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6 Views
15:55:33 07/31/11
My Life: Having 4 Kids #6 of 6, A Father's Perspective
[LESS INFO] 6 VIEWS | ADDED 15:55:33 07/31/11
This is an extention of the My Life series. This is a 6 part series sharing with you my very personal experiences of discovering true love and fathering 4 children all born in 4 years. Ages 4,3,2,1. I had been single for many years, married 7 years. I have been a parent for nearly 5 years. I have experienced both realms and I am sharing my perspective on both realms, the positives and negatives. Hopefully by listening to the experiences I have to share it will help you enjoy and find happiness within your position in life in respect to relationships.
2 Views
15:49:44 07/31/11
My Life: Having 4 Kids #5 of 6, A Father's Perspective
[LESS INFO] 2 VIEWS | ADDED 15:49:44 07/31/11
This is an extention of the My Life series. This is a 6 part series sharing with you my very personal experiences of discovering true love and fathering 4 children all born in 4 years. Ages 4,3,2,1. I had been single for many years, married 7 years. I have been a parent for nearly 5 years. I have experienced both realms and I am sharing my perspective on both realms, the positives and negatives. Hopefully by listening to the experiences I have to share it will help you enjoy and find happiness within your position in life in respect to relationships.
7 Views
15:44:30 07/31/11
My Life: Having 4 Kids #4 of 6, A Father's Perspective
[LESS INFO] 7 VIEWS | ADDED 15:44:30 07/31/11
This is an extention of the My Life series. This is a 6 part series sharing with you my very personal experiences of discovering true love and fathering 4 children all born in 4 years. Ages 4,3,2,1. I had been single for many years, married 7 years. I have been a parent for nearly 5 years. I have experienced both realms and I am sharing my perspective on both realms, the positives and negatives. Hopefully by listening to the experiences I have to share it will help you enjoy and find happiness within your position in life in respect to relationships.
3 Views
15:39:12 07/31/11
My Life: Having 4 Kids #3 of 6, A Father's Perspective
[LESS INFO] 3 VIEWS | ADDED 15:39:12 07/31/11
This is an extention of the My Life series. This is a 6 part series sharing with you my very personal experiences of discovering true love and fathering 4 children all born in 4 years. Ages 4,3,2,1. I had been single for many years, married 7 years. I have been a parent for nearly 5 years. I have experienced both realms and I am sharing my perspective on both realms, the positives and negatives. Hopefully by listening to the experiences I have to share it will help you enjoy and find happiness within your position in life in respect to relationships.
3 Views
15:33:55 07/31/11
My Life: Having 4 Kids #2 of 6, A Father's Perspective
[LESS INFO] 3 VIEWS | ADDED 15:33:55 07/31/11
This is an extention of the My Life series. This is a 6 part series sharing with you my very personal experiences of discovering true love and fathering 4 children all born in 4 years. Ages 4,3,2,1. I had been single for many years, married 7 years. I have been a parent for nearly 5 years. I have experienced both realms and I am sharing my perspective on both realms, the positives and negatives. Hopefully by listening to the experiences I have to share it will help you enjoy and find happiness within your position in life in respect to relationships.
2 Views
15:28:40 07/31/11
My Life: Having 4 Kids #1 of 6, A Father's Perspective
[LESS INFO] 2 VIEWS | ADDED 15:28:40 07/31/11
This is an extention of the My Life series. This is a 6 part series sharing with you my very personal experiences of discovering true love and fathering 4 children all born in 4 years. Ages 4,3,2,1. I had been single for many years, married 7 years. I have been a parent for nearly 5 years. I have experienced both realms and I am sharing my perspective on both realms, the positives and negatives. Hopefully by listening to the experiences I have to share it will help you enjoy and find happiness within your position in life in respect to relationships.
38 Views
16:32:09 06/13/11
DadLabs.com - Elimination Communication Potty Training
[LESS INFO] 38 VIEWS | ADDED 16:32:09 06/13/11
In this episode of the Potty Training Extreme series, Daddy Clay and Daddy Brad discuss the Elimination Communication method. Used frequently in developing countries, this method aims to potty train newborns. How can parents raise diaper free babies? Elimination communication relies on the four main concepts of timing, signals, cueing, and intuition. Check out the video for an explanation of these concepts or visit diaperfreebaby.org for more details on EC. Share your potty training thoughts with us at DadLabs.com. DadLabs. Ep. 773 is brought to you by BabyBjorn.
