“You’re Erin Fogel? Wow.”
“I get that a lot,” says the actress who steals scenes from star Katherine Heigl in 27 Dresses.
Hold on, her first film credit hasn’t gone to her head already.
“It’s funny, but kids who knew me at Marlboro High School—I was Class of 2000—never recognize me today,” Fogel says with a laugh. “There was a lot of black back then—clothes, hair, fingernails, you name it.”
Dresses, the ultimate always-a-bridesmaid romantic comedy, features Fogel, 27, in a small role as Shari Rabinowitz, half of a Jewish-Indian couple. “It was an incredible experience working with Katie,” she says.
“We had a blast.”
The bubbly Fogel didn’t enjoy Marlboro and Howell high schools, but credits Janet Spahr with helping her.
“She was my English and theater teacher. She got me into the performing-arts program at Howell. She gave me my first role and the Rising Star Award my senior year. That award hangs in my apartment today.” That first role? “Abigail in The Crucible. “That’ll lead anyone to comedy.”
After graduating from Hofstra University, Fogel hit the boards in New York. But a funny thing happened when she got the Dresses role.
“I’d been doing stage work—off-off Broadway stuff in front of 20 people, rats in the dressing room. I loved it,” she says. “I figured that I’d never need to do anything else. But then I got in front of the camera and I never felt more at home.
“I brought about 30 people to the New York screening,” she says sheepishly. “My parents, Jeri and Glen, My sister, Carly, and anyone else who saw me do one line of dialogue in fifth grade. It was all a blur. The one thing that does stick in my mind is thinking, ‘Man, my hair is big.’”
Recognized by Hollywood Life as a “breakthrough” performer, Fogel just wrapped another film, Homeward Bound.
“I play a really robotic character. Now that was a challenge.”