Another personal phone call I made was to Anne Hathaway, whose career had skyrocketed after our time together on The Princess Diaries 1 and 2. Anne wanted to meet about the script because in the first draft her character was not as well-defined as some of the others. This is often the problem with ensemble scripts. Some of the characters are better-written than others. Anne and I met at Spago. She recalled that the first time we met when she wasn’t even twenty years old I had taken her to the Lakeside Country Club, but now Spago was much more show business, and more her style, too.
During our lunch we decided that her character’s secret would be that she moonlighted as a phone sex girl. Anne suggested that she do the calls with different accents, and I liked that idea. Anne always comes up with great details to further develop characters. A more difficult decision was what male to cast as her costar.
She’d had to kiss more than six actors before we chose Chris Pine for The Princess Diaries 2. I didn’t want her to have to go through all that random kissing again, so I cut to the chase for Valentine’s Day. “So in this picture who do you want to kiss?” I asked.
Anne came up with an inspired choice: Topher Grace, who had starred in That ’70s Show. Anne said she had once had a crush on him and she thought he would be good for the part. I met with Topher and thought he made a nice match with Anne, too. After Anne said yes, we also got Academy Award winner Jamie Foxx. I had never met Jamie, so I came right out and asked him how he preferred to be directed. He said that he had done a lot of jobs, including acting, singing, and playing the piano in rich people’s houses. But he said in his heart he was, and always would be, a stand-up comic. So I treated him like all the other comics I had met while I was working my way up through the nightclubs of New York. He didn’t need a lot of preparation or direction; he just needed me to say “action.”
Another actor I met for the first time on Valentine’s Day was Ashton Kutcher. Our producers arranged for me to talk to him while he was in France.
“Thank you, Ashton, for calling from France,” I said.
“France?” he asked.
“Yes. Paris, I assume?” I said.
“I’m not in France,” he said. “I’m on Highland Avenue in Hollywood.”
“Really?” I replied. “My office is nearby. Let’s meet in person.”
We hung up the phone and met nearby. That’s typical show business logistics.
There are some actors you just click with immediately, and that’s the way I felt with Ashton and his costar in the film, George Lopez. The two worked as colleagues in a flower shop owned by Ashton’s character. The shop was called Siena Bouquet, after my granddaughter Siena LaGambina, which made her father, Doug, laugh. The scenes with Ashton and George were easy to direct because there was natural rapport between them. It was a relief for me as a director that working with them came so easily. The rest of the time I was introducing myself to a new and different actor every other day.
In Valentine’s Day we also had a senior romantic story line, and for it we cast Academy Award winner Shirley MacLaine and, of course, Hector Elizondo. For many years I have been carrying around a script I wrote called Time Step, which is the story of my mother’s life. I have always thought that Shirley MacLaine would be perfect to star in the movie. We were never able to make a deal and get a studio interested, but I still carry around the script. So I looked forward to working with her in Valentine’s Day. Directing Shirley is a unique experience. She operates on a more spiritual level than most people. One day I got a call from the studio to say that Shirley wasn’t happy with her paycheck. I called her up and said, “What’s wrong? You don’t like your deal?” And she said, “Those are not lucky numbers for me. The money is fine. I just need the numbers at the end of the check to be 131.” It wasn’t about financial compensation but about lucky numbers. We changed the numbers and Shirley was happy.
Shirley also loved working with Hector, as do most actresses because he is such a generous acting partner. One night we shot until 4:00 A.M. in a cemetery in Hollywood that projects movies on a big screen. As we were walking through the cemetery rehearsing the scene, Shirley suddenly turned to me and said, “Is there anyone you want me to contact?” gesturing at the rows of grave sites. “I don’t think so,” I said. “They all look pretty busy.” You never know what Shirley is going to say next.