0 Views
07:58:19 11/17/10
Vlomo2010 Day13 Pta Movie Night
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 07:58:19 11/17/10
Todays VLOMO moment is brought to you by the Fullerton School District and the Parent Teachers Association. Once a month they hold Movie Night at my sons Elementary School where parents and kids get to camp out in the multi-purpose room and watch a movie. The PTA sells raffle tickets and junk food to raise funds, and everyone brings camp chairs or blankets and pillows. This month it was How To Train Your Dragon, which just happens to be one of The Sprites favourite movies.
2 Views
00:43:55 11/05/10
Authors@Google: John Medina
[LESS INFO] 2 VIEWS | ADDED 00:43:55 11/05/10
Authors@Google: John Medina
"Brain Rules for Baby: How to Raise a Smart and Happy Child" by John Medina Why is leaving your baby alone during the first part of pregnancy so important? Why is face time with Mom so crucial to maximizing your child's potential and screen time so damaging? What can you do to give your child the best chance at being smart and happy? Scientists know. Following the success of his long-running New York Times bestseller Brain Rules, John Medina, renowned developmental molecular biologist at the University of Washington School of Medicine and director of the Brain Center for Applied Learning Research at Seattle Pacific University, brings us BRAIN RULES FOR BABY: How to Raise a Smart and Happy Child from Zero to Five. The book combines all the latest science on how best to develop your baby's brain. Just one of the surprises: The best way to get your children into the college of their choice? Teach them impulse control. Bridging the gap between what scientists know and what parents practice, each chapter describes brain rules %mdash what scientists know for sure about how the early childhood brain works. The book presents the science behind the rules while offering practical ways for parents to apply the research. Medina, a dedicated father himself, shares his passion for brain science and for raising children, making the book easily accessible with humor, fascinating stories, and enlightening case studies throughout. Each chapter ends with a summary of key points. brainrules ... From: AtGoogleTalks Views: 3485 39 ratings Time: 49:27 More in Education
20 Views
01:33:49 11/03/10
Due Date Starring Robert Downey Jr. and Zach Galifian
[LESS INFO] 20 VIEWS | ADDED 01:33:49 11/03/10
Due Date Starring Robert Downey Jr. and Zach Galifianakis This 1sr Look brought to you by Stevn Samblis www.icPlaces.com
THE IDEA
From director Todd Phillips, “Due Date” stars Robert Downey Jr. and Zach Galifianakis as two unlikely companions thrown together on a road trip that turns out to be as life-changing as it is outrageous.
Downey plays Peter Highman, an expectant first-time father whose wife's due date is only days away. As he hurries to catch a flight home to Los Angeles from Atlanta to be at her side for the birth, his best intentions go completely awry when a chance encounter with aspiring actor and disaster-magnet Ethan Tremblay (Galifianakis) leads to the two of them being tossed off the plane and placed on a no-fly list...while Peter's luggage, wallet and ID take off without him.
With no alternatives in sight, Peter is forced to hitch a ride with Ethan and his canine traveling companion on what turns out to be a cross-country road trip that will destroy several cars, numerous friendships and Peter's last nerve.
The comedy “Due Date” also stars Michelle Monaghan (“Made of Honor”), Juliette Lewis (“The Switch”) and Academy Award® winner Jamie Foxx (“Ray”).
Directed by Todd Phillips (“The Hangover”), the film is produced by Phillips and Dan Goldberg (“The Hangover,” “Old School”), from a screenplay by Alan R. Cohen & Alan Freedland and Adam Sztykiel & Todd Phillips, story by Alan R. Cohen & Alan Freedland. Thomas Tull, Susan Downey and Scott Budnick serve as executive producers.
“Due Date” reunites Phillips with key members of his filmmaking team from “The Hangover,” including director of photography Lawrence Sher, production designer Bill Brzeski, editor Debra Neil-Fisher, composer Christophe Beck and costume designer Louise Mingenbach.
ABOUT THE PRODUCTION
“If you're going to travel with me to Los Angeles I have to give you a couple of guidelines. Number one: don't ask me a single question.” - Peter Highman
“It's a simple idea—two mismatched guys forced to go on a road trip together,” declares “Due Date” director and co-writer Todd Phillips. “Robert Downey Jr. is Peter Highman, an architect on his way back to L.A. from a business trip in Atlanta. He's on a tight schedule because his wife is expecting their first child and the date is all set. Everything is fine until he gets tangled up at the airport with a wannabe actor named Ethan Tremblay, who somehow gets the both of them booted off the plane and grounded for the foreseeable future.”
