Marsai Martin (‘The Masked Singer’ Woodpecker) picked ‘Holding Out for a Hero’ because of ‘Shrek 2,’ not ‘Footloose’
Season 12 of “The Masked Singer” continued Wednesday night on FOX, with the Group A finalists belting out classic hits from “The Soundtrack of My Life.” Following the studio audience vote, Woodpecker became the first singer eliminated (and third overall), revealing actress and “Black-ish” star Marsai Martin. Watch our video interview above.
Marsai told Gold Derby she has watched every season with her grandmother, stating, “We love ‘The Masked Singer.’ We’ve watched it since the very beginning. My grandma, she’s a cool grandma. She loves all the amazing reality shows, especially this one. We always were like, ‘What would it be like if you decided to go on this show.’ It’s always something we joked around about, so for it to actually come to fruition in this way was really, really cool.”
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Marsai’s Masked Ambassador this season was her TV grandma, Jenifer Lewis, otherwise known as Season 11’s Miss Cleocatra. While she would have loved to have gotten some advice, Marsai remained tight-lipped about her appearance, but “after Jenifer did her video, of course she knew it was me and we were able to talk about it. That was so much fun to be able to see what her experience was. Getting to feel her energy before going on stage was really cool.”
SEE Yvette Nicole Brown (‘The Masked Singer’ Showbird): The music industry ‘didn’t love me back’ [WATCH]
One of Woodpecker’s standout performances was “Holding Out for a Hero” by Bonnie Tyler on “Footloose Night,” but the 20-year-old admits she was a fan of that song from another movie. “Out of all three songs that was the song that I picked,” she explains. “‘Shrek’ is my favorite movie of all time. ‘Shrek 2’ to be exact. ‘Holding Out for a Hero’ is performed by the amazing Jennifer Saunders. She plays the fairy godmother. That’s my favorite part of the entire movie. ‘Shrek’ was my theme for my 18th birthday party, so I thought that would have been a great hint for people who really knew who I was.”
The actress describes herself as “an old soul” whose favorite musical inspirations land outside of popular music. “I grew up listening to jazz like David Sanborn. I’m also really big on Jill Scott, Erykah Badu, and Marvin Gaye. I grew up on a lot of blues. I’m a very big R&B girlie and I love indie rap, neo soul, I love Tyler the Creator. I’m pretty much like a jukebox.”
While panelists Robin Thicke, Jenny McCarthy Wahlberg, Ken Jeong and Rita Ora were all guessing the wrong celeb hiding in the Woodpecker suit, Marsai admits, “I honestly was just giggling under the mask. I loved how far off they were because I think for the people who did know who I was, it made it even more exciting for the performances to come. I was hoping that they would be stumped. It was hilarious. When Rita said Cardi B I was in tears. I took off my mask after and I was laughing so hard.”
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