Surprising ‘Grease 2’ Facts: Tom Cruise Audition, Missing Jackets, and Michelle Pfeiffer’s Regret
Plus, find out what actress Michelle Pfeiffer really thinks about her work in the film
Go, grease lighting, you’re burning up the sequel mile! Or is it? The 1982 sequel Grease 2 follows Rydell High Pink Lady Stephaine Zione (Michelle Pfeiffer) after she breaks up with her T-Bird boyfriend and then decides to date a clean-cut English foreign exchange student named Michael Carrington (Maxwell Caulfield) — despite it being against the school’s social norm.
Now, over 40 years later, it’s time to find out what really happened between musical numbers like “Score Tonight,” “Cool Rider” and “Love Will Turn Back the Hands of Time,” and which Oscar-nominated actor was almost in the film. Keep scrolling for more.
Tom Cruise tried to be in the film
Before he was jumping out of burning buildings and flying fighter jets, Tom Cruise tried to join the land of T-Birds and Pink Ladies. That’s right. Cruise did audition to be in Grease 2, but that clearly didn’t happen.
The Oscar nominee originally auditioned for the role of Johnny Nogerelli, but the film’s director, Patricia Birch, thought that someone taller and older was better suited for the part, so Adrian Zmed was cast instead.
Only one cast member from the original ‘Grease’ appeared in ‘Grease 2’
Sadly, the film didn’t feature the singing and dancing talents of stars like Olivia Newton-John, John Travolta, Stockard Channing and Jeff Conaway. Still, it did feature Didi Conn — everyone’s favorite beauty school dropout.
Conn reprised her role as Frenchie in the film, but she disappeared halfway through because the actress thought the whole production process was “rushed, frantic, and unorganized.”
Both also had producer Allan Carr work on them, but obviously that;s not the same thing as the cast.
The Pink Ladies didn’t get to keep their leather jacket
After filming wrapped, The Pink ladies sadly didn’t get to keep their iconic pink leather jackets. One Lady in particular — Lorna Luft, who played Paulette — was super upset about it. Years later, though, Luft was gifted a pink leather jacket by someone who bought it during a Paramount studio auction.
We wonder if the T-Birds jacket was taken as well!
Michelle Pfeiffer doesn’t believe she should have been cast in ‘Grease 2’
While she might have given a stellar performance in the film, Michelle Pfeiffer doesn’t necessarily think she should have taken on the lead role in Grease 2.
“It was a total fluke that I got that part,” the actress said in 2019. “My agent told me just to go. I wasn’t a dancer, I wasn’t a singer, and I was in this little short purple skirt with gogo boots. We had these dancing auditions, and it was literally like A Chorus Line. This line goes, and then the next line goes, so I kept sneaking in the back. Finally, it was only me, and I did get the part, shockingly enough.”
‘Grease 2’ didn’t perform nearly as well as the original at the box office
The first Grease film earned $132 million at the box office, while its sequel only brought in $15 million, most likely because films like The Wrath of Khan, Rocky III, Star Trek II and Poltergeist also came out that same weekend. Despite that, the film has still remained a cult classic.
It was rumored that Michelle Pfeiffer hated ‘Grease 2’
Despite playing the film’s titular character — Stephanie — Pfeiffer reportedly hated the film.
In 2007, the actress supposedly said, “I hated that film [Grease 2] with a vengeance and could not believe how bad it was. At the time, I was young and didn’t know better… I hear it’s a cult movie now.”
But Pfeiffer refuted that rumor by saying, “This project is and has always been so special to me and my history. One should never trust a publication to get quotes right if they can’t even bother to spell the person’s name correctly.”
Either way, we love Pfeiffer in this film.
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