At that point, “simple” flies right out the window.
Stranded without cash, credit, ID or time, Peter finds himself in the galling position of having to hitch a ride home with a guy he'd rather take a swing at—Ethan. The person he holds responsible for his predicament in the first place is now behind the wheel of a rental car and offering him the passenger seat.
Though clearly not his best option, it's Peter's only option.
At first grateful for the company, Ethan soon learns that his tightly wound traveling companion is not going to be any fun at 20 Questions, nor generally receptive to the concept of going with the flow. Meanwhile, Peter realizes he's just joined forces with a guy who can casually ruin his life in more ways than he could ever imagine.
“If there really was somebody like Ethan around, he'd have been strangled in his sleep long ago,” Downey attests. “He's like a laser beam that focuses on the one thing that will drive you crazy the most, the kind of guy who will eat a whole plate of waffles before mentioning he's allergic to waffles. I'm sure a lot of people know someone like this, someone who is perfectly wired to activate all of their irritation buttons.”
Granted, Peter has a short fuse to begin with. “He's kind of an edgy, controlling, judgmental guy with some anger-management issues. And who better to help him explore those issues than Ethan Tremblay? High-strung as he is normally, Peter is now facing the birth of his first child and is thrown into this nightmare, so it's all amped up,” Downey adds.
Ethan, by comparison, gives new meaning to the term laid-back. Zach Galifianakis, who stars as the human lightning rod for trouble, observes, “Nothing affects him, no insult seems to penetrate. Ethan lives in his own head. He has no talent, and he's on his way to Hollywood to capitalize on that. These two guys meet through a series of unfortunate circumstances that are entirely Ethan's fault, to which he is completely oblivious. And every bad thing that happens from that point on is Ethan's fault. Everything.”
Says Phillips, “People always cite chemistry in these kinds of movies. They say it's the chemistry between the two lead actors that make it work. I believe what makes ‘Due Date' work is anti-chemistry; it's two guys with zero connection and zero rapport, constantly butting heads, that generates both the tension and the comedy.”
Dan Goldberg, who has produced all of Phillips' feature films since their 2000 collaboration on the hit comedy “Road Trip,” says, “The ride develops its own momentum as one thing after another happens to impede their progress.”
At the same time, their cross-country trek takes Peter and Ethan on another, more unpredictable journey than what they face geographically—one that leads them to discover as much about themselves as each other.
Provided that they survive it.
Scott Budnick, an executive producer on the film, says, “There's real emotional substance to the story and real issues, and Robert and Zach do a phenomenal job in delivering both the humor and the emotional stakes. My favorite comedies are always the ones that have heart.”
As infuriating as Ethan can be, whether mismanaging his funds, missing potty breaks or launching their car off an overpass, Phillips concedes he has his good points, citing “honesty, innocence and a humanity that makes you connect with him and root for him despite it all. Ethan is a complex character. He has just lost his father, who was his best friend, and is having a tough time dealing with that. There's an underlying desperation in everything he does and an eagerness to please to the point where just making friends means trying too hard.”
“A lot of what he does is to avoid being lonely,” says Galifianakis.
Peter, on the other hand, may come across like a self-assured, aggressive control freak but, says Phillips' “Due Date” screenwriting partner Adam Sztykiel, “You sense that his behavior comes from an emotional place and from issues he has yet to work out, that are revealed in the story. Not far beneath the alpha male posture is his own vulnerability and how terrified he is to be responsible for a child.”
“As a parent,” Downey offers, “I know the big question is how are you going to manage and protect something that you have no experience with?”
Playing on that theme were screenwriters Alan R. Cohen and Alan Freedland, who also have story credit on “Due Date.” “Peter's comfort zone is when he's in control. And everything that happens in this movie is about losing control; from his inability to get back home to the larger issue of his impending fatherhood—and whether or not he's ready for it,” Cohen says.
“We wanted to put him into a situation where he had to travel across the country with someone who was effectively a child,” adds Freedland.
Not that it would lessen Peter's pain, stress and frustration if he knew it might be pain, stress and frustration with a purpose. Still...
“When I read the script, I was moved,” recalls executive producer Susan Downey. “It's so funny and yet so human. You want a comedy to have that grounding, in the way that you want a drama to have some humor. In ‘Due Date,' though his experience with Ethan, Peter finds his human side and gets ready for the birth of his own child. It's about him becoming a man before becoming a father.”
