I decided to take Alex’s sister’s story and make it a screenplay with my friend Bob Brunner, who had started with me on the New York Daily News back in the late 1950s. We had come a long way together since our stint as copyboys. Bob had done some rewrite work on Frankie and Johnny, Exit to Eden, and Dear God. The Other Sister offered us the chance to write something from scratch. Nobody paid us to do this. We simply wrote it and hoped we could sell it. When we finished the script I took it to Disney. They had been so supportive during Pretty Woman, and I’d heard some of the executives in the land of Mickey Mouse had seen Frankie and Johnny and liked what I did on that film, too.
I met with Disney’s Joe Roth, who said he liked the script. What clinched the deal, though, was that his wife read the script and liked it so much she said he had to produce it. He agreed to green-light the picture, but he said he had to be honest with me about it. This would not be a big hit picture, nor would it be a big-budget picture. But if we did it right, we could make a small picture about a special subject that might interest audiences, families, and also me. It was the right time in the history of their company for Disney to make a smaller picture. Roth suggested Diane Keaton to play the mother because Disney was looking for a suitable project for her. I had never worked with Diane, but my wife and I were big fans of her work in Woody Allen’s movies.
I didn’t even bother interviewing other actresses for the role of the mother. I always look for something quirky about an actress, and I remembered a story I had heard years ago about Diane. She was in the original Broadway production of Hair, and she was the only actress who would not take off her clothing for the big naked number “Where Do I Go?” She had a quirky side and a modest side that I thought was admirable. Also as we began production on The Other Sister, she had just adopted a daughter to raise as a single parent. Diane was developing a maternal side as well.
The thing I liked most about our script was that the mentally challenged daughter not only was from a wealthy family but also was beautiful. Too often this type of story would have depicted her character as an unattractive girl from a poor family. I thought our story was honest because not every family with a disabled child is living at the poverty level. In The Other Sister, Carla Tate is from a family that has money to fix most problems, but her disability is an issue that money can’t fix. The other angle I liked was that when I went to meet Alex’s sister, she had a boyfriend. So my script was going to have a love story angle, a portrait of what it is like for two mentally challenged people to date, fall in love, and try to build a relationship.
Many young actresses wanted the part of Carla. After holding auditions I decided the best actress for the part was someone I could not get easily. Her name was Juliette Lewis, and she had just gotten out of rehab. Disney doesn’t love making pictures with actresses straight out of rehab, but I asked them to make an exception in this case. However, the executives at Disney knew they would have trouble getting insurance for her and they flatly turned her down.
Sometimes you have to think with your gut instead of your head. I was so convinced that Juliette would be perfect for the movie that I decided to put up the extra insurance money myself. Some friends and industry people tried to talk me out of it. We all knew one of the commonsense edicts of Hollywood is “never invest in your own movie.” But I did it anyway. So if Juliette started using drugs again, or had to drop out of the movie for any reason, I would have been out of a lot of money. I didn’t worry about that. I wanted the actress who was best for the movie. Casting is a little like magic, and when you find it, you don’t want to see it walk out the door. I always joked that if you are having trouble casting a role, go and stand in the parking lot of a rehab center and grab some of the people coming out.
The most difficult decision of the entire picture was deciding not to hire my daughter Kathleen for the part of Carla’s lesbian sister. Kathleen is an excellent actress and she would have done a great job. There were two other actresses, however, whom I thought made a better threesome with Juliette. So while I love the art of nepotism and I hated having to disappoint my daughter, sometimes you have to make a decision not to hire a family member. We hired Poppy Montgomery as Caroline and Sarah Paulson as Heather. For the father we needed a calm person who would play well opposite the more volatile and high-strung mother. I chose Tom Skerritt, who had been starring in television shows and movies for years. All I had left to cast was the part of Carla’s love interest, a boy who also had mental challenges.
We found an up-and-coming actor named Giovanni Ribisi, who coincidentally belonged to the Church of Scientology, as Juliette did. I thought he might provide some added support for her if she needed some help with her drug addictions, or at least be a friend closer to her own age to talk to. Giovanni brought his young wife, Mariah, and baby, Lucia, to the set, which I thought offered some nice stability. From the moment I met him I could tell he had a talent well beyond his years. He was someone who would have a career as an actor for the rest of his life.
The Other Sister was not an easy film to shoot because it blended drama and emotion with lighter comedy and personality insights. Dante Spinotti, who had done Beaches and Frankie and Johnny with me, came onboard as my cinematographer, and that made me very happy. We shot part of the movie in Los Angeles, and I always like to work near my house. Some of the time, my wife makes me move into a hotel when I work in Los Angeles so I can order room service whenever I want and not subject her to our crazy work schedule. But I could still go home on the weekends and some early nights, sleep in my own bed, and play tennis or softball with my old friends. We shot the other half of the movie in San Francisco, where my daughter Lori lived, so I was able to get a home-cooked meal and visit my twin granddaughters while on location.