In one scene Shirley had to confess to her husband that she had had an affair. The scene was stalled because Shirley was having trouble with her motivation. Why would a woman confess such a thing on Valentine’s Day? Hector agreed with Shirley, but I didn’t have an answer for either of them. Shirley was a pro, however, and found her way through the scene. Several days later Hector called me up and said he had a reason for us: He said the wife confessed because the couple was going to renew their vows. She felt compelled to confess so she could celebrate her vows with a clear heart and conscience. Shirley and I liked that reasoning. We didn’t have money to do a re-shoot, so instead we added some voice-over material that explained their plans to renew their vows. Shirley, Hector, and I were all happy with the way the story line turned out. Hector’s perseverance is another reason I value his friendship so much.
Sometimes you meet an actor on a movie that you just know you are going to be lifelong friends with. As with Hector Elizondo and Julia Roberts, I knew it when I met Jennifer Garner on Valentine’s Day. I knew her work and had read about her marriage to Ben Affleck, but I had never met her in person. She was beautiful, but you could tell that inside she was a regular girl from West Virginia, where she was raised. She became one of my closest friends on the set. We talked a lot about marriage, kids, and divorce. There was nothing fake or pretentious about her. The first day we met she blurted out, “Garry, look at my boobs! I’m still breast-feeding, so you probably don’t want me to take my clothes off in the movie.”
Jennifer has told me many funny stories, including one about her daughter Violet. Since birth her daughter knew her only as Jennifer Affleck, which is Violet’s last name. One day Violet came home from a playdate and said to her mom, “My friend said there is a girl named Jennifer Garner living here with us. Do you know her?” She said, “My name is Jennifer Garner when I act. That’s me.” She said when Violet was very small she thought Jennifer worked in a trailer because she spent so much time in the makeup trailer on the set!
In Valentine’s Day Jennifer was cast as a woman who was unknowingly having an affair with a married man. She had to play a sweet and likable schoolteacher who eventually falls in love with her best friend and owner of the flower shop, Ashton Kutcher. When Jennifer started the movie she was indeed still breast-feeding her newest daughter, Seraphina, so we had to take breaks for breast pumping. Sometimes the baby would visit the set, too. We just decided from the get-go to make room and time for the baby. I know some directors who take themselves too seriously and would find a baby on the set a problem. But I love babies on the set and wish there were more of them. Jennifer is one of the most likable actresses I have ever worked with. In my mind she is the female version of Kurt Russell. She is a movie star but also a regular girl and a team player.
To play opposite Julia, we cast Bradley Cooper. I thought I had never met him before either, until I remembered that Julia introduced us. I went to see them when they were starring in a Broadway production of Three Days of Rain. Julia and Bradley got along very well on the set of Valentine’s Day, and I even made reference to their play in the movie. I had a voice-over in which the pilot of the plane they were flying in said they would be landing in Los Angeles after “three days of rain.” I didn’t tell Julia and Bradley I was going to put the voice-over in, and they were surprised and tickled when they saw the final version of the movie.
The Valentine’s Day cast also included Queen Latifah, Jessica Biel, Jessica Alba, Eric Dane, and Patrick Dempsey. I had heard that Patrick had applied to clown school in Florida. He also liked race-car driving but never had time to do it because of his busy schedule on Gr
ey’s Anatomy. One of the rewrite guys on the movie, Matt Walker, had been valedictorian of a clown school. So I introduced Matt to Patrick on the set. After tossing around some ideas we decided to have Patrick’s character juggle as a nervous habit. It was a good activity for a character, and it let him do something that he enjoyed. I always tell actors to put their hobbies down on their résumés because you never know when a director will want to use them.
While we were shooting the movie in Los Angeles, we got a lot of press interest from our pairing of two Taylors: Taylor Swift with Taylor Lautner. When New Line first said they signed Taylor Swift, I was confused. I flipped through the script and didn’t see a part for her. They said, “Come up with something.” So I did. Another person we found a good part for was Julia’s niece Emma Roberts. The only problem was that she didn’t have a driver’s license and her part called for her to drive. We rigged up a car and pulled it off-camera so she appeared to be driving herself. It was a little harrowing because she didn’t always hit the mark, but we made it work.
