Along Came Polly (2004)

1. I'm John Hamburg, the writer|director of Along Came Polly

2. and here is my commentary about the movie.

3. I'll try to make it interesting.

4. These titles were designed

5. by a company called 1741 in Los Angeles

6. and they came up with this concept of doing wedding imagery,

7. kind of close-ups of wedding imagery,

8. and then our composer, Teddy Shapiro, wrote this beautiful, very uplifting music

9. to go with it, and the whole idea was to set up in the beginning

10. that it's this very sort of positive, hopeful romantic comedy,

11. almost a wedding comedy,

12. so you don't foresee the events that happen later in the movie.

13. take you, Lisa...

14. These opening scenes, we reshot them after we had finished the movie.

15. The movie used to start a different way with Reuben,

16. the character that Ben plays, in his office.

17. You'll see that's on the deleted scenes

18. but we wanted to introduce Phil Seymour Hoffman's character...

19. The best man is in the house!

20. in a different way, and he takes this pratfall right away

21. letting you know that you're allowed to laugh at him.

22. It also introduces some of Reuben's qualities,

23. saying that 23% of the guests are over 70 and he doesn't want anyone breaking a hip.

24. I analyze risk for a living. It's my job to worry.

25. Let me do the worrying, because you got to get married.

26. I wanted to show the friendship between Reuben and Sandy

27. which we didn't do in the old cut of the movie, the original cut.

28. This scene here I wrote so that you got a clear idea

29. of what Philip Seymour Hoffman as Sandy,

30. what he goes through on a daily basis

31. with people thinking he died 15 years ago and not remembering him.

32. I saw that movie in high school.

33. That bagpipe scene was the funniest shit.

34. We had a good time on that picture. Want an autograph?

35. No, thanks.

36. It's good to see you, man. I thought you died 15 years ago.

37. We thought once this guy says, "I thought you died, like, 15 years ago"

38. you'd get the struggle that Sandy goes through on a daily basis.

39. It would give justification for why he is basically such a jerk the rest of the movie.

40. I got a camera crew following me the next few weeks.

41. - It's gonna be huge. - Cool!

42. This is the final scene of the re-shoot that we did for the beginning.

43. I'm asking you this

44. because you're my oldest friend in the world.

45. We did this moment to establish their friendship,

46. that they had been friends forever, because people say,

47. "They're so different, why would they be friends?"

48. And it was this scene that we said,

49. "If we just say they're friends forever

50. "you won't question it and you see their bond."

51. I think they both act it really nicely.

52. My life's working out just like I planned.

53. Let's go get married.

54. We actually had to put Phil in a fat suit for that scene

55. because he had lost a lot of weight between the filming and our editing.

56. There's Debra Messing as Reuben's wife.

57. This photographer was an extra

58. and I didn't know his voice when I cast him, but I was happy when he started to speak

59. because he just had a very interesting voice.

60. Hello, everybody. I'm Stan Indursky...

61. I just absolutely adore Alec Baldwin as the character Stan Indursky.

62. He just completely went for it.

63. He said he knew guys who talked like this, who use terms like "good things"

64. and "mazel" and he just embraced the character completely.

65. His look came about in various ways.

66. His glasses, those big glasses that he wears...

67. Actually, my storyboard artist, Steve Werblun, wore the same glasses

68. and I was staring at him one day

69. and the image of Stan Indursky wearing those glasses came into my mind.

70. So I had our art department take a photo of Werblun

71. and we copied his glasses and tried them on Alec

72. and he put them on and Stan Indursky was created.

73. Mazel! Good things.

74. You know, the truth is

75. I've been waiting for this day my entire life.

76. About four-and-a-half years ago

77. I met a real-estate agent named Lisa Kramer...

78. Coming up is one of my favorite little moments that Ben does.

79. - I gave him a good price. - Not good enough.

80. Right here.

81. Just giving her a little punch as if he's making a really funny joke.

82. It's what happens in weddings, where you make a joke

83. and people have to politely laugh, but it's not really funny.

84. Ben is very good at that kind of subtle, sort of very human behavior.

85. Again, we tried to create a romantic tone, so you thought they'd be happy together.

86. We didn't want to show a lot of problems in their relationship.

87. You just think, "Wow! These people are right for each other."

88. That's what we tried to create, this very positive, uplifting feeling.

89. This we shot in Hawaii.

90. That's a stock shot.

91. But all the sequences in the movie that take place in St. Barts,

92. we shot on the island of Oahu in Hawaii.

93. - So pretty! - It's beautiful.

94. What?

95. Debra did take a spill on that one, into a pad.

96. It was very courageous. It was our last day of filming.

97. - How's your bruise? - It's okay.

98. You know, it's a little sore.

99. They really should tell you

100. if they let Komodo dragons run around the hotel.

101. Really.

102. This was shot on a beach called Secret Beach in Oahu

103. where you had to take a boat just to get there

104. and trudge through some brush. It was very secluded

105. but we did have some floating paparazzi.

106. So various Hawaiian bodyguard-type people

107. had to kindly ask the paparazzi to move

108. where they were sort of stationed, 200 feet off the beach in the water.

109. It's very bizarre that they would manage to find us, but they did.

110. It didn't rain much. We didn't get that lucky with sun.

111. There wasn't a whole lot of sun when we filmed

112. but we tried to digitally make it look a little prettier.

113. Hi. Hello.

114. That, of course, is Hank Azaria as Claude.

115. People cannot believe Hank's body when they see the movie.

116. And I could not believe it, either.

117. We put a wig on him. That's a wig.

118. He obviously is wonderful with accents and does this brilliant French accent.

119. But Hank did a reading of this script and was just brilliant

120. so we cast him quite early on,

121. but he didn't shoot until the end of the shoot.

122. So he had several months to pump up

123. and I said, "This guy should be buff. He should have a swimmer's physique."

124. Three months later, Hank came in for his camera test in LA,

125. before we went to Hawaii to shoot, and he took his shirt off

126. and my jaw dropped and I think the rest of the crew's did as well.

127. He was just big, very ripped.

128. He later revealed that he worked out two to three times a day for the part.

129. It was pretty remarkable.

130. But I'm happy he did. He's barely recognizable.

131. He looks like the kind of guy who could steal Debra Messing from Ben Stiller.

132. Reuben! Lisa!

133. - Hi. - Hello.

134. - Isn't this exciting? - It is. It's fun.

135. You know what? I think I'm gonna skip the scuba diving.

136. Reuben, no. You called eight hotels. They all said this guy was the best.

137. This was tricky

138. because we didn't want to make Reuben seem like a wimp for not going.

139. We wanted to make it seem realistic.

140. So we plant early on that he has stomach troubles.

141. This is the first time you... We don't say, "I have IBS",

142. which we'll find out later in the movie, but you see that he has problems.

143. But he's very positive and he really loves her

144. and he would go, but he just feels he can't.

145. And Claude is genuinely upset, which I love.

146. No, Claude, I'm gonna go run some errands in town.

147. But you guys go. Have fun. Can I talk to you for a second?

148. Of course.

149. This next shot coming up was probably the most difficult one for Ben to do.

150. Hank just continually cracked him up.

151. On the deleted scenes, you see various takes of this, but every time he said...

152. Look to me in my eyeball.

153. that line, Ben would crack up every time.

154. Finally, after the eighth take, he got it.

155. Also, we had a storm coming in, so it was not easy.

156. But he got it finally.

157. All right? Are you ready?

158. Yeah. Will a little boat come over...

159. Ally oop.

160. Au revoir, Reuben.

161. Bye-bye, honey! I love you!

162. That moment when Ben goes "ha-ha" is...

163. For some of our early preview audiences, that was the first moment where they said,

164. "Things are not gonna go well. Ben is just too positive

165. "and something weird is gonna happen."

166. Of course, regular audiences, you've seen the trailer,

167. you kind of know what will happen

168. but preview audiences didn't, and that was where you could hear them stirring.

169. Claude!

170. Guys?

171. Hello!

172. Lisa?

173. In this next scene... We debated many times how to reveal this.

174. It was also a ratings issue. We couldn't show too much.

175. And eventually we decided less is more.

176. You don't really want to see too much thrusting

177. and various other things.

178. So we just kept it to the barest minimum and kept the flippers and that was it.

179. The ratings board didn't have a problem. It's a less-is-more kind of thing.

180. My name's not Leuben! It is Reuben.

181. Look, we had a scuba, we talk about life, we drink some white wine.

182. We cannot help it. It is like love at first sight.

183. She make like the fire in my trouser.

184. What he's trying to say, Reuben,

185. is that we didn't plan it. It just...

