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"I wanted to do something positive for women," says Ricki Lake of her new film "The Business of Being Born." (kevin winter/getty images) |
HOLLYWOOD - Ricki Lake recalls it was "trippy" when she did a cameo in the musical version of "Hairspray" and especially "surreal" watching young Nikki Blonsky playing Tracy Turnblad, the role she made famous in John Waters's 1988 classic film.
"Nikki Blonsky was just like me," she says. "She was plucked out of nowhere. Physically there is a sparkle both of us have. But to go on set . . . and here I was 38 - I was old enough to be her mother!"
Lake loves to talk about motherhood. She's a single mom who adores her two young sons. And her first foray as an executive producer, the documentary "The Business of Being Born," was inspired by the successful at-home water birth of her second son in 2001.
"I wanted to do something positive for women," says the now 39-year-old Lake. "I love midwives. It feels like I had this dream but also I wanted to stir up these questions I wanted to ask. I put my credit card down and bought the equipment."
And she teamed up with her friend, director Abby Epstein ("Until the Violence Stops"), to make "Business," which follows several pregnant New York women as they weigh their options to have their baby delivered at a hospital, or at a birth center, or at home with a midwife. Besides home video of Lake's delivery, Epstein captures several of the women giving birth naturally at home.
The film will be available on
Lake's decision to have children with midwives, she says, reflected the first time she had done extensive research and made concrete plans.
"I have always been easygoing," Lake says. "I don't think things through too much. I still don't."
Lake's seat-of-the-pants-approach to life compelled her to audition at age 18 for "Hairspray."
"I went to a local audition in New York," she says. "I don't even remember how I heard about it. Even making the movie, it was like we were all kids learning how to dance. It was when I went to a screening in New York that it dawned on me, 'I am the star of this movie. This might actually affect my life. I may get another job from this.' "
She didn't turn into a Lindsay Lohan or Britney Spears when success hit her at such a young age.
"I felt I was of age," says Lake. "I am really levelheaded. I am exactly who I was 20 and 25 years ago. . . . I know how lucky I am."
Still it hasn't always been easy. At 21, after her option wasn't picked up to continue on the ABC series "China Beach," she lost her house and more than $300,000 that she had earned from acting.
The "Ricki Lake" daytime talk show, another leap of faith which ran from 1993 to 2004, saved her.
At one point, Lake weighed 260 pounds. She is now a size 4.
But her weight loss and the new documentary take a back seat to her sons Milo, 10, and Owen, 6. "Motherhood," she says, "is the greatest thing and the hardest thing."
© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.