I joked on the movie that we had a lot of Js. Everyone seemed to be named Jennifer, Jessica, or Julia. Jessica Biel was a new, fresh face for me. What excited me about her was her willingness to do physical comedy. Some actresses would rather play it straight or be sexy rather than silly. Jessica, however, was ready for anything physical and was fearless about trying something new. She was dedicated to the part and had an extremely strong work ethic. She confided in me one day that she always worried when a job came to an end that she would never act again. Yet her career continues to thrive. Jessica really clicked with Jennifer Garner. In one scene they did a funny routine while toasting champagne glasses, and Jamie Foxx said, “I’ve seen that bit someplace before.” He thought for a minute and then said, “I saw it in Laverne & Shirley! Garry, you’re stealing from yourself. But, hey. That’s okay. You’re allowed to steal from yourself.” Jamie even took the connection further and thought it would be great to pitch the idea of a Laverne & Shirley remake starring Jessica and Jennifer to a network. It might never happen, but it was fun to picture them skipping arm and arm to the Schlemiel! Schlimazel!
The irony in Hollywood is that if you stick around long enough, you get to work with people you missed the first time around. I took a lot of heat in Frankie and Johnny for passing over Kathy Bates and choosing Michelle Pfeiffer for the lead. In Valentine’s Day I was finally able to work with Kathy when I cast her as Jamie Foxx’s television executive boss. Kathy had only a small part, but she did a wonderful job and I wanted her to have fun with it. I told her, “Jamie is going to ad-lib, so just be flexible and go where he goes.” Much like Anne Hathaway, Kathy loves to develop her character with a director. She said, “I never get to do a part where I chew gum.” So I let her chew gum to add some quirkiness to her character.
I got to film Valentine’s Day in Los Angeles, and some scenes were shot just a few blocks from my home, which made me comfortable. Filming in Los Angeles also meant that my six grandchildren all got to be in the movie, and I loved seeing them on the set. And the ensemble nature of the movie meant that no actor was on the set long enough to cause trouble. Even our biggest stars, like Julia Roberts, worked only three days, so the production pace left everyone in an upbeat, cheerful mood. It was like reunion day at camp every day, where everyone smiled big because they were spending time with old friends. The movie was the epitome of a love story, and that was why I’d been hired to direct it.
Like all of my other films, we took Valentine’s Day out to test audiences before the nationwide release. I like to hear the laughter from real people to tell if a joke is working. When we asked what they liked best about the movie, the answer was overwhelmingly “the humor.” I felt confident that this was the right response. It was a romantic movie, but more than that, it was a movie with big stars that could make audiences laugh. Some critics said we had too many stars. Audiences, however, loved it. During its first four days, Valentine’s Day made $63 million, the highest-grossing film in the history of the Valentine’s Day holiday.
I should have been on cloud nine, and I nearly was. Except again sometimes when you are enjoying success, real life intervenes and says “Ha!” I was getting ready to go to London on February 14 when my internist Dr. Paul Rudnick told me that I had a cancerous tumor behind my tongue. I had felt a small lump on the side of my neck earlier and thought it was just a swollen lymph node. We decided to go to London and then Rome to premiere Valentine’s Day before returning home for a series of radiation treatments. My wife and I told only our three kids and close family about my illness.
I am a creature of habit. Every day I write a big W in the square on my calendar because I want it to be a “winning day.” I wrote an L for “losing day” on the day I found out that I had cancer. Valentine’s Day was breaking records at the box office, and I was wondering how painful radiation would be. I had spent most of my childhood sick in bed because of one thing or another, but radiation seemed like a whole new ball game. Plus, it was recommended that I do a combination of radiation and Erbitux chemotherapy, which sounded even scarier than radiation alone.