186. The challenge here for me as a writer was to make it believable

187. that Lisa, who loved Reuben, and they were happy at their wedding,

188. would leave him in a day and decide to stay on the island.

189. I think by casting Hank and the way that Hank played Claude,

190. we tried to make him very sweet. So he's not a bastard.

191. He doesn't steal the guy's wife and have no feelings.

192. He feels bad and he tries to teach him a little moral with the hippo story.

193. He look himself in the mirror and he just say,

194. "Hey, I am a hippopotamus

195. "and there is nothing I can do about it."

196. And, as soon as he accepts this, he live life happy.

197. Happy as a hippo.

198. You understand?

199. - I'm gonna kill you! - Reuben, no!

200. No, Reuben. This is not the way.

201. Again, we were in Hawaii, it was our last day of filming

202. and a storm was coming in and we had one take to do this stunt.

203. That's Ben in there. It was a genuine stunt.

204. He just got pulled down this embankment. And we had one take.

205. We wouldn't have gotten two, and Ben just went for it.

206. This next bit of business coming up

207. is sort of where the movie transitions. You go,

208. "It's not just a fun wedding comedy.

209. "Hopefully, there's another layer to it, and there's a bit of emotion."

210. And you feel kind of sad that this guy... That something real happened to him.

211. The throw pillows on the bed is a set-up for later

212. when he and Polly destroy the pillows.

213. It just came from observing my own family growing up

214. and homes I've been to, where people have so many pillows on the bed

215. and you take 10 minutes to take them off and put them back in the morning.

216. I think Reuben and Lisa would be the kind of people

217. that would have this perfect, throw-pillow kind of life.

218. Hey, Tina.

219. Hey, Mitch.

220. That's an actor named Nathan Dean who plays Mitch.

221. And that's Amy Hohn. She was in Meet the Parents.

222. She was the woman who typed very quickly at the airline counter in Meet the Parents.

223. Both terrific actors. We had other scenes with them

224. but there was just so much that we could include in the movie

225. and they're really good scenes, but we couldn't put them in.

226. But they're terrific.

227. How does everyone know about this?

228. Your mother called Mr. Indursky and told him what happened.

229. - I am so sorry, Reuben. - Thanks, Gladys.

230. Kym Whitley, who I love. She's very real and human

231. and I think you feel she would hug him.

232. Hey, there he is! The big man's back.

233. The idea was that after this sad interlude, we start the comedy up again.

234. And any time Stan Indursky comes on screen, the comedy begins.

235. I heard about your honeymoon. Just terrible.

236. The set... I had a great production designer.

237. Great cinematographer, camera operator, production designer

238. but Andrew Laws was our production designer

239. and created this bathroom, which I thought was beautiful.

240. The movie has, I'm embarrassed to say, many bathrooms in it

241. and we had to make each of them different

242. and Andrew did this wonderful thing in this bathroom with the black walls

243. and reflecting their images. I just thought it was a really cool set.

244. He and his crew did a brilliant job throughout, but I particularly love this set.

245. They want to take the company public

246. and to remain CEO of the company, guess what he needs?

247. - Life insurance. - Bingo was his name.

248. - You want me to check him out? - Yeah. There's just one catch.

249. The great days, as a comedy director

250. are when the actors flow off of each other perfectly.

251. And this was one of those days. They just had so much fun.

252. Ben and Alec just had a great time working together.

253. And they just had chemistry together.

254. They riffed with each other and had a lot of fun.

255. The ear thing we came up with in rehearsal. It wasn't in the original script.

256. We came up with the ear, and that he'd come...

257. It was always written in the script that he'd come behind him.

258. But not that he'd tickle his ear again.

259. When you watch it with a big audience, everybody's in shock that he does it,

260. but he does.

261. The idea for this scene came from...

262. I think men have a fear of when you're in the bathroom and there's some time pressure

263. and you have to go, and a boss or friend walks in, and they're talking to you.

264. It's just kind of an awkward situation that I think men could hopefully relate to.

265. Excuse me. This is private property.

266. Yeah, I know. I just bought this house.

267. This guy is Todd Stashwick, who always cracked me up.

268. Just how serious he was about his job.

269. - Okay. Welcome to the neighborhood. - Thanks.

270. Sorry about your wife, Reuben.

271. That's around the corner from where I live in New York,

272. on Eighth Street and Fifth Avenue.

273. I felt like Reuben would be a guy

274. who lives in Greenwich Village in New York

275. but within 10 blocks the city changes very much

276. and he would live in this nice area of Greenwich Village

277. and Polly Prince, who we'll meet later, lives 15 blocks away,

278. but it's like a different world.

279. - We're rolling. - Sound speed.

280. - What the hell is this? - Remember Dustin and Vic?

281. That's Judah Friedlander, who is in Meet the Parents, and Kevin Hart,

282. a very funny actor, a stand-up comic, who did me a favor playing these small parts.

283. They don't have a lot to do, but in the background...

284. This was one of my favorite jokes in the movie that no one will ever laugh at.

285. Dustin, the E! True Hollywood Story guy,

286. isn't happy with French's mustard so he asks for dijon and Ben gives it to him.

287. It's funny to me and about five other people. But that's okay.

288. What can I say, you're my best friend.

289. You're my partner...

290. Hold on. Let me see something.

291. you're my wife! Man, it feels good to say that!

292. And...

293. The video footage we did as a special take.

294. We'd asked Debra Messing to look really freaked out at one particular time,

295. and she definitely did it so that we could then freeze-frame

296. and have her have this expression

297. where you see that she's actually pretty unhappy to be getting married to Reuben.

298. She's faking it. The woman got spooked.

299. She needed to explore, which is exactly what you'll do.

300. You've been gifted with freedom. Don't turn your back on it.

301. I don't want freedom! I want to be married!

302. I bought a goddamn house!

303. I got to move out of this apartment in, like, six weeks!

304. Look at her. She's not thinking about having

305. a deep, committed relationship

306. with a complex individual like yourself.

307. - She's not? - No!

308. She's daydreaming about having hot, shallow sex with a French nudist!

309. The challenge with this was that people know that the movie is about

310. Polly and Reuben and so it's like,

311. "How long can we take to get to the two of them?"

312. We did a lot of work in the cutting room trying to figure out...

313. We have to set up Reuben's character and what he wants

314. and he has to get dumped, all this stuff has to happen,

315. but then we have to jump-start the romantic part of the story when he meets Jennifer.

316. So we kept making it shorter and shorter,

317. the time until you actually meet Jennifer Aniston.

318. Relax. I'm your wingman. I'll be by your side the whole time.

319. So what do we do?

320. Do we get a drink or take a lap around the...

321. Sandy?

322. Coming up is a bit of additional photography that we did afterwards.

323. This scene here.

324. We used to introduce Jennifer a little later,

325. when she walks up to Reuben as he's leaving,

326. but we wrote this scene afterwards

327. to kind of give Jennifer|Polly her own introduction.

328. That's Missi Pyle as Polly's best friend

329. and we just recreated this set on a sound stage

330. and the idea was to show that Polly's character

331. had a bit of a romantic background. She says she's not looking for a boyfriend

332. and she dated a guy for two days, and her friend says it's three months.

333. That's my father, by the way, who walked by, for those interested

334. which is me and my family.

335. I hope he doesn't have to buy that now.

336. The bunny legs were something my art department came up with.

337. They just had this inspiration that we'd go to this downtown Chelsea, New York party

338. and there'd be bunny legs all around.

339. We didn't intend on Ben riding the bunny leg down

340. but when we got on the set, we thought that it would be funny.

341. I was afraid for his safety

342. so I asked him not to ride the bunny leg down,

343. which, of course, he did and I was happy he did, 'cause it was pretty funny.

344. or whatever it's called, together.

345. - Yeah! Polly Prince! - Yes.

346. It's coming back to me now. You left before high school.

347. After seventh grade, my mom and I moved to Michigan.

348. - Now you live here in New York? - Moved here a few months ago.

349. - So, you know. - Wow.

350. Missi Pyle as Roxanne, she used to do something else in this scene

351. but for the MPAA, we had to cut it.

352. But still, we got away with one.

353. You've got to be married with kids and the whole thing.

354. No, I'm not. I'm single. I haven't taken the plunge.

355. Can I talk to you for a sec?

356. Sandy, this is Polly Prince. Remember? From middle school?

357. How you doing?

358. This is one of my favorite moments in the movie,

359. just for the performance of Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ben Stiller.

360. It's the moment where I said:

361. "You know, the audience may really connect with this movie

362. "but the critics probably won't."