“Guess who's got the Subaru Impreza? Me! Guess who's got the winning personality? Me! What do you have? You have a nice hairline. Fine. You have a strong jaw. But I gotta tell you, mister, your personality needs some work.” - Ethan Tremblay
Despite the “anti-chemistry” Phillips had in mind for their characters, Galifianakis and Downey generated some genuine positive chemistry from the start.
Downey vividly recalls their first meeting. “I was in Venice, California, and some weird guy walks by and says, ‘Hi, I think I'm doing a movie with you.' And I was thinking, ‘I might have to punch this guy.' Then I realized, ‘Oh my God...that's Zach.'
“Later, he came over for dinner so we could talk about the script,” Downey continues. “I asked if he had any dietary restrictions and he sent me a note detailing everything he'd need, like bottled water flown in from Barstow. It's one of my favorite things. I read it to people at parties.”
“We kind of took care of each other on the set—very different from what was going on in the movie. We'd talk every morning about how to make a scene work. It was great. Funny how hanging out with a legitimate actor raises your game,” Galifianakis returns.
“I always respond to projects based on the casting potential,” says Phillips. “I immediately start seeing a movie from the standpoint of casting it. For ‘Due Date,' I knew that if I could get Robert and Zach we could go full out.”
Phillips marks his second collaboration with Galifianakis on “Due Date,” following the comedian's breakout starring role in last year's international blockbuster hit “The Hangover,” that became the highest-grossing R-rated comedy of all time. He says, “Zach and I click because he knows I really get his humor, which can be pretty outrageous.”
In “Due Date,” however, Galifianakis creates a character that calls for a great deal of subtlety. Notes Budnick, “Every little nuance of personality and each detail—the way he walks, the way he talks, the way he thinks—Zach has figured out how Ethan Tremblay would do these things and it's reflected in every single moment he's on screen.”
At the same time, there is a core of unpredictability to the performance. “Zach brings a sense of spontaneity and danger and I think comedy is best with an undercurrent of danger so that you never know exactly what's going to happen or what someone will say or do. In that sense, he's the perfect comedic actor,” says Phillips.
And “Due Date” gives him a worthy antagonist in Downey.
“Not only is Robert a world-class actor but he's naturally funny. I wouldn't think of casting Robert Downey Jr. as anyone's straight-man,” says Phillips. “In ‘Due Date' there is no straight-man because they're both screwed up in their own ways. And the beauty of Zach and Robert playing off each other is that they're both funny but their humor comes from such different places and their styles are so different that you're not mining the same vein.”
Downey, Galifianakis, Phillips and Sztykiel “took the script apart and put it back together,” says Goldberg. “Every day there were new things that touched me and made me laugh. I believe ‘Due Date' audiences will see aspects of Robert and Zach that they haven't seen before and things that will surprise them. As a filmmaker, I'm always looking for that.”
It's a philosophy and a process that Phillips respects. “So much of comedy happens on the day you shoot,” he says, and offers the example of the airplane luggage bin scene. “It just happened as we were looking at the seating and the overhead bin and realized how that could bring them really close in a small space. Zach said, ‘What if I rub up against him while I'm reaching into the bin?' And I said, ‘What if you pull your shirt up first to wipe your glasses so it's just your bare stomach?' Comedy isn't math; it's jazz.”
Says Robert Downey Jr., “I start every day thinking here's what will happen if you do it by the book and here's what can happen if you bend yourself over backwards and forwards again and try to invite the unimagined into the situation. The set had energy like a living being; it was evolving all the time. And what's great and so funny about Todd is that sometimes, with him, it's so wrong, it's right.”
That point of view resonates with Galifianakis, who admits to being right alongside the director in appreciating “the inappropriate,” adding, “Todd and I have the same sense of humor. We like stuff that has a bit of a taboo element—things that are funny specifically because you're not supposed to laugh at them. As a stand-up comic, I love it when audiences laugh before they realize maybe they shouldn't have, and then start to question themselves.
“That's not to say that you can't be offended by something Todd or I do in a film,” he continues with mock concern. “I'm often offended by the things I do in movies.”
“You'd better check yourself before you wreck yourself.” - Ethan
“What I like about road trip movies is that essentially your characters are working without a net. You just throw them out into the elements and say, ‘Deal with it,'” says Phillips. “You don't have the support system of friends and family. People come in and out of your life for intense but fleeting moments.”