Directing Frankie and Johnny had taught me a lot about actors. Whereas Michelle Pfeiffer would do a scene in several takes, Al Pacino could take eighteen or nineteen. I knew that most everyone else would be in the range. Juliette fell into the quick category. She didn’t need a lot of time to prepare and never stayed in her character. Giovanni, on the other hand, stayed in his character, with the same mannerisms and voice, even when the cameras weren’t rolling. I learned to respect and admire the different ways they approached a scene.
As the movie veteran in the group, the eternally youthful-looking Diane had an opinion about everything, and I grew to depend on her experience and knowledge. She is one of the few people in the world who can say “Coppola did this” and “Woody would do that” and be telling the truth. The trick for her was finding a way to make Elizabeth Tate human. The mother was not written as a likable character. Many of the scenes showed her struggling to raise her disabled daughter, and being cold and even mean when others might have been warmer. Portraying an unlikable character, however, didn’t scare Diane. She was excited to do something new and tried to infuse the mother with a level of humanity.
One of the things I liked most about working with Diane was watching her with the younger actors. She didn’t have a big ego around them. In fact, it was the complete opposite. Diane believed that you stayed on the set to help other actors with their scenes no matter how big a star you were. (Two years later on The Princess Diaries, I noticed that Julie Andrews subscribed to this same philosophy.) If Diane had finished her scenes and Juliet still had closeups to do, Diane would stay to help. She never stayed in her trailer. She would change into her regular clothes and then recite lines to Juliette off-camera. This was incredibly helpful for me as a director and for the young actors, too.
There are some scenes in The Other Sister that I’m very proud of. There is a scene when Diane and Juliette fight on a golf course and in the middle of their fight, sprinklers go off. I thought it was an exciting and dynamic scene that they both did well soaking wet. There is a scene of my sister Ronny and me dancing at a wedding that always makes me smile. There are, of course, always things that make you squirm a little. When Juliette and Giovanni are talking one of them says, “
Who invented sex anyway?” And the other says, “Madonna.” I wish I had taken that line out of the movie. It was too big a joke for a quiet moment between a girl and a boy. But that is minor. I like what we were able to do with the movie.
On The Other Sister I started to learn some of the finer points of film, especially from cinematographer Dante Spinotti. In one scene with Diane we didn’t have the right light. We also didn’t have time to change the lights. So Dante came up with a trick. He told me to get the costume designer to dress three extras in white saris and have them stand near Diane. The wardrobe department just happened to have white sari-like shawls in the truck. We did that and presto! The white saris brightened the scene. It was not a surprise that Dante had been nominated for an Academy Award for L.A. Confidential. He has always been a brilliant cinematographer in my book.
The Other Sister received some very thoughtful and positive reviews. Stephen Holden wrote in The New York Times that the film was “a beautifully acted love story about two mentally challenged young people struggling for independence and self-respect.” He attacked me a little for candy-coating some of the story line but ultimately praised the film for its “outstanding performances” by Juliette Lewis, Diane Keaton, and Giovanni Ribisi. At two hours and nine minutes, it was definitely one of my longer movies, but I felt I needed the length to tell my story. Some critics took me to task for the length, while others found the movie trite. Desson Thomson wrote in The Washington Post that “everything is reduced to a transparent formula. And everyone plays their schematic part.” Everyone is entitled to his opinion. I didn’t think the film was formulaic. I thought it was innovative.
I have always taken the critics’ reviews with a grain of salt, often not reading them until a year later. What carried more weight with me were the letters I received from people who enjoyed the movie. Some of them were from parents who were raising children with disabilities. Many of these letters thanked me for bringing their situations to light and showing their joys and struggles. I also received letters from people who said they showed the film to new employees in group homes and hospitals for clients with disabilities. The letters cheered me up and showed me that people had been inspired by the movie.
Whenever I get down or blue about a project, I remember a conversation I once had with my sister about art and creativity. Penny is one of the brightest and most creative people I know. So whenever I am considering a new project or having trouble with an existing one, I ask her advice. She once told me, “Garry, some people find success at making money out of money. Other people strike it rich by thinking of grand business ideas, or complicated schemes. Our family makes television shows and movies that last. So when trying to decide what to do next, think about whether it will last. That is our family business and our legacy—entertainment that has longevity.” Writer Lowell Ganz once said that charm was our family business. I always think a lot about longevity and charm when considering my next project.
The next movie I would direct would turn out to be Runaway Bride. Julia Roberts was ready to go. Richard Gere had signed his deal, and I was ready to pack my bags and move to Baltimore. I needed a boost. I needed a hit. I needed a movie that would renew my status as a Hollywood director. I wasn’t putting pressure on myself so much as I was renewing my focus and commitment to film and what I wanted to say. A love story. Four different weddings. Two of my favorite actors. I was ready to go. Bring on Runaway Bride, I thought, and let’s hope it is a film that lasts.
20. RUNAWAY BRIDE
Walking Down the Aisle Again with Roberts and Gere
WHEN YOU START to get older in Hollywood, people begin to give you lifetime achievement awards. When this happens you start to feel as if your life is over. The problem was that I was only sixty-four years old when this started, and I didn’t feel like the end of my life was close at all. I felt fine and was doing a lot of acting. I was finishing up my stint as Stan Lansing on Murphy Brown. I had a nice size part in the Drew Barrymore movie Never Been Kissed, and I was preparing to direct Runaway Bride with Julia Roberts and Richard Gere in Baltimore.
