for me not to want to do it...But they need to hurry up before I'm 45!" (She turned the big 4-0 last month.)
With or without the Wicked movie, Chenoweth is doing all right...
She's a first-time Emmy nominee this year for her work as Olive Snook on the ABC hit dramedy Pushing Daisies, and she's also got herself a much younger hottie boyfriend, 25-year-old Charlie McDowell.
She plays coy when asked if McDowell will be her date to the Emmys like he was for the Tonys in June. "We haven't really talked about it," Chenoweth insists. "Can you believe that we have not discussed the Emmys?...Let me just say this: I'm sure I'll have a date. [Laughs.] I'm definitely gonna have a date."
One thing she's not being so secretive about is who she'll be wearing: Giorgio Armani! The Italian red-carpet maestro dressed Chenoweth for the Academy Awards last year.
"They really came though for me, and I'm a die-hard fan," she gushes. "After [the Oscars] were over, he sent me six dozen long-stemmed white roses with a really beautiful letter that said, 'Thank you so much' and 'I wanna dress you all the time.' "
Chenoweth laughs, "I wanna say it's from him, but even if it's not, it was good to hear."
The Emmys are not the only big event coming up for Chenoweth next month. On Sept. 13, she'll be honored by the Point Foundation, a scholarship program for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender college students, at its annual gala in L.A.
"Awards are one thing and they're wonderful to get," Chenoweth says, "but this kind of thing just makes me feel so honored to be recognized by people who empower kids, who encourage them to just excel and not be held back by what society thinks."
And if that's not gay enough for ya, Ms. Chenoweth dreams of recording an album one day just for the gays—literally. She says the songlist would include "The Man That Got Away" and "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy." In honor of gay marriage, she notes, she'll have to do "Going to the Chapel." And then there's my personal favorite (because it inspired me to come out to my dad oh so many years ago), "Papa, Can You Hear Me?" from the Barbra Streisand movie Yentl.
"One of the makeup artists at Pushing Daises was like, 'What's your next album gonna be?' And I said, 'I dunno,'" Chenoweth remembers. "He was like, How about For the Gays? I was like, 'Genius!' That is going to be the title of my next album—For the Gays."