363. Where Sandy reveals that he has sharted.

364. We must leave now.

365. Can we stay a couple more minutes?

366. People ask me whether I made that word up.

367. And as far as I know, I did. I'd never heard it before.

368. I can't say I'm proud of it, but I can't say I'm not proud.

369. I just made up the word.

370. I thought the key...

371. That's Cheryl Hines from Curb Your Enthusiasm

372. who's so fantastic and did me a favor just doing a small part.

373. Phil does the walk there, the "shart walk" we called it.

374. I think the key to what made that funny, though,

375. and it's sort of my theory of the whole story is that

376. he's very serious about it.

377. It's as if he's saying:

378. "Look, I have to go. I just found a lump on my brain, " or something like that.

379. He's telling him something very serious. He's not crazy or wacky, just matter-of-fact.

380. And that's what makes it funny to me.

381. It's always fun to watch the movie with an audience

382. and you hear them introduced to that word, and turn to their neighbor and say,

383. "Did I really hear what I just heard?" And that's it.

384. Let it rain!

385. We created this basketball court in downtown LA.

386. Philip is a better basketball player than he appears in this scene

387. and in this movie.

388. He's actually good, but he definitely got into it.

389. We shot this fairly early on in the schedule, and I always feel like

390. it's the scene where Phil Hoffman became Sandy.

391. He just suddenly shouted out, "Let it rain, " and let it all hang out

392. and wasn't afraid to fall on the floor, and do all these things,

393. but keep it in a tone of reality. I think he's brilliant in this scene.

394. Outlet!

395. Rain dance!

396. Again, this was sort of based on my experiences.

397. I grew up in New York City

398. and it was based on my experiences playing pickup basketball.

399. There's always a guy who thinks he's better than he is

400. and Sandy is that guy in this movie.

401. T. Time-out.

402. I'm burning. My lungs are burning.

403. Time-out.

404. So why do you think Polly's so wrong for me?

405. That is real wheezing on Philip Seymour Hoffman's behalf.

406. He's in pretty good shape. Ben is in good shape, too,

407. but they did the scene over two days and were running around endlessly.

408. We just basically let them play two-on-two against these other guys

409. and it was exhausting.

410. I really feel like I ran into Polly for a reason. Really.

411. I'm sorry if you don't agree.

412. But I believe in a little thing called...

413. Coming up is Robb Skyler.

414. He plays this hirsute basketball player and was a very good sport

415. during this entire couple of days of filming.

416. He came in to audition and I asked him to take his shirt off

417. 'cause the guy had to be hairy in the movie.

418. But he was cool about it and he did. He's hairy, what are you gonna do?

419. But he's a great guy and a really good actor.

420. He played this part really nicely.

421. As did Ben, trying to get away from the guy.

422. You know what? Could we switch?

423. I'd rather not. I just found out how to cover this man right here.

424. This shot coming up,

425. people have probably seen it in trailers or if you've seen the movie.

426. No special effects on this shot,

427. just Ben Stiller and a hairy guy.

428. We actually put Robb Skyler on a trampoline.

429. That's my voice, by the way, doing that.

430. That little moaning, we added afterwards.

431. But we put the guy on a trampoline and had him jump into the air.

432. We had to do 12 takes of it. It just wasn't working at all.

433. And Ben... This is why I love working with Ben Stiller.

434. He understood that it was an important shot and we weren't getting it.

435. And finally on the 12th take, we got it, and that was the perfect one,

436. the perfect slide down the belly.

437. The rest is history.

438. Hello.

439. I always thought Ben played this scene fantastically.

440. Just very simply, very real

441. and it's a very human moment that people do.

442. - Hi. This is Reuben. - No!

443. I'm unable to get to the phone right now...

444. This was the first take we did of this.

445. And I should have just quit after that, 'cause he really got it beautifully.

446. Instead, I made him do three or four more takes.

447. That was the take.

448. This is a Brendan Benson song. I'd never heard of him before,

449. but one of our music supervisors found the song, and I just love the energy.

450. Subsequently, he's got a great album called Lapalco, and a few other albums.

451. He's a great singer|songwriter.

452. This was shot on the Lower East Side of New York on Ludlow Street.

453. We only did three days of filming in New York for the entire movie.

454. But this was actually our first day of shooting of the entire movie.

455. Gladys, I got to call you back.

456. This is so funny. I didn't know you lived down here.

457. Yeah, I do. Do you live around here, too?

458. No, I don't. I don't live down here.

459. All of us were nervous because this was their first scene together

460. and you don't know whether they'll click and play off each other.

461. We'd rehearsed a few days in LA. Really just a day or two, not too much.

462. But I thought they got into a really nice rhythm right away.

463. This scene is supposed to be awkward,

464. with a lot of miscommunication and misunderstanding

465. and I thought they played that really nicely.

466. Gosh, I spent like $200 on this loofah.

467. It's supposed to be specially made in Sweden or something.

468. Wow.

469. Would you like to go to dinner sometime?

470. Oh, yeah. Okay. You know, I'm not sure.

471. The key for Jennifer, I think, was when Reuben asks her out.

472. You don't want her to be a jerk about turning him down.

473. But you just want to be like, "What's going on?

474. "Why is she saying no? She seemed like she liked me and we're old friends."

475. So there's a bit of a mystery to her and I feel that she captured that.

476. - There's also a fax number. - Right on.

477. And a pager number, too.

478. "Reuben Feffer, Senior Risk Assessment Analysist."

479. - Right. Analyst. - Analyst.

480. Right.

481. All right.

482. See you.

483. - See you. - See you later.

484. Coming up is where we introduce the Riskmaster Software

485. that will become significant later on in the movie.

486. And we had a really cool woman,

487. who was a friend of one of our editorial crew,

488. who came in and did the Australian voice for us of Leland Van Lew's secretary.

489. - Swimming with who? - Great white sharks.

490. But don't worry. It was only a flesh wound.

491. He's due in Los Angeles next week.

492. - Should I set something up for then? - Could you hang on, please?

493. No worries.

494. Hi, Reuben. It's Polly Prince.

495. This scene was one of the keys for me to Polly's character,

496. where you just saw it wasn't like she's blowing him off

497. she's just sort of pathologically non-committal.

498. Should I pick a restaurant, or...

499. No. You know what?

500. I should probably check my schedule, see if I can even do it.

501. That moment there is where you get the key to Polly's character,

502. that she calls him up and asks for a date

503. and in the next minute is saying, "I can't do it."

504. And you can't quite figure her out. That's what ultimately attracts Polly to Reuben.

505. What's the buzz? Tell me what's a-happening

506. What's the buzz? Tell me what's a-happening

507. What's the buzz? Tell me what's a-happening

508. What's the buzz? Tell me what's a-happening

509. What's the buzz?

510. That's a guy named Masi Oka, who is very funny.

511. We were looking for who would play Wonsuk for a long time and Masi came in

512. and it turned out he and I went to Brown University together

513. but we didn't know each other.

514. He just brought a lot of sweetness to this part, I thought.

515. This scene was pretty tricky, because in the longer version

516. Sandy really yells and screams at the cast...

517. On its own, we thought it was a really funny scene

518. but we played it in context, in a couple of test screenings

519. and it was just too mean-spirited.

520. It sort of crossed the line between being funny and just being mean.

521. So we had to do a lot of work re-cutting the scene.

522. Fortunately, Phil Hoffman gave us so many different takes

523. and different shadings of the same performance that we managed to make it...

524. It's not a yelling scene.

525. It's just sort of an introduction to the Jesus Christ Superstar sub-plot.

526. Some restaurant in the East Village.

527. This was our second day shooting in New York,

528. again, in the neighborhood in which I live, downtown in the Village.

529. It rained pretty much every day that we shot, but I think it's okay.

530. Why? What's wrong with letting her pick the place?

531. You've got irritable bowel syndrome, dude.

532. If she chose an ethnic restaurant,

533. you'll be running to the bathroom every five seconds.

534. Oh, my God. You're right.

535. This is Joe's Pizza in Greenwich Village

536. which is my favorite pizza place in New York.

537. I just wrote it into the script. I didn't know if we'd be able to shoot there or not,

538. but we managed to.

539. It's one of the great things about moviemaking,

540. that you can write places that you go to, or places near where you live

541. and go in and shoot there. It was really fun to be able to do that.

542. Just tap her real light on the tush and say...

543. This was their second scene together, Ben and Phil.

544. Again, you don't know what their chemistry's going to be like.

545. They're such different kinds of actors.

546. But they meshed really well.

547. They really liked each other and made each other laugh.

548. They didn't know each other before this movie

549. but they just played off each other really well.

550. I'm really excited about this.

551. I feel like this could be one of those

552. defining moments of my life, or something, you know?

