By Deborah Hope and Sally Jackson
NIKKI Webster became one of the most watched faces in the world last night as Hero Girl, the biggest non-sporting star of the Olympic ceremony extravaganza.
The 13-year-old Sydney schoolgirl and aspiring actor had the most demanding role of any of the 12, 500 performers in the hour-long cultural segment, not only having to act, sing and dance, but also to fly 30m into the air in front of 118, 000 enthralled spectators as well as an estimated television audience of about 3.7 billion.
Like all the other performers, Nikki had to sign a confidentiality agreement that meant even her parents, Tina and Mark, did not know the full extent of her role until they were able to see it last night.
Opening ceremony artistic director David Atkins said the little girl’s journey, which was used to link all seven sequences of the creative segment, was what held the story together.
“Whether it’s the Hero Girl materialising out of a waratah, feeding the Kelly Horse or interfacing with Djakapurra, she and Djakapurra are the links,” he said. “All the pieces form a story about who we are and what we feel.”
Nikki was chosen for the key role from a field of about 500 hopefuls, which was later culled to 20 girls aged eight to 13, then cut again to three finalists after the contenders were put through their paces in the safety harness.
“Flying at the stadium for the first time was amazing,” she said in an interview with The Australian embargoed until today.
“The flying is a bit demanding. There’s lots of practice, especially to stay straight. They took us up very high and we did some swimming strokes.
“Then I had to sing… Then (directors David Atkins and Meryl Tankard) came in to hear me and I sang it again.”
According to Atkins and Tankard, the creative director if the cultural segment, Nikki also had to make it through some pretty forceful lobbying on behalf of her rivals.
“It was frightful,” Atkins said.
“There were pushy mothers telling their daughters, ‘You will sing this song’.”
Added Tankard: “There were mothers on the phone insisting their daughter wasn’t picked because she has black hair and threatening to ‘call the papers’.”
Nikki’s big voice and considerable stage presence, however, made her a natural.
She even had previous “flying” experience from TV commercials.
Despite her youth, the McDonald College of the Arts student is also a showbiz veteran who, according to her agent, started in the entertainment business when she was just five years old.
Her credits include a role as a “featured extra” in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and spots on soap operas GP and Home and Away.
Her long list of advertising credits includes TV commercials for Twisties, Campbell’s soup, Sultana Bran, Codral, Lays chips and Australian Toaster biscuits.
She performed a duet with Michael Jackson at the Sydney Football Stadium during his 1997 HIStory tour and has appeared in Les Miserables as the young Cosette and this year’s The Sound of Music as Brigitta.
In November, she will take to the stage again, playing an orphan in a revival of the musical Annie, and already this year she has been having talks with recording company Sony BMG.
Nikki, an unaffected teenager, who also loved horse riding, roast dinners, the movies and pop groups, hopes that even “bigger and better things” will come out of her international exposure at the Olympics. Inevitably, she is already being dubbed Australia’s “next Kylie Minogue” and, with her long curly hair, big brown eyes and petite frame, the physical resemblance is strong.
Maybe too strong to be just a coincidence – some newspapers have reported that Minogue will appear in the closing ceremony as an adult version of Hero Girl.
Nikki already knows some of the downsides of fame – she had to spend her entire time as Hero Girl wearing just a thin pink sundress despite the chilly night air.
Ever the professional, however, she said she did not even feel the cold.
“I’m not thinking about the weather,” she said before her performance. “I’m worrying about the performance.”
Source: theaustralian.com.au