Walking into the Four Seasons to meet with Jerry Zucker I am a little intimidated. This is a man who has had a hand in some of my all-time favorite films, Ghost, Airplane, My Best Friends Wedding--just to name a few. The room they have prepared for our interview doesn't help matters. It makes me want to enjoy a six course meal with some champagne rather than turn on my tape recorder and begin an interview, but my intimidation slowly fades when Zucker says "I feel like we should be preparing a treaty," as he starts in on the loose nuts they have put on the table for us. "You don't mind?" he asks, not all I reply grabbing a few myself.
Jerry Zucker does comedy with style. He's been delighting audiences with his slapstick humor since Airplane in 1980. Since then he's been a switch hitter in the film industry, doing more comedy and then trying his luck with drama. In his return to slapstick with Rat Race, coming to theatres this Thursday, Zucker does ensemble comedy better than it was done in the old days.
In between eating nuts, across the large mahogany table, Zucker, one of the most inquisitive people I have ever encountered, ends up interviewing me just as much as I am interviewing him.
Street: Is Rat Race based on the older ensemble comedies like Cannon Ball Run?
Jerry Zucker: It was funny, I loved the script but I was never a huge fan of those older ensemble comedies. They were fun and I liked them, but it wasn't as though I was dying to remake any of those films or to emulate them for that matter because I felt that the problem with those movies was that you were just giving a lot of comedians an opportunity to do schtick and you didn't really have a story that worked or even some good invention or plot, just a wild situation.What I liked about Andy's [Breckman] script was that he really took the time and gave every character a reason to exist,--a thing, a personality and I thought the situations and personalities were really funny. And the script itself was really inventive.
You could imagine, even though it might have trouble at the box office, that it would work with unknowns as long as they were really funny, whereas with the old movies it only worked because they were these celebrities you wanted to see do schtick.
S: Which is your favorite chase ensemble scene in the movie?
JZ: I don't know, whichever one the audience is laughing at at that moment. I like the stunts--every one of them. One of the things that appealed to me about this movie was all of the physical comedy. I'm really proud of the balloon sequence actually because Andy and I took a lot of time to plan every bit of it out and the production people and the effects guys were very clever about working out the logistics of it. I always really crack up at Jon Lovitz in front of the veterans. The way he does that really makes me laugh.
S: How did you think die-hard Mr. Bean fans will react to Rowan Atkinson in a speaking role?
JZ: That's right. Hopefully they'll love it unless they think that Rowan should only play Mr. Bean.
S: Which some people might.
JZ: Yeah some people might. It's a bit unfair. Were people outraged when Sean Connery took on roles other than James Bond? But I hope people will be delighted because even though he talks, he still plays that very kind of outlandish character so I would think that Rowan Atkindon fans should be very happy with his role.
My cell phone rings and I am absolutely mortified since I was sure I had turned it off. "Answer it," Zucker encourages me. I apologize for the interruption and say no, its my dad and he'll probably call back in a little while anyway. From there Zucker launches into all sorts of questions about my family, my background and how often I talk to my parents etc. Ten minutes later we return to the interview.
S: So, this is kind of a return to slapstick for you. How is the switchover from comedy to drama and then back to comedy?
JZ:Well first of all I like it. I enjoy doing something different. It keeps me fresh. Although I've done a lot of comedy, this is a very different kind of comedy than what I have done previously. I think you approach every script on its own and in the end you're still standing behind the camera thinking: "Is this working?" Only in drama you're saying "Does this feel dramatic?" "Is this making me cry?" And in comedy you're saying "Does this make me laugh?" "Is this funny?" So you're still dealing with the same stuff.
S: What went into choosing an ensemble cast that would work independently of one another yet still create cohesive comedy?
JZ: I think a lot of it is luck. I think a lot of it is just picking actors that are really right for their roles and not just selecting people that you would think would be the really funny comedians you always wanted to work with. I think the reason they're cohesive as they worked together is because they are right for their parts and the script was written in such a way that they had to be cohesive and you know what helped in a way--that the actors are all really nice and I think that shows on the screen--you like these people, they're nice people.
S: Did the actors playing the role shape the charactors at all?
JZ: Definitely. Once you cast it, it really changes your image of what the character is. At some point Wayne Cody becomes Seth Green. The joke works as you imagined but the character is now Seth and it is very different than if some other character had acted it.
S: Stock question:What do you think is harder to do: drama or comedy?
JZ: I think making a good movie is hard. My hats off to any filmmaker where I can walk into a theatre and say "Boy that worked". I think maybe comedy is more difficult--a little more morphous kind of like a souffl‚. Drama, if you have a great story you can be a little weak sometimes in your execution but you're still engrossed if you believe the characters. But a comedy if its not funny its not gonna work and it doesn't matter if its a great story or great situation so it's a little more scary to leave the set.
S:Do you think people are as money hungry as they are made out to be in the movie?
JZ: I don't know, but you have to wonder with Survior and Who Wants to be a Millionaire and stuff like that. I mean yes and no. Hopefully they aren't as desperate as the people in our movie. But I think yeah people will go to extremes for money and we're seeing a lot of that in the reality TV shows.
We stop for a minute to discuss the logistics involved in going into a pit filled with rats. We both agree it wouldn't be humanly possible for either of us.
JZ: Its funny you could almost do a show `What will you do for money?' and try to find the most outrageous things people will do and start seeing how much you have to up the money until someone will say "Ok that's enough!"
S: Were you a big I Love Lucy fan as a kid? (Cuba Gooding Junior spends much of the film on a bus full of I Love Lucy impersonators.)
JZ: No. Well I shouldn't say that. I think Lucille Ball is brilliant and of course I liked the show, but I was a huge Leave it to Beaver fan as a kid. I watched that show all the time, and hence Barbra Billingsly's appearance in Airplane. In the orginal script it was Elvises and I said to Andy, "I just feel like that's been done. Its not as funny. I've seen too much Elvis stuff." And what I wanted to do was a bus full of ventriloquists. We thought it would be funny to see all these guys with dummies, talking to each other and driving Cuba crazy and then Andy saw this photo in the newspaper of three Lucys at one of the conventions--they really do exist. And he thought it would be hysterical to have a bus full of Lucys and I agreed.
S: Stock Question #2:Whats your favorite film that you've done so far?
JZ: Its hard to tell, They all have different memories. Airplane was the first that we directed so that movie was really special and a fun experience. Ghost was the first time I had done something alone and drama,but Rat Race will really hang it there because it was really the most fun I have had making a movie.
I finish the interview and in standard fashion ask Zucker if there is anything else he wants to tell me about the film. He clears his throat, as I anticipate the additional thanks to the great cast and crew speech that I usually get at the end of interviews, but Zucker just asks me more questions.
Before I leave he insists that I take home some more of the infamous nuts, now nearly gone from the table. I concur and take some of the complimentary nuts with me, laughing my way down to the lobby as I look at the little bundle of nuts that I now had to snack on during my subway ride home.
