Brittany Snow may look like just another attractive blonde turned overnight success, but she’s a seasoned show business veteran. Born in 1986, she began her career at three with a baby products ad for Burdines department store. Commercials, local musical theater, and a pair of episodes of the 1994’s short-lived “Seaquest 2032” followed. A few years later, Brittany had another role in a more prestigious context – the Tom Hanks-produced HBO miniseries, “From the Earth to the Moon.”
Soon after, 12-year-old Brittany got her first really significant break with a regular role on the CBS soap “Guiding Light.” Determined to keep her grounded while working in TV Land, her parents decided to keep their Tampa, Florida home – even though it meant weekly plane trips to New York and maintaining an extra apartment in Manhattan. Brittany managed to be a straight-A student while also pursuing an interest in dance. But all that intensity had its downside. Brittany was lonely and developing the start of a serious eating disorder that would plague her for several years. Still, her career chugged forward.
By 2002, it was time for more grown-up roles, and Brittany snagged the lead role in NBC’s “American Dreams,” an ambitious TV drama built around Dick Clark’s “American Bandstand” that attempted to mix social history with pop music. By 2005, the show had been cancelled and Brittany moved on with her first feature film role in the critically savaged Vin Diesel comedy, “The Pacifier.” That same year also saw Brittany’s first foray intro truly edgy terrain with a five-episode role as a neo-Nazi high schooler on FX’s sex-and-weirdness crazed “Nip/Tuck.” 2005 was also the year that Brittany, who had progressed to cutting herself, finally sought treatment for her depression and eating disorders.
Her life apparently back on track, Brittany nabbed a featured role alongside Ashanti and Sophia Bush in the 2006 youth revenge comedy “John Tucker Must Die,” where she managed to get better reviews than the film as a whole. In 2007, “Pacifier” director Adam Shankman picked her to return to the world of 1960s dance programs, this time in “Hairspray” as the profoundly spoiled Amber Von Tussle. With a featured singing and dancing role in a megahit alongside such (very) grown-up superstars as Michelle Pfeiffer, Christopher Walken, and John Travolta, Brittany seems to be on the path to a really solid career. And, now that she’s publicly discussing her emotional and weight-related issues, we can hope that she’s happy as well.
Brittany Snow on the Screen
Brittany’s first starring feature-film role wasn’t technically “onscreen” at all. She dubbed the lead voice in the English-language version of “Whisper of the Heart,” an ultra-innocent children’s anime from Hayao Miyazaki (“Spirited Away”). Within ten years, she was wearing black eyeliner, spouting hate speech, and having threesomes on “Nip/Tuck.” (Good friend Sophia Bush gave her tips on how to do sex scenes.) And that is why we love Hollywood.
Brittany Says
The Dancing B. Snow:
“I grew up doing all that stuff because I was obsessed with the ’50s. I had sock hops for birthday parties. So I’ve always done The Twist and stuff. It was pretty natural and, with my parents doing it all the time, I’d just copy them. Not very pretty.”
The Not Really Dangerous B. Snow:
“I mean, I’m pretty good in real life, but sometimes people seem surprised that I’m like a normal teenager and wear black nail polish and I’m just a little bit more edgy than the person I play on television.”
The Actually Dangerous B. Snow:
“I never thought I was going to be able to drive. The first time I even went out and started driving, I hit a bus with my driver’s ed coach.”