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Starring: Ben Stiller, Jennifer Aniston, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Debra Messing, Alec Baldwin
Directed by: John Hamburg
Screenplay by: John Hamburg
Release Date: January 16th, 2004
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sexual content, language, crude humor, drug references.
Box Office: $88,097,164 (US total)
Studio: Universal Pictures
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Tagline: For the most cautious man on Earth, life is about to get interesting.
Ben Stiller portrays risk-averse Reuben Feffer, whose best-laid plans for life and love zoom wildly off track when his wife (Messing) dumps him on their honeymoon for a scuba instructor (Azaria).
Stunned, humiliated and in the grip of acute indigestion, Reuben plans to play it safer than ever. But a chance encounter with an adventure-craving, globe-trotting friend from middle school (Aniston) shoots him into a whirlwind of extreme sports, spicy foods, ferrets, salsa dancing and living in the moment.
Reuben Feffer (Ben Stiller) has made a fine life -- and a good career -- out of playing it safe. The star risk assessor for a leading insurance firm, Reuben is an expert on minimizing danger -- nothing ventured, nothing lost.
Polly Prince (Jennifer Aniston) plays her life like a game of chance, taking joy from the serendipity that a rolling stone existence brings her. There's always another opportunity -- a new job, yet another apartment in another city -- should this one not work out. No biggie next. So when a chance meeting puts Reuben and Polly at the same party, the recently (and extremely) jilted Reuben decides that for once, chance may just be on his side. Dating Polly might be the answer to getting his life back on track -- she's attractive, fresh, funny -- and after all, the two knew each other in seventh grade, when they were both delegates in the Model U.N. together. Just how much can a person change?
Well, Polly probably didn't have tattoos in junior high. Or have a penchant for spicy food, steamy salsa dancing or collecting tokens from boyfriends past like the near-blind ferret she picked up in Italy. And Reuben -- his propensity to plan everything in his life may not have been as all-encompassing in middle school, nor his compulsion with living in the middle of the road as pronounced.
But even in the middle of the road, Reuben finds that there are bound to be bumps -- like indigestible food, scary children's stories, sight-impaired house pets. Life is risky, and so is love and with Polly along for the ride, could one expect (or enjoy) anything less?
Starring along with Stiller and Aniston are an all-star cast of supporting players, including Philip Seymour Hoffman as Reuben's lifelong best friend, ex-teen movie star Sandy Lyle; Debra Messing as Reuben's new ex-bride (sort of), Lisa Kramer; Hank Azaria as the other (French)man, scuba instructor Claude; Bryan Brown as the adventurous Australian billionaire/entrepreneur Leland Van Lew; and Alec Baldwin as Stan Indursky, Reuben's wheeler-dealer boss.
About the Production
For screenwriter / director John Hamburg—whose way with comic characters, funny dialogue and hilarious/embarrassing (and sometime raucous) scenarios had made hits out of the previous films of his co-written screenplays Meet the Parents and Zoolander—the character of Reuben Feffer, the risk-shy risk analyst of Along Came Polly, had almost become an unwelcome visitor before he ever made it to the page. Months before Hamburg had begun actually writing his latest screenplay, the characters of Reuben and those in his world had been increasingly occupying the writer’s mind.
Hamburg remembers, “With this movie, I was thinking about a guy who planned out his entire life, and then what would be the worst thing that could happen to him? And I thought that it would be the woman he is ready to spend the rest of his life with leaving him on his honeymoon. Now, he’s got to start over—so what’s the next best/worst thing that could happen? He meets a girl that he thinks he can connect with, and she turns out to be the least committal person ever. And the whole film just grew from there.”
As with his previous comic character-driven scripts, Hamburg initially began penning Polly without specific actors in mind for certain parts, instead crafting the pagebound characters with deft strokes, attempting to establish a basis of reality—then pouring on the mayhem and jolting everyone into life.
He continues, “What appeals to me and one of the great things about writing is that you can think of a normal situation and take it to the comic extreme, making it worse and worse—that’s how my mind works.”
But he does admit to having at least a strong inkling about the actor to best inhabit Reuben while working on the script and continues, “I was trying to write a romantic comedy and I had these characters in my mind. For the most part, I really did just try to write and not picture any actors in the roles because I like to write these people until they become real to me. But I had worked with Ben on several movies before, and the more I wrote Reuben, the more I thought that Ben was the perfect guy to do it. I think every day I imagined him doing different scenes.”