Barbara and I have a favorite bar, the Ritz-Carlton on Central Park South. After opening Valentine’s Day in London and Rome, we stopped over in New York. One night we went to the bar at the Ritz. Barbara normally has a glass of champagne and I have either a cosmopolitan or a Harveys Bristol Cream on the rocks. But that night we were not in the mood for our usual drinks.
We had heard about a shot of brandy at the bar that cost two hundred dollars. We decided that night we were going to splurge. We toasted the new movie and the year ahead. We thought we should share such a fancy drink with other people, so we chose three in the bar with us: our favorite bartender, Norman; the piano player, Earl, who was on the keys that night; and the television producer Phil Rosenthal (Everybody Loves Raymond), because he just happened to be there and I knew him. We each took a sip and declared the brandy excellent. I remember saying a little prayer to myself that night, too: “Thank you, God, for giving me the strength to do Valentine’s Day, and please give me the strength to get through radiation and chemotherapy.” The next day I appeared on Martha Stewart’s television show and made soap with her. I’m just a glass-half-full kind of guy. You don’t let cancer get you down. You go have fun with Martha on national television.
Many different types of cancer can be cured if you get them early enough. I caught mine early enough but relied on a village of people to survive the treatments. My doctors Barry Rosenbloom and Chris Rose were from the Bronx and Brooklyn. I felt secure having two guys from the neighborhood take care of me. Along with my friends Victoria Jackson and Susan Silver, my speech therapist Betty McMicken and extraordinary dentist Dan Copps were stars. I remain forever grateful to all of them.
25. NEW YEAR’S EVE
Celebrating the Splendor of New York City
IT WAS JANUARY 2011, and our plane from Los Angeles to New York City was delayed, so my assistant Heather Hall and I were checking into the Park Lane Hotel near Central Park very late at night. As we approached the front desk, a sleepy clerk rose to attention and said the perfunctory “Welcome to the Park Lane. How long will you be staying with us?”
“Ninety days,” said Heather without pausing.
“Ninety days?” said the clerk, alarmed.
“Yes,” said Heather. “We are going to be here all winter.”
That’s how I began work on my seventeenth motion picture as a director. I was seventy-six years old and had just completed seven weeks of radiation and chemotherapy to combat the tumor behind my tongue. A challenge, and not something I would have planned, but I was excited to put the cancer behind me and get back to work behind the camera. I have never been a good patient. I play the part of a healthy person much better.
At the end of each day, just like I did on all my movies, I continued to open up my datebook and review the events of the day. When the day was done I would write a big W in the date
square to signify a “winning day.” However, when I got ready to direct New Year’s Eve, I decided that simply getting through the day as a winner was not a strong enough statement. I needed to triumph each day. So at the end of each day on New Year’s Eve I would go back to my hotel room, open my calendar, and write a V in the date square. V was for “victory” when I needed to feel like a victor most.
The script for New Year’s Eve came quickly after the success of Valentine’s Day. Katherine Fugate, who had written Valentine’s Day, and I seem to be holiday people. The producers, Mike Karz, Josie Rosen, and Wayne Rice, sent me her script and were excited to work with me again. Working with so many actors from different generations on Valentine’s Day had really appealed to me, so I decided to sign on for another ensemble cast movie. This picture followed the lives of several single people over the course of twenty-four hours on New Year’s Eve. (Coincidentally, New Year’s Eve was also important personally because it is when I asked my wife to marry me in 1962.)
I had never directed a movie after cancer treatment. And the fact was that very few people in my life even knew I was sick. I underwent treatment from February through April 2010. Even during my treatments I worked nearly every day and played softball once a week. I couldn’t hit the ball out of the infield, but I could still play. When I started pre-production on New Year’s Eve in the fall of 2010, many people thought I just looked thin. Before cancer I weighed 206 pounds. I started New Year’s Eve weighing 164. Cast and crew members would ask me about my health, but I would just shrug it off as stress. Of course, I was a little afraid that my health might fail in the middle of the production. But I couldn’t let that fear show to my cast and crew. My job as a director was to lead them.
My Happy Days in Hollywood Page 28