Stars and bars

"That was just brilliant," says the 27-year-old Aussie. "I was there in front of 110,000 people doing a tap dance. It was a brilliant night. I thought it was a really cool opening."

All very different to appearing in London's West End in the stage version of Saturday Night Fever as disco-dancing Tony Manero, the role John Travolta created on screen. And different again from his biggest movie role to date in Coyote Ugly, which centres on a New York nightclub/bar where the atmosphere is rowdy and barmaids dance on the bar.

Garcia found himself in the spotlight when a striptease routine, not in the original script, was put into the movie. "It was the girls getting their own back. As they were standing on the bar cavorting a lot, they thought they'd put me on the bar," he recalls. "But it was good fun. I got to improvise mainly and muck around, rub my nipples a few times. I don't think I'll be stripping again though."

Garcia stars in Coyote Ugly alongside screen newcomer Piper Perabo, who's cast as a would-be songwriter who goes to the big city in search of fame and winds up behind the bar. The character's story has parallels with her own. "Like her, I'm from New Jersey and then moved to New York and worked in a bar. The train she takes home is the same one I took home," says Perabo.

Her first job in the big city was as a cocktail waitress. "I was bad because I'm really clumsy," she says. "You had to wear heels and go upstairs with trays of stuff. It was a narrow slippery staircase. I was always falling over."

Garcia can relate to his character Kevin "because he's a drifter and that's pretty much me - not all that ambitious, just see where fate takes me and take whatever's thrown at me".

As a struggling actor, he worked in bars although his willingness to do virtually anything was tested in one Soho establishment. "I got kicked out because I wouldn't wear just underpants," he recalls. "It was a gay bar and on pink weekend they said, 'would you just wear underpants? And I said, 'no'. Another time I worked as breakfast manager in a bar. There was just me and the chef. There were outside tables and because they were doing roadworks the whole summer we had no patrons for two-and-a-half months. So we just sat there and drank."

The Sydney-born performer began dancing while still at primary school and later, having rejected university for auditions, landed a role in the Australian production of Hot Shoe Shuffle, coming to this country with that show.

Winning the leading role in Saturday Night Fever confirmed him as a talent to watch and saw Hollywood come calling. Since Coyote Ugly, he's co-starred opposite Drew Barrymore in another movie Riding In Cars With Boys and returned down under for a starring role in the film Bootmen, for Tap Dogs' founder Dein Perry.

"I'm pretty much an unknown in Australia. Until this year, I hadn't been there in about six years. I would love to be involved in more Australian films. I'd like to go back and do some in Sydney - so I can go surfing as well," says Garcia.

Although he started out as a dancer, he aims to pursue roles as both an actor and dancer. When the two are combined, as in Saturday Night Fever, so much the better - "you don't turn down doing Tony Manero at the London Palladium".

Surprisingly, he was allowed to retain his Aussie accent as Kevin in Coyote Ugly although it did cause a few problems on set. "Australians speak very quickly and for the first couple of days they had to stop me and ask if I was saying the lines as they couldn't understand what I was saying. So I had to change my accent slightly," he explains.

Perabo, on the other hand, lost her voice in the finished film as her singing was dubbed by Grammy Award-winner Leann Rimes, who also makes a guest appearance as herself in the movie.

"When we were shooting the film I was actually singing. They only decided when we'd finished filming to use Leann Rimes. So she had the difficult job of fitting her voice in," she says.

COMPETITION

THANKS to distributors Buena Vista, we have Coyote Ugly goodies - black and red mini fashion bowling bags, sleeveless T-shirts, leather belts and chokers - for six winners of our competition. To enter, name the West End show in which Adam Garcia starred as Tony Manero. Send your answer on a postcard or back of a sealed envelope to Coyote Ugly competition, Features Dept, The Northern Echo, Priestgate, Darlington DL1 1NF. Closing date is next Tuesday, October 24.

Coyote Ugly (12) opens in cinemas today.