Stiller had met Hamburg when he saw his first feature, Safe Men, and their relationship continued through Parents and Zoolander (Stiller starred in both Hamburg co-written projects, in addition to directing and co-writing Zoolander). The demand for Hamburg’s scripts had kept the filmmaker from directing, and when he had a draft of Polly ready for reading (which would mark his return to behind the camera as well), he had sent it to Stiller.
Stiller comments, “John’s the kind of guy that when most of his filmmaking friends have a finished script or movie, they show it to him to get his feedback—he’ll give great input and help you fix something. So it’s great to have somebody who you know is that good working on something from the beginning. And it’s just more fun to work with him on-set because we laugh at the same things…and he probably gets me to do things that I wouldn’t normally feel that comfortable doing.”
For the role of the former Model U.N. delegate and post-breakup romance for Reuben—the titular Polly—Hamburg turned to Emmy Award-winning actress Jennifer Aniston, whose comedic reputation had been cemented by 10 seasons as Friends’ Rachel Green and whose growing list of memorable movie roles (Bruce Almighty, The Good Girl) had broadened her popularity and versatility.
Hamburg recalls, “I was trying to figure out who could play Polly and Jennifer came about for various reasons. I was always a big fan of Jennifer’s from Friends and some of the movies she had made during the course of that show. She was terrific in Office Space and just phenomenal in The Good Girl. I met with her and it just felt really right. I knew that she would have the ability to play the scenes opposite Ben and keep up with him in terms of comic ability and comic timing, but could also play the dramatic scenes. Jennifer brought so much to Polly, stuff that only she could create, and she is funny and sublime.”
Ben Stiller filling the shoes of Reuben Feffer was a literal re-teaming, not only for Stiller and Hamburg, but also for Stiller and the film’s producers (Jersey Films—Danny DeVito, Michael Shamberg and Stacey Sher—produced Stiller’s feature film directorial debut, Reality Bites, in 1994).
Producer Michael Shamberg says, “Ben’s not just perfect for Reuben, Ben’s a great naturalistic actor. And he also has that kind of vulnerable ‘everyman’ quality that he’s so comfortable with, as does Jennifer. She’s very much the big-screen lead with Ben in this. They’re a great pair—gifted performers with heart and serious acting finesse as well.”
Producer Stacey Sher finishes, “Someone asked John Hamburg if he stayed at home and thought of ways to torture Ben Stiller—the two of them are a perfect pairing. They understand each other’s sensibilities incredibly well, and John knows the depths and outrageousness that Ben is capable of, and Ben has total trust in John’s comic and emotional integrity in his work. It’s just a great thing to watch. The two of them are a great team. And there’s no arguing that Jennifer’s done fantastic work, both on television and in her films. But with Polly, she’s really amazing. She’s this wonderful mix, funny and touching, a true star. So with them working together, another great partnership has been formed.”
“Ben is the perfect guy to play this role because he is a great actor,” adds Hamburg. “Even though it’s a comedy, Reuben goes through dramatic things, like his wife leaving him and lots of excruciating pain. What I wanted for this movie is a very grounded kind of reality to the comedy. It’s all based on situations that if you’re watching as an audience member, you relate to the situation or fear of ever being in that situation…that’s why I think Ben is the best guy in the world to put in those situations, because as an audience member, you can identify with him and be glad that it’s not happening to you.”
“It’s really great fun to work with people you know,” explains Stiller, “because you have this sense of trust that is really important, especially when you are doing comedy. So much about putting a comedy together is trusting someone to orchestrate it all—you’re never really sure it’s going to work until you ultimately get it in front of an audience. So you have to take those chances, which makes the experience of doing the film a lot more fun. In the end, because I know John, and I can trust that he’ll bring it all together—at the end of the day, what’s going to make it work is how the movie is put together.”
For Jennifer Aniston as Polly Prince, working with the writer/director was a firsttime and very welcome experience. Aniston says, “John’s an incredible writer and such a good director. When I read the script, I laughed—I mean, bent over laughing sometimes—throughout the whole thing, and that just doesn’t happen that often. He doesn’t shy away from a really embarrassing or outrageous situation, because we get into those just being human. But it’s also smart and moving, and he is very specific and knows exactly what he wants on the page and in the scene. What’s really great is it’s character driven, it’s not one of those romantic comedies with some device like ‘the lie’ or ‘the letter’ or ‘the false boyfriend to con each other.’ Getting romantic comedy right is hard, and John does it—and makes it hilarious as well.”
For Aniston and Stiller, working together was a re-union of sorts, as Stiller had filmed a guest spot several seasons prior on Friends.