553. I actually think it's not gonna work out, but I'm pulling for you.

554. Just pray to God she doesn't go ethnic.

555. - The place didn't sound ethnic. - What was the name?

556. Al Hafez.

557. Jennifer spit that out each time.

558. We had what we called "the eBay spit bucket" for both of them

559. because they had to eat so much ethnic food and didn't want to swallow it.

560. So they would take it, put it in their mouth

561. then some guy'd come with this spit bucket, and they'd spit it out.

562. Maybe I shouldn't reveal that,

563. but that's the glamour behind big-budget Hollywood moviemaking.

564. I get stir-crazy if I'm stuck in one place too long, you know?

565. Yeah, completely.

566. - Remember, you were the person who... - Oh, my God!

567. I can't believe you remember that.

568. Ben is sweating profusely in this scene. Of course it's makeup.

569. But you can't get your eyes to get all red the way he did.

570. He really got into it and started eating hot peppers during the shooting.

571. So we had fake sweat mixed in with real sweat, and his eyes would get red.

572. He just wanted to really feel what it was like

573. to be really perspiring because of extremely spicy food.

574. You were always kind of like an old young guy.

575. Well, it just hasn't happened.

576. But what about you? You ever gotten close?

577. To the whole marriage thing? Oh, God, no. No way, no. No.

578. The whole idea of how he played it, which I love,

579. is that he's playing it very casually, as if nothing's wrong with him,

580. as if he's not drenched in sweat.

581. And Jennifer's playing it the same way, she's trying to ignore it.

582. Until she says a line like, "Can I get you a towel?" very casually.

583. But if the right person came along, things might be different, right?

584. This is great because she shakes her head.

585. I love when he says, "It might be different if you found the right person."

586. She agrees, shaking her head, basically saying, "There's no way."

587. - You mind if I go to the men's room? - Please, sure.

588. Oh, gosh!

589. This is my voice.

590. Occupied.

591. We had a longer scene with an actor named James Engel,

592. but it was too long for the movie, so we made that little shift

593. and put a guy in the bathroom, and I recorded it in our cutting room.

594. And we kept with it. It seemed to always get a laugh in our screenings

595. the guy saying, "I'm gonna be here all night." So we just did it.

596. Right there, I hear them.

597. Oh, yeah. Okay.

598. Wow! This is great.

599. Again, another great set and great lighting by Seamus McGarvey, our cinematographer.

600. Rat!

601. That's the introduction of Rodolfo, the ferret.

602. They made pains to make this look like a real New York apartment.

603. There's so many subtle details. You look at the floor and it's scratched.

604. That is not a real ferret. It's an animatronic ferret

605. that we bashed into this wall many times to try to get the right take.

606. No ferrets were injured in the making of this movie.

607. had a lot to drink, a lot of water. I'll just be a second.

608. Okay, take your time.

609. Again, this is all a set.

610. The bathroom is a set.

611. This is another one of the centerpieces of the film.

612. There's the ferret.

613. You shoot this like a montage. There's so many little pieces.

614. That's Ben. That's a trainer's legs, it's not Ben.

615. That is Ben, of course.

616. This scene always gets a huge response from the audience.

617. Of course people say, "It's just bathroom humor."

618. I'll just explain what my thought was.

619. I really tried to not make it just gratuitous bathroom humor.

620. That wasn't my goal.

621. It was just supposed to be a very human moment that everybody can relate to.

622. People who read the script or came in to audition said,

623. "That happened to me, " what happens to Reuben in this scene.

624. He's on a date, and he has to go.

625. I'd heard stories, and those kind of things happen to everybody.

626. They don't think about using a ferret, so we took it to a more comic extreme.

627. But, to me, it was never a gratuitous bathroom scene.

628. It was just a scene you could relate to that happens in dating life.

629. It seemed like it could happen to this guy who hasn't been on a date in a long time.

630. He's created this safe world around him

631. and now he's thrust into a different world.

632. God, I beg you, please, if you make this water go down,

633. I'll sit at your feet and serve you for all of eternity.

634. I'll adopt a Somalian kid or I'll work in Calcutta...

635. It was a very complicated scene to shoot, with all the water

636. and trying to get the performance to match the water coming over

637. and the ferret running out.

638. It took about two days to film this scene.

639. Oh, my God!

640. This was fun.

641. That's that scene.

642. I love the performances in that scene because they keep it real and grounded.

643. It's a scene that, as a comedy director, is fun to watch with an audience.

644. You see the audience covering their eyes, not wanting to look

645. and shouting out, "Oh, no!"

646. I just tried to write something that I thought people could relate to.

647. 'Cause I certainly could relate to that type of thing happening.

648. She asked me to come upstairs. What should I have done?

649. Philip's wardrobe... Cindy Evans was our costume designer.

650. I really love what she did with Philip's wardrobe

651. with these striped shirts and old sweatpants.

652. Here's where we meet Leland Van Lew, a.k.a. Bryan Brown.

653. Bryan hadn't been in too many American movies in a while.

654. He was in Cocktail with Tom Cruise, and The Thorn Birds.

655. He was in a lot of movies and is quite a big star in Australia.

656. I remembered him from the movie F|x, one of my favorite movies as a kid.

657. I met several Australian guys for the part.

658. But when I met Bryan, he was this guy.

659. He was full of life and vibrant. He's just a wonderful guy.

660. He just embraced this adventurous Australian character.

661. - We'll make it work, sport. - Great.

662. - So, what are we doing on the roof? - I'm doing a bit of a BASE jump.

663. Here, keep the walkie on channel 13, all right?

664. This sequence coming up was very challenging to shoot

665. because we had a huge stunt that we couldn't fake.

666. It was a guy literally doing a BASE jump off a building in downtown LA.

667. I was extremely nervous doing it because he had no safety net,

668. he just jumped.

669. This is Bryan Brown running.

670. This is another stuntman jumping into an airbag.

671. This next shot is really a guy doing a BASE jump in downtown LA.

672. So that's all real.

673. Audiences are so used to seeing this kind of stuff, they almost think it's fake.

674. But the guy did one of the most dangerous stunts to be done in a long time.

675. He landed perfectly on the streets in downtown LA.

676. And I was highly relieved.

677. That's that sequence.

678. Look at that. You got me a new loofah.

679. It's from Finland...

680. This was another set.

681. We built this in our production office, we didn't have a sound stage to build it on.

682. I knew all these restaurants in New York on Sixth Street,

683. it's a street referred to as Little India, and many restaurants look like this.

684. So we recreated one of those.

685. Here we meet Michele Lee as Reuben's mother

686. and Bob Dishy as Reuben's silent father.

687. Polly, these are my parents, Irving and Vivian Feffer.

688. - It's so good meeting you. - How are you?

689. I can't believe you're eating Indian. You hate spicy food.

690. No, I don't.

691. Well, I'm going to... I'm going to ask...

692. I'm going to ask this nice Native American man

693. to get us a bigger table.

694. They're Indian. You can call them Indian. It's okay.

695. Hi. Need big table, please. Four people. Many thanks.

696. Okay.

697. That is my voice as the Indian waiter.

698. I always love the way Michele treated him.

699. She's not racist, she just doesn't know better.

700. She's trying to be politically correct and call him Native American.

701. She's just unaware. She doesn't really pay attention to other people.

702. Of course the guy is as American as anybody.

703. - Who's that? - Lisa's mother.

704. That's good.

705. Dad, did you try this... What's this called?

706. This was a tricky scene. We had a lot of different cuts of this scene.

707. It's not supposed to be particularly funny.

708. It's just troubling that Vivian, Reuben's mother, reveals that he's married.

709. And I always think,

710. at this point, the movie turns and becomes just a little more serious

711. in that Polly finds out what happened to Reuben.

712. And suddenly Reuben becomes more interesting to her and more honest.

713. So there's nothing hugely comedic about this scene

714. other than how he describes what happens and says at the end

715. that they were still wearing their flippers when he walked in on them.

716. It's so okay. I understand.

717. I was an idiot. I should've told you the truth from the start.

718. Really, I'm not upset.

719. - But when did this happen? - Two weeks ago.

720. Two weeks ago?

721. Oh, my God!

722. I really love their performances in this scene.

723. I think they're very natural and vulnerable.

724. It's not a big set-piece funny scene.

725. It's just a simple scene that sums up what I was trying to go for in the movie,

726. which is combining two tones.

727. One is this big, laugh-out-loud comedy,

728. the second is a character comedy about these real people living in New York

729. and just trying to make sense of their lives and make personal connections.

730. And when you have really good actors, it certainly is helpful.

731. I don't know if you have any plans tonight

732. but if not, you should swing by 37 Gansevort Street around 9:00,

733. if you can make it. You know, it's no big deal.