Still, the invitations for lifetime achievement awards continued to roll in. I tried to appreciate the accolades without getting depressed that I would soon be living at the old folks’ home. One of my favorite awards included my name on a street sign along the Bronx Walk of Fame. Although I had been in Hollywood for more than thirty years, I still felt like the stickball-playing kid from the Bronx, so a street named after me in my old neighborhood felt extraspecial.
Runaway Bride also felt like an extraspecial movie from the beginning, too. However, to shoot a film in Baltimore in the dead of winter was not on my bucket list. I also didn’t want to be so far away from my family, but sometimes you have to sacrifice comfort for a good job. The producers of Runaway Bride got a great tax incentive to shoot in Baltimore, so we all packed up and moved there.
Early during the shoot a mugger held up some of our crew in the prop department. Two nights later we heard that some members of the cast of the Riverdance, who were performing nearby, were also mugged. Things got so bad that when my assistant and I would leave the hotel to go out to dinner we would run to the restaurant. I heard Barry Levinson, otherwise known as Baltimore’s favorite movie director, was shooting close by. So I called and told him we liked everything about shooting in Baltimore except the crime wave we were experiencing. Immediately Barry made a few phone calls and had more police assigned to our set. We had no trouble after that, and I have always been grateful to Barry.
I had a lot riding on Runaway Bride. None of my last three pictures—Exit to Eden, Dear God, and The Other Sister—had been a hit, and I needed another hit. With a great script and two of my favorite stars, I thought the movie had a lot of potential. At the very least I knew we would have fun reuniting our Pretty Woman trio. For years we had been looking for a script but couldn’t find the right one for a sequel. Richard said he was in a cave one day in Tibet and a monk came over to him and said, “When are you going to do Pretty Woman Two?” That’s when Richard decided we should find a script, any script and not necessarily a sequel, so we could work together again. Julia agreed, and so did I. And Richard could then walk proudly in caves.
What I didn’t anticipate was how cell phones would intrude on our production. When we filmed Pretty Woman, in 1989, nobody had cell phones. On the set of Runaway Bride, in 1999, everyone had a cell phone and some people had two. Julia and Richard always seemed to be on their cell phones. Richard was helping the Dalai Lama promote the cause of Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism, and Julia was saving orphans in Jamaica. I was afraid to shoot a scene because some orphans and the people of Tibet might suffer. I finally had to ask both Richard and Julia to put down their cell phones for a while so we could shoot the movie. I’m only thankful Facebook wasn’t around back then.
As on the sets of my other movies, I liked to plan pranks, contests, and festivities that tied in to different holidays. One day in November the cast and crew decided to pull a prank on me. I was driving to work when a Baltimore policeman came up behind me with flashing lights on. Nervously I pulled over to the side of the road because I thought I was getting a ticket. I am notorious for being a driver so tentative that I make only right turns and rarely left ones. Suddenly the policeman handed me an envelope that contained a birthday card from the cast and crew. I had to laugh because this was the kind of stunt I usually think of.
We all liked to play pranks on Julia because we enjoyed seeing her laugh. Whereas the younger, inexperienced Julia was easy to make laugh out loud on the set of Pretty Woman, I was happy to see Julia the star was still an easy target for a giggle. Big stars like to laugh and experience surprise just like ordinary people. There was a scene in which Julia was going to marry a hippie. She was supposed to climb over a wall and jump onto a waiting motorcycle as her escape from the ceremony. On one of the takes, instead of the motorcycle waiting for her on the other side of the wall, we had a big cake in honor of her birthday
. She gave us one of her best smiles.
Another time we were filming right before Christmas and I hosted a Christmas tree decorating contest. Richard won with a tree he decorated with different photos from his life and acting career. One of his favorite hobbies is photography, and each year he sends Christmas cards to his family and friends containing a picture he has taken during that year. My wife frames his Christmas photos and puts them in the now quiet, expensive guest bathroom where my daughter used to put up fan pictures of Richard back in the 1970s. So our tradition of having a Richard Gere–themed bathroom carries on.
It was reported that Julia and Richard got $20 million apiece to star in Runaway Bride. To say they were big stars was to make an understatement. Julia, in particular, was a powerhouse and being closely watched along with Benjamin Bratt, her boyfriend at the time. However, even on a major motion picture someone can pull the focus from the stars when bad behavior is involved. Our cinematographer got arrested for getting into a fight in a Baltimore bar. It was embarrassing, and we discussed what he should do to redeem himself at work. He decided to gather the cast and crew and apologize for bringing negative publicity to the production. While he was giving his speech, Julia was so excited that someone else was the center of attention that she could hardly stand still. For her, to be just a bystander felt like a day at the spa. She listened carefully to the apologetic cinematographer and looked just like a normal, everyday girl instead of an A-list movie star.
My Happy Days in Hollywood Page 23
