Olympic Star to Silver Screen

By Stephen M. Silverman

07/20/1998 at 12:00 AM EDT

Nikki Webster, the flying 13-year-old Australian who performed during the opening and closing ceremonies at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, has picked up a movie role. Australia's Daily Telegraph reports that she'll star in the film "Vanilla Gorilla," the story of a captive albino gorilla that learns sign language and teaches it to a young girl (played by Webster). The director is said to be Randal Kleiser ("Grease," "The Blue Lagoon"). The movie offer reportedly came immediately after NBC broadcast the opening ceremony in the United States, Webster's manager, Lisa Hamilton, told the paper. The curly haired girl with the booming vocal pipes (she's appeared in Aussie versions of "Les Miserables" and "The Sound of Music") was then sent the script, and she "read it and she absolutely loved it," said Hamilton. Shooting is scheduled to begin in South Africa in February.