734. But it could be fun, so, you know, think about it.

735. Okay, so,

736. I'll see you later.

737. Or not. I mean, either way.

738. Oh, if you do come, you should wear comfortable shoes.

739. That is, if you come, which you totally don't have to.

740. I mean, I might not even be there.

741. Those are my feet. I let Ben go home for the night

742. and tried to imitate his walk. He's got a very specific walk.

743. I am so glad that you came.

744. I wore comfortable shoes like you said.

745. So, what are we doing?

746. Someone asked if this was a real salsa club.

747. When my location manager and production designer brought me down

748. it was just a dank basement of a warehouse space in downtown LA.

749. And I could not imagine for the life of me turning it into a salsa club,

750. but they did quite brilliantly.

751. They just put everything in there,

752. the neon signs, all the lights and everything.

753. It's one of my favorite locations. It's just beautiful what they did.

754. All the dancers are real salsa dancers from the LA area, who were pretty amazing.

755. They just went...

756. We shot all these dance sequences over three days, and they were tireless.

757. They just went and went.

758. That's Josu Garcia as Javier.

759. We were obviously trying to set up in the movie that Reuben is thinking,

760. "Oh, my God, another foreign guy is gonna steal the girl I'm interested in.

761. "It never stops."

762. This band we put together with Money Mark from the Beastie Boys.

763. He produced many Beastie Boys albums.

764. He put together a combination of old-school salsa dancers

765. with guys like the DJ who scratches

766. and some more contemporary type of players

767. and they created a lot of these songs, like this song.

768. It's really cool.

769. It's kind of this old salsa with scratching

770. and a combination of salsa with some hip-hop elements.

771. - I think I might take off. - Really?

772. Ben hated this outfit.

773. He thought he looked like Rain Man in it with the white shirt and the blue jacket.

774. The idea was that we wanted him to be out of place.

775. Nobody would really come to a salsa club dressed like that.

776. But I can sort of see the Rain Man thing.

777. It wasn't my intention. I just wanted him to look kind of square.

778. And I think he does.

779. Okay, Reuben, then...

780. For Ben we had that kind of look, where he loosens up throughout the movie.

781. We didn't want Jennifer to look just the same that she does on Friends

782. or in some other movies she's been in. So we did a lot of work.

783. Chris McMillan, who does her hair, did this brilliant thing with her hair.

784. It's very subtle, but it looks different.

785. It's not quite as washed.

786. It maybe looks like she hasn't washed it for a few days or...

787. She's got some extensions. It's not so neat.

788. Her makeup artist, Valli O'Reilly, did some amazing things.

789. Jennifer's eyes, for me, always pop in this movie.

790. They're very subtle,

791. but I think she did some darker shadings around her eyes.

792. And it's a different look, but in a subtle way. It's really cool.

793. That, combined with her wardrobe, created this very specific character.

794. Jennifer is someone you see every day on TV.

795. So you have to really work against that, which she is so up for.

796. She doesn't want to keep playing Rachel.

797. I think she really succeeded at creating this unique character.

798. - I just have to go pee. - Okay.

799. Ben Stiller, because he makes it look so easy,

800. people don't realize what a good actor he is.

801. There's not that many actors that you could just put the camera on

802. and let them go, and just feel what they're feeling.

803. Watching this scene with an audience, you can tell they're squirming.

804. They're laughing, but they just feel what he's feeling.

805. He really pulls it off.

806. He doesn't know what to do.

807. He hasn't been in this situation in a while.

808. Should he unbutton his shirt? We just let the camera go.

809. We talked about some things, and he just did it.

810. Hi.

811. These kind of scenes are always tricky. The actors are very vulnerable.

812. But they were both really cool and comfortable with each other.

813. Here comes the spank.

814. Did you just spank me?

815. What can I say about that?

816. It was a set-up from earlier where Sandy says women like to be spanked.

817. And the idea was this guy hasn't been on a date in a long time,

818. he follows his friend's advice, doesn't really know what to do.

819. It doesn't backfire because she's such a cool woman,

820. but it doesn't quite work out the way he planned.

821. Oh, wow. This is incredible.

822. This sex scene became much shorter due to the ratings board.

823. So we went through a lot of variations of what he should say.

824. And we ended up with this, where he's counting down.

825. Suddenly, things change and it looks like he might be finished

826. and he's just got to count down.

827. It was longer. We had other angles

828. but we couldn't put them in for ratings.

829. It's all leading up to this shot here...

830. Fifty!

831. where he shouts out "fifty."

832. And the audience is always kind of...

833. Yeah!

834. That was Jennifer's idea.

835. I had always ended the scene on Ben's "fifty"

836. and she had this idea that she would be into that.

837. And I wasn't sure.

838. She did it, and it's such a great moment.

839. Certainly, I know in our preview process the audience almost cheered.

840. They did cheer when she yells out "fifty"

841. because people think, "Wow, this girl is so understanding."

842. Men think, "I wish I could meet a girl like that,

843. "that if I make a mistake or something in bed, she just goes with it."

844. He is a kind, decent, solid guy.

845. This was a visual-effect shot.

846. Earlier, Jennifer pours red wine into a white wine glass.

847. That was a white wine glass, but we digitally changed this

848. so that she would do it again. That was just a subtle thing

849. that few people in the audience laugh at.

850. It's just that she doesn't think about it. She's not that interested in her job.

851. Okay, so throw pillows go in this cabinet here.

852. You don't sleep on these?

853. No, they're decorative.

854. After you start seeing somebody, you bring them into your world

855. and they get a different insight into

856. what you go through and what your life is like.

857. For Reuben, I always felt like his life was, as I said earlier,

858. one of these guys that spends 10 minutes taking pillows off the bed

859. and he has a perfect little place to put them every night.

860. Until somebody says, "Why are you doing that?" you don't think about it.

861. It's kind of the theme of the movie,

862. that you're on this track, and then the rug gets pulled out from under you.

863. And you go,

864. "Maybe there's a different way of living, or some way that's truer to myself",

865. which is what this scene is about.

866. I'm liberating you.

867. - Try it. - No, I'm not going to...

868. Just one stab. Come on, see how you feel.

869. Shooting-wise, this scene was quite a pain

870. because every take we had to vacuum up

871. all the down and feathers.

872. So it took a long time to do.

873. But I think their energy is really good in this scene.

874. - What's the point of these things? - No point.

875. Stupid.

876. - Am I running a bed-and-breakfast? - Not anymore.

877. A lot of this was improv.

878. Ben and I and Jennifer worked out some things he should say.

879. Ben is so great at improv that he just ran with it.

880. That's that.

881. Whoa!

882. Wait, you hit mattress.

883. You know what? I really got to go. I'm late. Shoot!

884. What's wrong? Lose your keys again?

885. No, they're just not where I left them before.

886. These scenes are hard for actors because often the other actor isn't on the phone.

887. They just have to play it, generally, with me.

888. So I'm sitting behind the monitors on the phone, trying to be Ben

889. and she's in the scene talking to Ben but listening to me.

890. But they're good. They don't show you that that's what they're doing.

891. I always was really happy with how they did that.

892. As many times as we could, we tried to get the actual actors on the phone together

893. but it was often difficult with their schedules.

894. The hardest thing

895. was Ben playing a romantic scene on the phone with me on the other end.

896. It was just extremely disturbing.

897. You would never want to actually hear how I tried to do Jennifer's character.

898. It was embarrassing for everybody.

899. Yet another really cool bathroom set.

900. The way it seems so lived-in.

901. A lot of subtle touches between the lighting and the production design.

902. You know what? Actually, me no estás too good, Javier.

903. I want you to stay away from Polly. Find yourself another dance partner.

904. Why?

905. Because she and I are a couple.

906. Ben is very good at playing,

907. he does this a lot in Meet the Parents, too,

908. a guy who's very confident about what he's doing

909. and it ends up backfiring on him.

910. - Reuben, I am gay. - I don't care what you... What?

911. I love this moment that he does here.

912. He just completely changes.

913. You think maybe you could give me some salsa lessons?

914. He goes from being tough to just being completely open and innocent.

915. And this character differs from Greg Focker in Meet the Parents

916. or some of the other characters he's played in that Reuben is an innocent

917. and he hasn't experienced a lot.

918. And Ben brought a lot of that to the role.

919. This was fun, we just played some music and let them go for a bunch of takes.

920. They just got into it.

921. Polly's children's book.

922. It was in the script that she writes this disturbing children's book.

923. They were more pictures. There was one about wife-swapping

924. which we cut out of the movie. We thought it was too disturbing.

