This week, we got our first look at Laverne Cox’s Dr. Frank-N-Furter in Fox’s upcoming live musical remake of The Rocky Horror Picture Show courtesy of Entertainment Weekly. Cox says her version of the character, originated by Tim Currry—who appears in the reboot as the film’s Narrator—has been compared to Grace Jones and David Bowie. “It’s way more elaborate and couture,” she tells Entertainment Weekly. “[Director] Kenny Ortega had this vision that Frank was at this old theater and found these old burlesque costumes and is, like, using them and wearing them now but has altered them a bit.”
Here’s the full photo:
It’s certainly a departure from the cult classic, immortalized by Tim Curry:
The Orange Is the New Black star isn’t the first performer to reinterpret this sweet transvestite. Let’s do the “Time Warp” again and have a look back at the many faces of Dr. Frank-N-Furter:
Amber Riley
Casting Glee‘s aspiring soul diva Mercedes in Curry’s role in the show’s very special Rocky Horror episode was a little unexpected—but definitely not as unlikely as a high school production of the risqué musical.
Jim Parsons
In 2013, Parsons slipped into the requisite fishnets to play Frank-N-Furter alongside his Big Bang Theory co-stars in at A Night at Sardi’s benefitting the Alzheimer’s Association.
Anthony Head
Probably best known as tweedy librarian Rupert Giles on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Head was altogether less buttoned-up when he starred in the West End’s 1990-1991 revival of The Rocky Horror Show.
Related: PHOTOS: Lost Original “Rocky Horror” Polaroids Were Discovered In NYC Subway
Tom Hewitt
This Broadway star dispensed with the wig when he starred in the 2000 revival alongside Joan Jett and Daphne Rubin Vega.
The Divas of Drag Race
It’s pretty much become a tradition for RuPaul’s Drag Race alums and regulars alike to appear in San Antonio’s Woodlawn Theater’s annual staging of Rocky Horror. Everyone from Michelle Visage to Bianca Del Rio has done the “Time Warp” on the Lone Star stage. Alaska, Sharon Needles, and Courtney Act have all brought their own radically different interpretations to the character of Frank-N-Furter.
Meanwhile, Manila Luzon’s gave us a spikier interpretation of Frank on this 2011 Next Magazine cover:
PRINCE OF SNARKNESS aka DIVKID
Ok so culturally appropriating TRANSVESTISM is somehow is not at all problematic in the SJW universe? Well that’s interesting ..which is more than can be said about the prospect of this joyless PC-pandering pudding
Chris
Tim Curry, hands down, is the best.
LubbockGayMale
So, Frank is a transexual now, instead of a transvestite? Sorry, but I loved the lower voice range of Curry.
Scribe38
I will actually watch it with an open mind before I comment on the choice for the role.
JamJewel
It’s gonna be like ‘Drag Race’ where they have women playing transvestites, right? A kinda hybrid reality show leads to a hybrid theater piece.
RickjsNZ
So Frank and Dr Scott are ‘people of colour’. Is the whole production a modern equivalent of Wacko Jacko’s “Wiz” or whatever it was called?
Nobody wants to paint a new Sistine Chapel or rewrite Hamlet with a happy ending – the ‘true’ movie was enough, anyway.
OzJosh
Tim Curry – always and forever the best and the sexiest. Laverne Cox looks like a timid dominatrix in a network sitcom.
Billy Budd
The original movie is still unsurpassed and will KEEP being unsurpassed forever.
Dave Downunder
What fresh hell is this?
averageguy40
Some things do not need to be redone. Rocky Horror is one of those. It is iconic perfection the way it is.
IDoNotHaveToAgreeWithYou
You would think a man pretending to be a woman could pull of the role of a man dressed as a woman but clearly not.
JessPH
A woman playing a male transvestite. Ugh. This has failure written all over it.
MacAdvisor
“Fox’s upcoming live musical remake of The Rocky Horror Picture Show”
I suggest Fox is staging a revival of The Rocky Horror Show, not the Picture Show, as it performed live and in order. Though it is being filmed, it is being performed as the stage original, not the film. There were several versions of the Show long before the Picture Show was made and there have been several since. The Picture Show has simply had a wider audience.
Billy Budd: “The original movie is still unsurpassed and will KEEP being unsurpassed forever.”
This isn’t a remake of the movie, it is a performance of the stage show. Are against anyone ever staging this musical again because the movie was so good? I agree the Picture Show is a masterpiece, but musicals made into movies are staged all the time. No one has stopped performing My Fair Lady or The Sound of Music because the movies were good.
Keep trying new things and fresh visions. Some will be worse, some will be better, but they add to our tapestry of life AND keep our brains young.
joeyty
@MacAdvisor: Everything you say there is so right. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Vt9aAADE3A
MacAdvisor
@joeyty: WOW! That was simply great, Joeyty. Riff had a great voice and I loved the staging. Looked like Rocky Horror Show done as spectacular opera. Wish I could have seen it.
joeyty
@MacAdvisor: I agree. Isn’t that a good version (of that scene, anyway)? And in Germany, which shows how international the play has gone. And it further makes your point.
Mr. David James
@LubbockGayMale: @MacAdvisor: I’d love for that to be true but everything they’ve released, which isn’t much, has indicated that this isn’t just another RHS staging. The intellectual property is derived from the movie not the play which is why O’Brien has no involvement and is receiving no royalties. The BBC just did a great revival of RHS and this is titled RHPS. If only they were staging this as a TV broadcast of the play things would be better, though with a male playing Frank please.
Mr. David James
@RickjsNZ: Magenta is “of colour” also which means we’ll have two familial relationships, brother/sister & nephew/uncle, of different races. Which isn’t impossible nor is anything wrong with it, but we see how well that worked out for “Fant4stic Four”. 😉
Mr. David James
@LubbockGayMale: I’ve only heard Laverne sing on YouTube and believe me, it wasn’t high or low, just painful.
Tait47
You can’t improve on the best. Tim Curry & gang were the best hands down.
scotty
in just 7 days, bitches….