Stiller comments, “Working with Jennifer couldn’t have been better or more enjoyable. She’s incredibly present, and is instantly reactive to whatever comes up in the work. And I don’t need to tell you that she’s funny, and charming and cute. I guess now that I think about it, she’s pretty much the perfect woman.”
Another facet that the screenwriter/director enjoyed in casting his Polly was that for Aniston, it was a different shade of a role—having played “very grounded characters before and I thought it would be fun to see her play a role that was kind of very ungrounded and loose and free. She exceeded what I envisioned she would bring to it,” he observes.
Aniston’s take on Polly Prince: “Reuben has love and that’s one thing Polly doesn’t have. She’s got everything else, but probably the only thing she’s done really well is to protect herself from ever being hurt. Polly needs structure—let’s face it, she is a little flaky and could use a little slapping around like, ‘c’mon young lady!’”
For the character of Reuben’s best friend, Sandy Lyle, a little slapping around may be in order as well. Hamburg had envisioned him from the beginning as the mirror and advisor (not always a good one) to Reuben. As a teenager, Sandy had hit it big in a Brat Pack-ish film entitled Crocodile Tears with a stand-out scene involving bagpipes. Since then, the actor hasn’t recaptured his career lightening in a bottle—and is now planning a comeback via a community theater production of Jesus Christ Superstar, playing the part of Judas…when he doesn’t feel like singing the part of Jesus as well.
“I always imagined Philip Seymour Hoffman as Sandy,” says John Hamburg, “Like I say, I try to write the character and then think of the actor, but in his case, I just always imagined him. I wanted somebody who could also bring a humanity to the role, who wouldn’t just be the comic sidekick. Philip is obviously such an amazing actor, but he hasn’t really played a lot of big comedic roles, but I just felt he had the ability to do it. When he agreed, I was thrilled…it was like a dream come true.”
“I remember I read the screenplay with my girlfriend and we just laughed out loud the whole script,” remembers Hoffman. “I had read a script of John’s years ago and I remember how funny it was, so taking the role of Sandy was really a no-brainer. It made me feel good reading it, I laughed a lot, and the character of Sandy is just extremely humorous, clever and smart.”
The award-winning actor and director, known for a string of memorable primarily dramatic performances (several in collaboration with filmmaker and friend Paul Thomas Anderson), found stretching his comedic acting muscles a welcome and not extremely different acting process.
Hoffman observes, “I don’t approach my work differently when I have to prepare for a character like Sandy because all characters are different. Every screenplay is different and if you choose your films wisely, you always try to do things that are different—this is John Hamburg’s world. Working with Ben has been really helpful. It’s educational, a learning experience, because he’s done romantic comedies or comedic work much more than I have. He has a mind for it, but at the end of the day, everyone is trying to act well. Acting is acting. You just have to be aware that in a comedy, the scene is going to be heading toward humor. You have to find out where that is.”
Finding the humor was an easy task for the actors filmmakers slotted into key roles around Reuben, Polly and Sandy: Debra Messing as Reuben’s abandoning bride Lisa Kramer; Hank Azaria as the scuba god Claude; Bryan Brown as ‘carpe diem’ billionaire Leland Van Lew; and Alec Baldwin as Stan Indursky, outspoken head of the firm where Reuben works.
Hamburg comments, “Debra makes Lisa sweet and likeable, even though her role makes her out to be someone who dumps on Reuben in the worst way. Hank is obviously one of the great comic actors and he can do any kind of voice. Even though Claude is stealing Lisa from Reuben, I need the audience to think that although the situation is horrible, it’s okay because it’s a comedy. And Hank’s character is very sweet and brings a certain humanity to his role.
“And we just got really lucky with the way people responded to the script. A lot of guys like Alec Baldwin and Bryan Brown normally play leading roles, but they just got into the feeling of showing up throughout the schedule and getting into these smaller parts. They charge the scenes and it’s really important to cast those roles with amazing actors because that’s where the tension comes from—Ben reacting to Alec, or reacting to Bryan, or trying to keep a straight face when Hank is standing naked on the beach,” he concludes.
For Emmy-winning star of the NBC hit Will & Grace, Messing found a lot to like about both her character and the screenplay Hamburg had penned.
Messing says, “Love is a serious business. Right after their wedding, Reuben and Lisa encounter some obstacles, which both characters are responsible for in their own way. That’s what I love about John’s script and that’s what I love about the romantic comedies I’m drawn to—there is an element of reality, something universal, something recognizable. Even within the sort of zany world that is created, there is something that grounds the needs and desires of the character at key points in the script. So there are these nice moments amidst all of this incredibly funny stuff.”