925. But one of our art department people lived next door to a children's book artist.

926. And we asked her to basically draw children's book illustrations

927. but with disturbing things, and she did. I love what she drew

928. because it's very light but disturbing at the same time.

929. But, and I don't mean this in a bad way...

930. Right.

931. just what were you thinking?

932. Teddy Shapiro, our composer, wrote this great salsa groove that they could dance to.

933. It has a very...

934. It's a point in the movie where I feel like everything's coming together.

935. And these two worlds that they're in are meeting.

936. He goes to her house, then she goes to his office.

937. The movie is about these two people meeting in the middle.

938. This is what they're doing in this sequence of the movie.

939. That should be on the rewards side.

940. It's one of the most dangerous activities a human being can do.

941. - Really? - Yeah.

942. Have you done it?

943. Have I parachuted off the top of a building?

944. No.

945. So how do you know what it's like?

946. I don't.

947. Interesting.

948. This next shot, coming up, when he vomits,

949. we had this idea that he would vomit at the end.

950. It wasn't in the script, so we just stole two seconds of the earlier scene

951. where Reuben is in the men's room, and flipped the image

952. so you wouldn't know it was the same shot, and we put the vomiting noise over it.

953. The idea is that he's changing, but she's still driving him sick.

954. This scene was very difficult to shoot because they started playing with a ball.

955. It was very hard for them to do the dialogue and have the ball in there.

956. About two hours into filming, it wasn't working out

957. so we took the ball away

958. and we had them play the scene and there's no ball.

959. There's only one shot with a ball, and we digitally put that in.

960. So suddenly this scene came to life. They were able to run around

961. and you'd never notice that there's not a ball.

962. Darren King was our sound supervisor.

963. He did a great job with creating this whole racquetball world

964. without there ever being a ball in it.

965. Are you trying to manipulate me?

966. Of course I am. But I want to hold on to me company.

967. Bryan is not a 25-year-old guy, but he's in great shape.

968. He spent this entire day running around like a maniac and diving on the ground.

969. Aboard the what?

970. I love him in this area, where he doesn't realize how bloody his mouth is.

971. By the end of the weekend, you'll know what a safe bet I am.

972. You know what? You're bleeding pretty bad.

973. Our makeup artist created this bridge where he had a fake tooth missing.

974. I always like his positivity about that. It summed up the character to me.

975. So I tell Leland we can't insure him.

976. Here's where we decided that Reuben drinks a vodka tonic with a little lime

977. and Polly would drink bourbon straight up.

978. Is that rude, to invite myself?

979. It'd be great! Good, you'll actually commit to something in advance.

980. - Yeah. - Oh, my God.

981. Okay, yeah, I am. I think that would be really fun.

982. - What? - What are you doing?

983. I'm going to have some nuts.

984. One of my goals with this movie was

985. that people would stop eating mixed nuts after seeing it.

986. I don't know if it'll come true, but I do think he makes a very compelling argument

987. for why you shouldn't eat mixed nuts.

988. I made up all these statistics.

989. Seventeen people, one in...

990. Three out of four don't wash their hands when they go to the bathroom.

991. But the essence is the way this guy thinks.

992. He sees dangers in everything.

993. you're ingesting potentially deadly bacteria

994. from 39 soil-handed strangers.

995. People wonder why they get E. coli poisoning

996. or salmonella or hepatitis.

997. They should look at the snack bowl at their local watering hole.

998. I'm not being neurotic. It's a hot zone in there.

999. How could you have eaten those?

1000. We had two great editors on this movie,

1001. Bill Kerr and Nick Moore

1002. as well as a great associate editor, Laura Steiger.

1003. The scene coming up was one of the most challenging scenes to edit

1004. because there were so many angles, so many choices, trying to find the tone

1005. and that's this big dance scene with Reuben and Polly

1006. which just has to work.

1007. It's the climax of their relationship before things start to fall apart.

1008. Hey, Reuben. You ready?

1009. This took a day to shoot. It was complicated.

1010. There were just a lot of elements.

1011. And we tried to keep this tone

1012. where Polly is surprised and doesn't know what's going on

1013. and Reuben is completely confident.

1014. And then she melts halfway through when she realizes what he's been doing.

1015. In this scene you need the background players and the extras to be part of it

1016. and they just got into it.

1017. And Ben also brilliantly executed this routine

1018. and it's really difficult to do what he does,

1019. which is try to look like he knows this routine

1020. but he can't quite do it that well. Like in this shot.

1021. He just slams into the thing and Jennifer's got to react

1022. and that's what I think makes her character so winning, in part,

1023. is this wonderful reaction that she has to his routine

1024. and also Ben's commitment to it.

1025. And here's one of my favorite moments in the movie,

1026. this slow motion where there's nothing going on other than their faces.

1027. And Ben was showing pure joy.

1028. That was my direction to him in that shot.

1029. He's just totally into it and Jennifer melts.

1030. I think she pulls it off, and I think he does, too.

1031. The idea, script-wise, was you come from the high point of that to the low point...

1032. Holy shit.

1033. where you introduce Debra Messing again as Lisa.

1034. And this scene...

1035. Again, it's one of those scenes that I really wanted to work in the movie,

1036. in that it sums up the two tones of the movie.

1037. You have this big comedic scene,

1038. Ben going crazy, dancing for Jennifer.

1039. Then you have a scene where there's not a lot of jokes.

1040. It's just a human moment of this couple falling in love

1041. and they come back, and his wife is back. And that complicates things.

1042. At a lot of our previews, what was fun was you'd have people yelling out,

1043. yelling at the screen and telling Lisa to get out of there.

1044. You'd see people turn to their neighbor and say,

1045. "Oh, she's back." That kind of thing.

1046. And you hope that that happens, that people are involved in the story.

1047. I'm just going to go.

1048. This was additional photography.

1049. We just wanted to have this one moment where you saw that Polly was upset

1050. that it actually has affected her.

1051. We added that little moment after we finished principal photography.

1052. I missed you, Reuben.

1053. I missed you, too, but come on!

1054. It's a scene without a lot of comedy

1055. but I think both the actors are very natural and pull it off.

1056. She doesn't call herself your girlfriend.

1057. That's... No, she just doesn't like the phrasing.

1058. Okay, then, let me just ask you this.

1059. Casting somebody like Debra Messing in the part of Lisa was key for me

1060. because I wanted somebody likeable.

1061. I didn't want to just have somebody who was a shrew.

1062. She leaves him on his honeymoon and then comes back, and you'd go:

1063. "Why would he consider getting back together with her?"

1064. We were so fortunate to have Debra Messing play this part.

1065. She brings a lot of humanity

1066. and she's very charming and obviously such a skilled actress.

1067. But, clearly, what Lisa's character does to Reuben is manipulate him and say:

1068. "I will never hurt you again and I love you."

1069. She's trying to play on his vulnerabilities.

1070. You need a really strong actress to try to make that work.

1071. We don't just... No. We can't just go... I can't...

1072. I don't even know what to say right now, okay? So...

1073. Okay.

1074. And then the idea was you have this

1075. more dramatic scene that's just happened

1076. and then you bring an injection of comedy, which is Alec Baldwin, into the scenario.

1077. That's one of my favorite moments. I love when he comes in and makes a little face.

1078. Alec shot a lot at the beginning of the schedule

1079. and we were all very sad when he left.

1080. He was such a fun presence on the set

1081. and a lovely guy to work with.

1082. All right.

1083. I'm going to Barbados with my mistress for the weekend.

1084. I want this Van Lew thing settled by the time I get back.

1085. I am on it, and I'll make it happen.

1086. Good things.

1087. "Good things" was sort of his trademark and he pulled it off well.

1088. - Hey, pal. - Hey, Larry.

1089. Lisa dropped this off for you.

1090. The next chunk of the movie was the trickiest for me in that

1091. it's where the movie becomes more serious.

1092. There's still comedy interlaced with it

1093. but you're kind of getting into Reuben's conflict a bit

1094. and seeing that Lisa coming back has messed with his head

1095. and he doesn't know...

1096. He wants to be married, he thinks. He wants commitment

1097. and doesn't know if he'll get it with Polly. And he's got Lisa saying she's ready.

1098. That's the Crocodile Tears poster, which we modeled on the Breakfast Club poster.

1099. It's almost an exact replica.

1100. We cast young kids who looked like characters in The Breakfast Club.

1101. This was shot in a guy's apartment in downtown LA.

1102. The only thing that we kept was this enormous chair

1103. that the kid, when we walked in to scout his apartment, was sitting on.

1104. And Phil Hoffman, this was probably his happiest day

1105. because he got to lounge on that chair all day long.

1106. I just want to make sure I'm making the right decision.

1107. I don't see how putting these two girls in the Riskmaster

1108. will help you make up your mind.

