Watch: Girls' Generation's Tiffany Recalls Failing An Audition On The Spot During "Twinkle" Era + Performs Song From Her Musical "Chicago"

Mar 06, 2021

Girls’ Generation’s Tiffany talked about the ups and downs of her career in musicals on JTBC’s “Ask Us Anything”!

On the latest episode of the hit variety show, Tiffany made a guest appearance to promote her upcoming musical “Chicago.” The Girls’ Generation member mentioned that she had returned to Korea specifically to audition for the starring role of Roxie Hart, which had always been one of her dream roles.

Tiffany proudly declared, “I beat 200-to-1 odds to be cast in the musical. So I’m returning as Roxie Hart.”

She went on to reveal the lengths to which she’d gone to get into character before her audition, recalling that her bandmate Sooyoung had actually worried she was going too far.

“To prepare for my audition, I really lived life in the spirit of Roxie,” explained Tiffany. “Every day, I put on red lipstick and drew myself a beauty mark, and I would wear fishnet stockings and say to myself, ‘I’m Roxie.’ I got so into it that Sooyoung told me, ‘It’s time to stop.'”

“Then, [after the audition], I didn’t hear from the producers for an entire month,” she continued. “I waited and waited, and I finally thought, ‘Should I go back [to the United States]?’ I had come to Korea with the same mindset that I had back in middle school, when I came to audition for SM while dreaming of becoming a K-pop star. But just when I was preparing to return home, thinking, ‘I guess things didn’t work out this time,’ I received the approval of both the Korean ‘Chicago’ team and the Broadway team, so I got the role of Roxie Hart.”

Tiffany then shared the story of a far less successful musical audition from nearly a decade ago, back when she was still promoting “Twinkle” with her Girls’ Generation sub-unit TaeTiSeo.

“There was one audition I went to back when I was promoting the song ‘Twinkle,'” recalled Tiffany. “I showed up at the audition with my full ‘Tiffany’ hair, makeup, and styling from our TaeTiSeo performance. And after the audition, they told me right away, ‘It’s not going to work out.'”

She went on to explain, “The musical was ‘Les Misérables,’ and I needed to portray the sad character of Eponine, who is struggling in the rain after getting her heart broken.’ But instead, I shouted [cheerfully], ‘Hello! I’ll try singing a song!’ I also didn’t know that the proper etiquette was to prepare a song that’s somewhat similar to the character. So, because my life goal is to become a Disney princess, I sang a Disney princess song for the audition.”

“You know how they usually say afterwards, ‘Okay, we’ll be in touch’?” continued Tiffany. “But as soon as I finished singing my Disney princess song, they told me on the spot, ‘We enjoyed hearing your song. I don’t think it’s going to work out.'”

“Now that I have more experience,” she added, “if I were to audition for that role again, I’d be willing to start starving today [to get into the role of Eponine].”

Tiffany then gave viewers a sneak peek of her starring turn in “Chicago” by performing the iconic song “Roxie,” except with the lyrics edited specially for “Ask Us Anything.”

Check out the clip of her performance below!