Comic (as well as dramatic) chameleon, Emmy-nominated Hank Azaria, finds a more matter-of-fact reason for his being cast as Claude and offers, “Every few years, Hollywood seems to ask me to play some semi-dressed foreign guy, which is a weird but unique niche to carve out.”
In early readings of the script for Hamburg, Azaria had supplied both the characters of Van Lew and salsa instructor Javier, as well as Claude, “but there was really no one else who could have played Claude,” observes Hamburg. (“I really wanted to do Claude,” says Azaria, “because it’s rare that you read something so funny—well, I am the naked foreign guy first of all, and second, it’s rare that you read something so funny.”)
Australian leading man Brown, who hasn’t appeared in a Hollywood film in nearly a decade, was lured up from Down Under by the magic combination of Hamburg’s words and the alchemy possible with such a superlative cast.
“John Hamburg is a bloody nice bloke, which really helps!” quips Brown. “When you read his script you realize how clever he is, he knows his stuff and he knows how he wants to do this movie. He had worked with Ben Stiller before and Ben, being a director himself, has enormous confidence in John, which I share. When we talked, John and I, we thought of Leland as a Richard Branson-type of bloke. But there are other blokes like that too—I’m just playing this character who loves being involved in life, loves doing things and doesn’t actually stop to think of the consequences.”
The role of Stan Indursky provided award-winning and esteemed actor Alec Baldwin with a golden opportunity to add another indelible, finely drawn character to his inestimable list of accomplished film performances. (“And on top of that, he’s astoundingly funny,” adds Hamburg.)
Baldwin notes, “John is clear-cut in his writing—his comedy is grounded in a kind of slightly off-center universe. Stan’s the kind boss to follow you into the can to bounce an idea of off you, or to try and crack an inappropriate joke at the wrong time— like at Reuben and Lisa’s wedding. And all of this is quite realistic behavior. But in John’s writing, it crosses the line into a comic place, just one step away from reality. I had a great time working with him, Ben and the rest of the cast. It was a good mix of all types of actors that joined together into a strong ensemble, with John at the head of it.”
For the Jersey Films producing partners of Danny DeVito, Michael Shamberg and Stacey Sher, Hamburg’s romantic/situation comedy Along Came Polly was a welcome addition to their diverse slate of motion picture projects, and the filmmakers were attracted to the script because of its comedy and its pedigree.
DeVito observes, “John’s projects have an unmistakable feel to them—people forget what ‘sitcoms’ are all about, but John’s stuff is brilliant in its use of putting real people in exaggerated situations. The characters can be witty or funny, but the rich comedy comes out of the sometime painful situations they find themselves in. You walk in on your bride with a scuba instructor…still wearing swimming fins? Youch.”
Shamberg continues, “John Hamburg has a unique ability to take human behavior and make it sympathetic and funny, plus he has a great track record—Meet the Parents, Zoolander and other projects. That quality of writing—that’s both real and funny—is very hard to find in Hollywood. A lot of times you’ll see stuff that is just jokey and unbelievable, but John’s scripts are like diamonds out there amidst all that other stuff.”
Sher adds, “At the center of these situations is believability, but John heightens it, turning it into hyper-real circumstances. What you really find in this film is real people, real emotions and hyper-real situations—they’re sort of your worst nightmare of what could go wrong in a relationship or what could go wrong in your life. But out of that, we sometimes find what could ultimately go right.”
What seemed “right” for all was John stepping behind the camera to direct the feature as well. His feature film directing debut was a tidy, low-budget, independent comedy, Safe Men, about two mediocre singers mistaken for expert safecrackers by the gangsters of Providence, Rhode Island; the 1998 film stars Sam Rockwell and Steve Zahn. Additionally, Hamburg had clocked additional time behind the camera helming episodes of television’s college-set comedy Undeclared.
He muses, “The things that I’ve been noticed for have been some of the movies that I’ve written or co-written, but I grew up with cameras and making short films. It feels very natural to me to be on the set and working with the actors, the camera, the cinematographer, the production designer. It’s something I’ve missed in the last few years when I’ve been just writing with other directors. It was a great experience working with these amazing directors, but I felt really ready to get back and direct myself.”