1109. - Interesting. - What's it say?

1110. Polly!

1111. - Polly? - Yeah.

1112. No way. Just cut your losses and get back with Lisa.

1113. I checked it three times. It says she's the safer choice.

1114. Whatever.

1115. By the way, is your health okay? You're looking thin.

1116. Polly's been making me eat ethnic food

1117. so I've been throwing up a lot lately.

1118. Cool.

1119. Polly Prince.

1120. Polly Feffer.

1121. Polly Prince-Feffer.

1122. You can't cancel. You were so excited to go.

1123. I know, but...

1124. We fell in love with these funny Bolivian mud huts.

1125. That actress is Christina Kirk, who's a wonderful stage actress,

1126. primarily in New York. She does independent film.

1127. She came out and did me a favor playing this small part.

1128. - ... when your wife just came back. - You're making this such a big deal.

1129. I told you, I'm not getting back together with her.

1130. This was a tricky part of the movie.

1131. Things are getting complicated but still moving the story forward.

1132. This is an Eels song that one of our editors, Nick Moore, found.

1133. We were searching for the right song and I liked the lyrics,

1134. "Goddamn right it's a beautiful day."

1135. And I thought the positive energy was good.

1136. You try to create a sense of being out on the water, and it's fun

1137. except Reuben's not having a good time.

1138. - You're good. You're a natural. - This is amazing!

1139. Hey, Leland, are those storm clouds up ahead?

1140. ILM, Industrial Light & Magic, designed this next shot for us.

1141. They just created it out of nothing, which just blew me away.

1142. They created that boat and the storm. None of it existed. It was on the computer.

1143. I always loved what they did with that.

1144. - I'll be out in a sec. - All right.

1145. This boat sequence was easily one of the most difficult to shoot in the movie.

1146. It was on a set that was on top of what's called a gimbal.

1147. It's basically a set on a hydraulic lift, and you could move the thing around.

1148. For two days, these actors were on this set on a gimbal that kept moving around

1149. and you'd literally get seasick.

1150. We had a cameraman in there, and our boom operator

1151. and it was tough to shoot.

1152. Plus it was one of the more dramatic scenes in the movie,

1153. where they had to get in this fight and make it believable.

1154. And be flying all around.

1155. And I think the scene works in the end

1156. but it was one of those that you're very grateful when it's done.

1157. Rodolfo's in your toiletry kit. Did you know that?

1158. Did you pack him, or did you...

1159. What is this?

1160. Why am I in your computer on your Riskmaster thingy?

1161. Okay, you know what? I can explain this.

1162. It's fascinating, actually. I learned a lot about myself.

1163. The idea that came to me with this scene was a lot of times in these movies,

1164. the boyfriend and girlfriend have a fight at this time.

1165. I was thinking, if they get into a fight, what can we do to make it more interesting?

1166. Maybe it would be interesting if they're having this fight in the middle of a storm

1167. and what's happening outside echoes what's happening inside

1168. although the guy who's fighting the storm, Leland, is having a good time.

1169. You expect me to move to the suburbs with you? Are you insane?

1170. Why is that so crazy? People do that all the time.

1171. They have kids, they make plans...

1172. Because of the comedy in the movie that we've set up,

1173. we can't have too many scenes like this.

1174. But hopefully the movie can sustain a scene or two like this

1175. that's more dramatic and more about the themes of the movie.

1176. And then we get back on with the comedy in a few minutes.

1177. I've never met anybody more afraid of commitment.

1178. You were a senior delegate at the Model UN, Polly.

1179. What the hell happened to you?

1180. That's another ILM shot that they created.

1181. Come on, you mother! You can do better than that!

1182. I've been living my life, okay?

1183. I've been in good relationships and in shitty ones.

1184. And I've moved a lot and I've been happy and sad

1185. and lonely and that's what I've been doing.

1186. Which is more than I can say for some freak

1187. who thinks he'll get Ebola virus from a bowl of mixed nuts.

1188. Those nuts have pee on them! It's common sense.

1189. Trust me, that is so far beyond common sense.

1190. We rehearsed the scene a lot

1191. and figured out exactly where they were going to go flying.

1192. And we coordinated it with this gimbal guy

1193. who is on a joystick and jolts the joystick whenever he wants the boat to go flying.

1194. It took a long time. It took about half a day

1195. to block the whole scene out and figure out, on this line...

1196. He says, "You were a senior delegate at the Model UN. What happened to you?"

1197. Then the boat's gonna go flying. It took a lot of rehearsal

1198. to get these precise moments for them to fly across the set.

1199. I have no interest

1200. in getting married and moving to the suburbs.

1201. And obviously that's really important to you.

1202. So here's what I think your new plan should be.

1203. You should get back together with Lisa, move into your house

1204. and move on with your life.

1205. And I think you guys will be really happy together.

1206. Oh, dear Lord.

1207. You're not making my job any easier, Leland.

1208. Come on, Reub. Weather report said sunny skies.

1209. We were fortunate to get this Beck song, Lost Cause, which I loved.

1210. I played it on the set during this scene to get Ben in the mood.

1211. There wasn't a lot of dialogue. He has nobody to react with, or interact with.

1212. And Beck came to see the movie and agreed to let us use his song

1213. which I think captures the essence of what's going on here.

1214. I always saw this as echoing with the scene where he comes home from his honeymoon.

1215. But this time he comes from a trip to his new house, this big, empty, lonely house

1216. which is a symbol of what he thought he wanted.

1217. You have Beck's voice, which is sad, but Beck is always a bit ironic

1218. playing in the background, and I was really grateful that he let us use the song.

1219. Give me a call on my cell phone.

1220. Coming up, Lisa calls.

1221. And we debated... In the script you don't hear what she says on the other line.

1222. And in most of our early previews, we never had Lisa's voice.

1223. But Debra Messing is such a good actress and has such a strong personality

1224. that we thought that maybe if you heard her voice you'd believe that Reuben would,

1225. in a moment of weakness, decide to give things another shot.

1226. And so we used her voice, and she came in and recorded it, and did a great job.

1227. I don't know, Lisa.

1228. Let me think about it.

1229. Ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats.

1230. The premiere of Jesus Christ Superstar is about to begin.

1231. Hey, Reuby Tuesday!

1232. - ¿Cómo estás? - What are you doing here?

1233. What else? Hector's playing keyboards in the band.

1234. Coming up is a shot I love, the four headshot.

1235. People don't have those anymore, but they used to back in the '70s.

1236. You'd see an actor in a ski hat and gloves, and maybe with a Sherlock Holmes hat.

1237. I thought a guy like Sandy would have one of those headshots

1238. showing all his different talents

1239. just because he's so unaware of precisely how untalented he is.

1240. Why? Where is she going?

1241. I don't know. She said goodbye. That's it.

1242. - Hi, I'm sorry I'm late. - No, yeah. Hi.

1243. Hey, Javi, this is Lisa, my wife.

1244. This was another tricky scene.

1245. The scene we shot was actually longer and you see

1246. Sandy doing more of the Jesus Christ Superstar performance.

1247. But ultimately, we previewed it that way, and the feeling we got was that

1248. as funny as it was, people were sort of

1249. ready to get on with the story. And so we decided to shorten it a bit

1250. and create this idea that instead of performing Sandy says:

1251. "I'll be playing dual roles tonight"

1252. which is planted earlier when he's already singing Jesus' part.

1253. 4:00? I don't know if I can do that.

1254. What's wrong with you? Get your ass over here!

1255. Good evening, folks. I'm Sandy Lyle

1256. and I've got a very special announcement.

1257. Please note that in tonight's performance

1258. in addition to playing Judas, I'll be playing Jesus as well.

1259. Thank you and enjoy the show.

1260. Sandy, what are you doing? Wonsuk is playing Jesus.

1261. It's cool. I'll play dual roles. Give me the crown, Wonsuk.

1262. This we sort of manufactured.

1263. - Oh, no. - Oh, shit!

1264. Just had them come running out, which they always did,

1265. but it used to be that he would sing on stage and then run off and tackle the guy.

1266. I'm a professional and I won't put my reputation on the line...

1267. This next scene was very tricky to shoot. It was deceptively hard

1268. because we had a lot of characters in a very small, confined location

1269. and it was tough to figure out just how to block everybody

1270. and how to make it work.

