"Hairspray" stars, on their roles:

John Travolta, who plays Edna Turnblad, on seeing himself as a woman:

"When I came out, I didn't recognize me at all. ... Her body's like Elizabeth Taylor gone-to-flesh, meaning I wanted the obvious to be appealing, because film is different than stage. You can dress a guy on stage and you can do that joke where they're like a refrigerator. But I don't think that works as well at this level. I think you had to be watchable."

Michelle Pfeiffer on what motivates her to take a role:

"I did not know what to do with Velma, and it scared me on the page. I just thought she was just so awful all the time and that's all she is. But (director) Adam (Shankman), hearing his vision and hearing how he wanted to modulate it and where he wanted to go ... yes, she's evil. She's bad. She's bad to the bone. And she has to be. And that's my job. But we want to find the humanity there."

Queen Latifah on the inspiration for her performance as Motormouth Maybelle:

"I tried to use some of the rap rhythm that I have in the repertoire. This character usually speaks in rhymes. And although that was changed for the film, we still wanted to keep a little bit of that rhythm. But a lot of her is based on my mom, who was a high school teacher and was one of those teachers that was really cool with the kids."

Amanda Bynes on how different the role of Penny Pingleton is than anything she has done:

"I talked to (Shankman) about the fact that it was the most pulled-back I've ever been in a movie because I've been a man in one and I've done Nickelodeon, where I've been many characters; very goofy. So, for this movie, I had to sort of pull back and be kind of quiet and sort of be the observer, which was actually kind of fun for me, and different. This was the type of movie I want to be in ... a movie with the heavy hitters and the veterans who I hope to, one day, be like."