By filmmakers’ assembling the top-drawer comedic cast for Polly—Stiller, Aniston, Hoffman, Messing, Azaria, Brown and Baldwin; veterans Michele Lee and Bob Dishy as Reuben’s parents; Jsu Garcia as salsa instructor Javier; Missi Pyle as Polly’s friend/co-worker Roxanne; and countless others—the screenwriter/director found the strong ensemble enabled him to really bring the script to life…often in ways he had not envisioned when scripting or beginning to approach a scene.
Hamburg enthuses, “I give a great deal of credit to the cast and crew, who knew the world of this movie as well as I did. They brought ideas that were exactly what I might have imagined or did them in a way that I couldn’t have imagined, and those are the greatest moments…when you get to the point where you can say, ‘That’s exactly what I would have wanted, but I couldn’t have thought of that myself.’ That’s why they were hired—it’s been a total collaboration. I didn’t view this as ‘a film by John Hamburg’—I wrote and directed it—but I see Along Came Polly as a film by a big group of people who have been assembled to put this on-screen.”
“The reason we got such a great cast—it’s a tribute to John’s writing,” interjects Michael Shamberg. “His characters are so specific that the comedy comes out of a very recognizable character, and that attracts great actors."
Stacey Sher says, “One of the great things about the script that John wrote is that every character has his big comic set pieces and big emotional moments as well. So, people didn’t care how long they were working—in addition to the talented performers who worked most of the shoot, it seemed like every week or so, we had another great actor in to do his part.”
Principal photography for Along Came Polly took place from November 2002 to February 2003, with filming in downtown Los Angeles (inside warehouses, mostly), on the streets of New York City and some additional studio backlot shooting for select exterior New York street locations. The north shore of Oahu doubled for St. Barts, and Leland’s boat (The ‘Roo Shooter) set sail from the California port of San Pedro.
Part of the challenge of including a character such as Leland Van Lew within the romantic comedy world of Polly was being able to convey the “walk on the wild side” life he inhabits—Reuben is charged with evaluating his risk-filled life for a potential insurance policy before Leland’s company goes public. Van Lew thinks nothing of starting his day with a B.A.S.E. jump (which stands for “building, antenna, span and earth” and which, simply put, means a parachute-wearing adventurer jumping off of a high, stationary structure, either manmade or natural). He also enters sailing competitions with foreboding monikers such as the “Death Race 2000, Cross-Ocean Challenge.” And although comedy could be termed a tough business, achieving such stunts might be considered just a tad bit tougher.
Enter professional stuntman Tim Rigby—the former British Royal Navy officer who logged five years as an E.O.D. (Explosives Ordinance Disposal) diver prior to relocating to Los Angeles and establishing himself in his new filmic occupation. In doubling for Brown as daredevil Van Lew, Rigby executed a B.A.S.E. jump from Los Angeles’ downtown AT&T building early on a Sunday morning in January of 2003— with only one chance to execute his 570-foot jump on target. On John Hamburg’s action cue, Rigby walked to the edge of the building and when the wind felt right, took the plunge, falling for approximately three seconds before pulling his chute that, when opened, took every second of effort to keep under control between the narrow streets and buildings. The whole jump took approximately 30 seconds and was filmed by no less than 10 different cameras.
Rigby, a veteran of nearly 200 B.A.S.E. jumps (including a recent competitive jump of off the world’s tallest buildings, the Petronas Towers of Kuala Lumpur) and more than 1,600 skydives, admits to pre-jump nerves: “I always get nervous. I think I would be worried if I wasn’t nervous, even though it’s not a good thing.”
For a different kind of danger within the confines of romantic comedy, look no further than the nerve-wracking and somewhat mystifying acting process of…improvisation, which some performers describe as “taking a leap of faith” and which luckily requires the normal amount of cameras and minimal use of stunt doubles.
The screenwriter/director explains, “The great thing about directing something you wrote is that although I hear it in my head a certain way, sometimes I get on set and it doesn’t quite sound right. With these amazing actors, I have to be open to their ideas or to my own ideas not working. I think something is going to work and it doesn’t, so I have to re-write or improvise and figure out how to make it better. That’s what I love about directing as opposed to just writing. You just get a chance to play around and discover new things everyday and that’s really the atmosphere I’ve tried to create, where everybody can just throw ideas out and try new lines.”
Stiller says, “Well, it depends who you are working with. Certain directors are just less comfortable with that, but I think it’s always great to have that freedom. With John, the script was so strong and specific, so what was there on the page was already great—but sometimes we definitely would try stuff, and he is really great at being open to things that come up in the moment.”
 Production notes provided by Universal Pictures. |
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Along Came Polly