1271. I think it ends up working. I love Bob Dishy's performance in this scene.

1272. His whole character was leading up to it. He never speaks except for this one scene.

1273. There's no point in going through all this crap...

1274. The idea was for him to say this but not sound like he's really moralizing.

1275. He's just being matter-of-fact about it, and Bob Dishy makes you believe that.

1276. You were funny as hell playing those bagpipes, though.

1277. Did I ever tell you that?

1278. I don't think I've ever heard you speak before, Mr. Feffer.

1279. I love Philip Seymour Hoffman in this movie.

1280. I love the way he says that line. Just very genuine.

1281. So, Reuby, are we going to grab a bite after your work thingamajigy?

1282. No, Lisa,

1283. I shouldn't have asked you to come down here.

1284. I'm not getting back together with you.

1285. What are you talking about?

1286. - Why? - "Why?"

1287. You screwed a scuba-diving instructor on our honeymoon.

1288. What kind of cold, heartless bitch would do that to someone they love?

1289. I'd have to be an idiot to get back together with you after that.

1290. And by the way, I destroyed all your little throw pillows.

1291. Yeah, because throw pillows suck. They serve no purpose.

1292. They're purely decorative.

1293. This was on the Paramount backlot.

1294. We shot a lot of our New York stuff on the backlot

1295. and again, I live in New York

1296. so I was trying to be vigilant about making it look real.

1297. We have these great production designers,

1298. who, I think, helped to make it look real.

1299. I don't think you'd really know unless you've been on that backlot.

1300. Hopefully, you wouldn't know that it was all shot in Hollywood.

1301. I hired Dustin and Vic myself.

1302. I was going to try and sell it to the network when I'm done.

1303. I love the way they interact in this scene.

1304. Philip is quite touching to me in this scene.

1305. Finally vulnerable and admitting that he's such a loser.

1306. You have a nice moment of laughing between the two of them.

1307. I always saw their friendship as leading up to this scene.

1308. These two actors are so good

1309. that they make you feel that this is where their relationship has come to.

1310. You're Reuben's proxy? What the hell does that mean?

1311. He's dealing with a personal situation

1312. so he asked me to fill in. Relax, I'm a professional actor.

1313. They will never know the difference.

1314. - I can't freaking believe this. - Quiet. I'm trying to prepare.

1315. This was a Baldwin ad-lib here.

1316. I'm going to vomit.

1317. I am so sorry for the delay, folks...

1318. This scene in the boardroom was another complicated one to shoot,

1319. primarily because I changed the script quite a bit the morning that we shot.

1320. I threw a lot of new dialogue onto Philip Seymour Hoffman,

1321. who's obviously an incredible actor and is very conscientious

1322. about learning the script before he shoots, so he really knows it well.

1323. So when I changed it, we had to work through it.

1324. But I think he totally delivered in the end.

1325. The cough thing was something we just came up with on the day.

1326. It was just to make the scene as awkward as possible.

1327. We pushed it to see how far we could go.

1328. We previewed it and it always seems to be quite funny,

1329. so we kept it in.

1330. As you know, this is a highly complex case.

1331. Let me see here.

1332. On the plus side, Leland's blood pressure is pretty solid.

1333. For the rest of this, we ad-libbed or I threw lines out to Philip

1334. or he came up with a lot of these lines.

1335. I think this line Philip came up with.

1336. And he is sexually active in the community.

1337. I love that. "Sexually active in the community."

1338. I don't quite know what it means, but he's seeing it as a positive.

1339. This was shot back on the Lower East Side.

1340. Polly!

1341. JFK, please.

1342. Let's not bullcrap each other.

1343. On paper, Van Lew is one of the riskiest sons of bitches alive.

1344. That is one of our producers, Michael Shamberg.

1345. He plays one of Leland's board members.

1346. I was fortunate to have some terrific producers on this movie,

1347. Michael Shamberg and his partner, Stacey Sher, and Danny DeVito.

1348. And our executive producers, Jane Bartelme and Dan Levine.

1349. And our associate producer, Anders Bard. They all helped me a lot.

1350. Michael looks like the kind of guy who you'd find in a boardroom,

1351. so I put him in there.

1352. He blinks a lot.

1353. But if you can cut around his blinking, you'll be okay.

1354. shark-diving,

1355. volcano-luging,

1356. bear-fighting, snake-wrangling,

1357. motocross-racing bastard die?

1358. And the answer...

1359. I changed so much of the dialogue, but Philip really played this brilliantly

1360. and accompanied with Teddy Shapiro's great score,

1361. it tried to create this very heroic monologue.

1362. And he gets all the facts wrong.

1363. are willing to lay our asses on the line

1364. and proudly recommend that Leland Van Lew

1365. receive $50 million

1366. in life and health and automobile insurance

1367. for a duration of no less than 20 years.

1368. What do you think, guys?

1369. Are you that kid from Crocodile Tears?

1370. - You're goddamn right I am. - I thought so.

1371. Impressive presentation. He's insured.

1372. - Congratulations. - Bloody ripper!

1373. Love you, son!

1374. And this coming up is the scene that Ben Stiller has discussed a lot.

1375. It's where the ferret latched on to his chin and would not let go.

1376. It was a strange moment. The ferret bit him

1377. and Ben was very oddly calm about it.

1378. He was okay, but it was odd. Ben did have a little bit of blood,

1379. which I didn't tell him about until after we completed the scene.

1380. This is back on the Paramount backlot.

1381. You left Rodolfo behind. Does that mean anything?

1382. Again, fake ferret, thank God. Animatronic ferret.

1383. People seem to like seeing that little guy get bashed into things.

1384. - ... you're much riskier than Lisa. - Yes! Right!

1385. That's why it won't work out between us.

1386. Reuben, you're a nice, safe, conventional guy.

1387. It's not going to work out.

1388. We played around with different endings for this movie.

1389. The original script ended with Reuben doing a BASE jump off an office building

1390. to try to stop Polly.

1391. There were these big, more maybe "Hollywood" kind of endings.

1392. We decided that the BASE jump didn't feel organic to the story.

1393. So I came up with this idea that

1394. for a guy like Reuben, one of the most heroic things he could do was

1395. eat nuts off the street.

1396. Especially after he's given this whole monologue to Polly

1397. about how you shouldn't eat mixed nuts at a bar.

1398. And on the boat, Polly says,

1399. "You're some freak that thinks you'll get the Ebola virus from a bowl of mixed nuts."

1400. The nuts became symbolic in the movie.

1401. And so I wrote this scene

1402. that was a little simpler than those big, action-oriented scenes.

1403. And this is the scene that we end their relationship with.

1404. or wherever, we'll never know if it could've been more.

1405. Oh, no.

1406. And Ben did eat nuts off the street.

1407. We cleaned the street, but still.

1408. Put it this way, I didn't eat the nuts off the street.

1409. Please don't eat those.

1410. No, really.

1411. I don't want you to go away.

1412. - I'm not going to marry you. - I don't want to get married.

1413. I just want to take you to dinner.

1414. Sometime this week.

1415. Can I pick the place?

1416. In the first draft, they didn't go to the island.

1417. But I always felt it was one of those scenes,

1418. having worked on various movies as a script doctor...

1419. I've done that on a lot of comedies.

1420. I felt like this scene would be the kind you'd want to reshoot at the end.

1421. That you'd go, "It might be fun to meet Claude again, go back to the island."

1422. So I wrote it in the second draft of the script.

1423. I thought it would be fun to catch up with this character and see how he's doing.

1424. It had the idea that Reuben is comfortable enough with himself

1425. that he can go back to the same spot with a new woman

1426. and confront what was once his enemy but is now his savior.

1427. So, let me guess. You are here on honeymoon again?

1428. - This is your beautiful bride? - No, we're just hanging out.

1429. - It's more serious than that. - I'm just saying we're not married.

1430. Right. Definitely not married.

1431. I like the idea that now Reuben is the one saying, "We're not gonna get married."

1432. And Polly is the one saying, "No, it's possible."

1433. She's kind of...

1434. It was the idea of meeting in the middle, that they've each changed a little bit.

1435. I think people in life don't change 180 degrees, but they've each changed a bit.

1436. Leland's got a new boat, the Son of the 'Roo Shooter.

1437. And, again, this idea that Claude is sweet, that even though he stole his wife,

1438. he's nice.

1439. Thank you for everything, Claude.

1440. That was a pretty important line to me, that he thanked him.

1441. Just that, if this hadn't happened to him,

1442. he might be sitting in his suburban house with Lisa

1443. and probably wouldn't be living the life he wants to lead.

1444. Of course, Ben was quite courageous to be naked at the end of the movie.

1445. I felt it was important for his character to do it,

1446. to show that he's come full circle.

1447. The agreement we made was that if the audience laughed, we'd keep it in.

1448. And they laughed at all of our screenings, so we kept it in.

1449. Okay. Well, thank you very much.

1450. I appreciate you listening to the commentary.

1451. And thanks for checking out Along Came Polly.