My worst moment: ‘Younger’ star Sutton Foster was fired from supporting role in national tour of ‘Grease’ only to be suddenly rehired as the star

Few actors are as delightful on stage and screen as Sutton Foster, who stars in the TV series “Younger” now in its seventh and final season.

The show’s original premise: A recently divorced 40-something hopes to reenter the workforce but finds that her age and the sizable gap on her resume — when she was a stay-at-home mom — has left her undesirable to employers. So she passes herself off as millennial and gets hired at a book publisher. Over the years, little by little, her colleagues have learned the truth, and “this is the season where the lie is not part of the storyline,” said Foster. “Well, let me rephrase that: This is the season where her lie ultimately catches up with her and there is a cost. But I do feel like this is her season where she’s living her most authentic self.”

Before “Younger,” Foster also starred on the Amy Sherman-Palladino series “Bunheads,” and before that she was known for her work on Broadway. She’s a two-time lead actress Tony winner for the musicals “Thoroughly Modern Millie” (in 2002) and “Anything Goes” (2011).

When asked about a worst moment in her career, she replied: “I can talk about being fired. It was very early in my career, people don’t know this story.” It was her first professional job in the theater.

—My worst moment …

“I was 19 years old and I was in the national tour of ‘Grease.’ So it was 1995. I was cast in the ensemble and I was also an understudy for Marty, Sandy and Rizzo — which is hilarious, because let’s get real, I’m not a Rizzo, I’m a Sandy. And at the time, I was very virginal, very green, very naive. I was the goody-two-shoes. I had no business being a Pink Lady.

“Marty was sort of the sexy one and in the musical she sings a song called ‘Freddy My Love.’ And about six months into the run, they asked me to play the role of Marty. I was being bumped up.

“I can immediately put myself back there: I could sing it, but I was awkward. I wasn’t sexy or tough. I wasn’t seasoned. I was also a young 19. I wasn’t an experienced lady. I was eager and innocent. So even as I was doing it, I was kind of playing at it, I guess. It was almost as if I was wearing my mom’s dress-up clothes.

“I could sort of sense that this isn’t what they wanted. I was getting a lot of notes. I think I was even called in for a rehearsal. It was very clear that it wasn’t working. So that was probably after the first week. And after the third week, I was called to the stage manager’s office, which is like being called to the principal’s office. And they basically said: ‘This isn’t working and we’re letting you go.’

“You have to understand, before ‘Grease,’ I had dropped out of college and was living at home with my parents and working at the Macaroni Grill in Memphis. And my mom was basically like, ‘What are you doing with your life?’ She had read in Backstage magazine that there was an open call for the touring production of ‘Grease’ in New York. At the time, my brother was in the Broadway production of ‘Grease.’ So my mom was like, ‘You should go and visit Hunter and then you can also audition for the tour.’

“And being on that tour kind of saved me, because I had been completely lost. And then six months into the tour I get the opportunity to play a lead! So then to be fired, I was like, now what? Am I moving back home?

“I was humiliated and embarrassed and I felt like I was screwed. It was devastating. I think I could have gotten my old role back in the ensemble, but even that would have been too humiliating because you’re going backward. So I was getting ready to go home.

“Then something even crazier happened. The next day the stage manager calls and says the woman who had been playing Sandy was sick and would I do them a favor and play Sandy that night? I guess the other understudy was on vacation. So I was like, ‘OK.’ I wasn’t excited; I felt a bit whipped around, to be honest. But I played Sandy that night.

“And the original actress ended up being out for the rest of the week, so I just continued to play Sandy. And then the next week she was still out and they were like, ‘Sutton, will you keep playing Sandy?’ And she just never came back. So I kept playing Sandy, week to week, on these little temporary contracts. It was so weird. And then eventually, after three months of that, they finally ended up giving me the role of Sandy.

“You know, one of my claims to fame is that I was the understudy in ‘Thoroughly Modern Millie’ and then the lead dropped out very early in the process and I ended up taking over the role. But little do people know that this happened before that, when I was 19 in ‘Grease.’

“It’s a story no one knows, except the people I was on the tour with.”

—That’s a hilarious irony to be fired from a smaller role, only to be asked back to play the lead.

“I know (laughs)! But I think if I had let my ego get involved in any way I would have been like, ‘I’m outta here!’ and moved home with my parents. So yeah, I was literally fired and rehired; I was fired on a Thursday and rehired on a Friday. I mean think about it: Oh shoot, we just fired her, is she on the plane yet? Someone needs to ask her to come back. That’s showbiz.

“It makes me really sad to think about it, but I just felt really alone. I don’t really remember commiserating with anyone. When I took over for Sandy, I was just doing it show to show. I had no sense of security. It all worked out in the end, but as it was happening I just felt like I was being strung along, day to day, show to show. Were they looking for somebody better? Probably (laughs). Who knows. It was totally messed up. But I kept playing Sandy. And I was Sandy when the tour came to Chicago.”

—The takeaway …

“I look back at that 19-year-old girl and I’m very proud of her. I’m proud that I didn’t let it deter me or stop me in my tracks. I feel like even though I was so young and naive and dumb in many ways, there was a resilience in her. I could have easily been defeated or given up or run away. And yet I kept going. It was humbling, but I’m proud that I kept going.

“I don’t talk about this story a lot. It’s not one of my prouder moments. But talking about it with you I’m like, maybe it was more of a defining career moment than I give it credit for because as I’ve navigated my career going forward because now when I’ve played characters and they didn’t come naturally to me, I’ve asked for help.

“Like when I was first playing Reno Sweeney (her Tony-winner performance in ‘Anything Goes’), who is so bold and brazen and confident, and I didn’t know how to inhabit her. So there was a little bit of that flashback to my experience playing Marty and being fired (laughs)! But I realized I needed help and it was OK to ask for that. So that experience in ‘Grease’ informed Reno in an odd way; it took me a while to find that character and that process was, oddly, directly connected to Marty. Isn’t that interesting?”

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