Donny Osmond returns to the big screen after a 30 year absence in College Road Trip, a Disney comedy starring Martin Lawrence and Raven-Symone. Lawrence and Raven-Symone star as an overprotective dad and his 17-year-old daughter who take off on what’s supposed to be an uneventful tour of colleges. Osmond co-stars as an annoyingly cheerful dad they encounter while trying to select just the right college.
It’s only fitting that now Donny Osmond is back in feature films with a co-starring role in a Disney family film. Osmond credits Walt Disney himself with launching the Osmonds’ show business careers. Disney discovered Donny’s older brothers, recommended them to the producers of The Andy Williams Show, and from there their careers took off.
At first hesitant about the part, Osmond was convinced to play the role of Doug Greenhut by director Roger Kumble who claims casting Osmond is his favorite casting decision of his career. “He went out on a limb to cast me in this film because he didn't know what I would bring to it,” said Osmond. “It was such an important role in the film. But as soon as we started talking, he realized I was willing to take it to the limit. This guy who sings terrible show songs or whatever and he said, ‘This could work if you'd be willing to do it.’ I thought, ‘I've got a two week window between tours. We could plug it in. It'll be a nice little - no pun intended - little road trip for me and my youngest son.’ So we went to Connecticut and I made an idiot out of myself.”
The character of Doug is based on what Osmond believes is most people’s perceptions of how he acts, and Osmond enjoyed poking fun at himself. The only part of the whole production that wasn’t enjoyable was his wardrobe. “Argyle! I really used to wear stuff like that. I saw it and said, ‘Oh, there goes my career.’ The problem is I used to wear stuff like that. It used to be in in the ‘70s. It's bad stuff,” laughed Osmond.
As for working with Martin Lawrence, Osmond decided the best way to go about handling their first scene together was to do something totally unexpected. “I'd never worked with Martin before. I didn't know how he'd react, but (I knew) I had to break some ice here,” said Osmond about his decision to shock Lawrence. “How do we start this movie off on the wrong foot? Roger and I talked about it. I said, ‘I want to do this. I want to do this.’ And he said, ‘Go for it.’ So I hugged him, hugged him again, and gave him a kiss on the cheek. The look that [Martin] gave the camera was real. That was a real look.”
Osmond, the father of five sons, got to play dad to a daughter for the first time in College Road Trip. Broadway veteran Molly Ephraim plays Osmond’s daughter Wendy in the film and although the two didn’t have much time to rehearse, Osmond says they quickly fell into sync. “Obviously she's got more energy than I do,” explained Osmond. “When we first sat down in my trailer the first day of filming and we started reading lines together, we started cracking up. We looked at each other and said, ‘Hey, there's some magic here. What if we did this? What if we did that?’ And Roger came into the trailer and he's grinning ear to ear and he said, ‘This is exactly what I envisioned.’”
Osmond admits he’d be willing to do the acting thing again, if the right opportunity arose. “I think so. The danger, I think, lies in the fact that once you're involved in a project like this and for all intents and purposes, it is a cameo, I can't expect to say, ‘Okay, now I'm an actor. Just throw me all kinds of scripts.’ That's a very dangerous place to be. I see a lot of people make mistakes that way,” said Osmond.
One thing Osmond’s sure will be taking up a large portion of his time is his show in Vegas which reunites him onstage with his sister, Marie. “I think, not to give away the show, but you know that Dancing with the Stars is going to be a big part of it,” revealed Osmond. “Marie and I have such a competitiveness against each other anyway. We all know that I'm a better dancer anyway, I think there’s got to be an element where that happens. She said, ‘I'm a better dancer because I was on Dancing with the Stars. I turned to her and said, ‘Yeah, you didn't win,’ stuff like that. I'd love to end the show with a huge dance production number. We've got enough Cirque du Soleil shows in Vegas. We grew up in Old Vegas where Frank Sinatra, Andy Williams, Diana Ross - that's what I grew up with. Take that side of Vegas with the big production and marry the two, that's the kind of show I'd love to see.”
“It's been 30 years since Marie and I've done a long stint in Vegas so I just don't know,” said Osmond. “I'm sure the magic will be there. I think the biggest danger we face is trying to recreate the Donny & Marie Show of the ‘70s. It's nice to touch upon it - a little nostalgia. But you've got to see Donny & Marie in 2008.”