To help facilitate that, ‘Due Date' features a stellar supporting cast of characters who offer Peter and Ethan a range of memorable and often thought-provoking encounters along the way.
The first of these is Heidi, a freelance medical supplier with questionable parenting skills, tracked down by Ethan at her Birmingham home to restock his supply of “glaucoma medication.” It's one of many detours that takes them miles out of their way.
Heidi is played by Juliette Lewis, in her third screen role for Phillips. Lewis was touring in London with her band when the director called. “We worked it out so that between London and Helsinki I made a pit stop in a place I didn't even know existed—Las Vegas, New Mexico—for a couple of days, to play a pot dealer,” she recounts. “When Todd calls it's a game of trust. I don't know the role, I don't know what he wants me to do, but I know it's going to be good and it's going to be funny.”
Oscar® winner Jamie Foxx, who recently starred with Downey in “The Soloist,” comes aboard in the role of Peter's old college buddy, Darryl, now living in Dallas.
“It was a real coup to get Jamie to come in as Peter's friend—and, according to Ethan, possibly the real father of his soon-to-be-born child,” says Robert Downey Jr., alluding to yet another way in which Ethan manages to get under Peter's skin.
Within minutes of entering Darryl's home, Ethan spots a few photos, asks a few questions, adds two and two, and comes up with five. “He learns that Darryl is very close with Peter's wife and jumps to all kinds of conclusions. Then, he plants the seed of doubt in Peter's mind,” says Phillips.
“Darryl comes into the picture to do these guys a favor and it's all great...until it's not. Then things get very weird, very fast,” Foxx says of the ensuing scene that lands Peter and Ethan back on the pavement. “Working with Robert, Zach and Todd, you'd never know what to expect, but you could always count on it being a crazy, creative, collaborative experience.”
The travelers also run afoul of an ill-tempered Western Union clerk, played by Danny McBride; a paragon of Airport Security, played by Grammy Award-winning hip hop producer/musician and actor Rza; and an exceptionally indifferent TSA agent, played by Matt Walsh, the ER doc from “The Hangover.”
Meanwhile, back home anxiously awaiting Peter's return is his wife, Sarah, played by Michele Monaghan, reuniting with Downey for the first time since they teamed in the 2005 comedy thriller “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.”
“Sarah is just about 8 months and 29 days pregnant with her first baby and obviously very anxious,” Monaghan offers. “Her husband is not only m.i.a but is also traveling cross- country with a wild man whose only concern is if she has any ‘recommendations for someone who could give him a perm'?!? Clearly, the baby's arrival looks more promising than daddy's.”
“Sonny, stop. Sonny...No. Stop. Good boy.” - Ethan
Before circumstances force these two to share a rental car, Ethan already has a traveling companion: a French Bulldog named Sonny, who becomes the pair's third wheel and a point of calm amidst the escalating mayhem.
The role of Sonny, though indisputably male, was played almost entirely by a young female Frenchie trained by Mark Harden, of Boone's Animals for Hollywood.
The introduction of a dog into the script came about as Phillips sought to further ratchet up the tension between his two leads and decided that one of them should be a dog person and the other...not so much. After perusing renowned animal trainer Boone Narr's company website, he spotted what he was looking for in Bodie, an adult male French Bulldog with the big ears and wide-eyed comical expression typical of the breed.
Unfortunately, at 26 pounds, Bodie was too heavy to be constantly toted around on one arm, so, with only weeks before filming started, Harden launched a full-scale and very specific search for a six-to-10-month-old, cream-colored, slightly undersized French Bulldog. He first tried the rescue agencies, then tapped into a nationwide network of breeders before finding someone who had a full-grown female weighing in at 15 pounds.
Though Galifianakis jokes that Sonny was trained to fall asleep at the word ‘action,' Harden takes no credit for the animal's relaxed demeanor, conceding, “She's just a very settled and well-adjusted dog. She doesn't get worked up. I think she just learned early on that most of her scenes were going to take awhile and she might as well catch a nap.”
Galifianakis, who bonded with his canine co-star despite an allergy to dogs, says, “I was kind of envious at her ability to fall asleep at work. And she snores like me.”
But as much as the camera loved Sonny, there was one special trick she just couldn't manage, that required a one-day command performance from Bodie.
Harden carefully describes how the trick serendipitously made its way into the story. “French Bulldogs are unable to groom themselves in certain areas as other dogs do. I don't know if it's a combination of their short neck and wide shoulders, but they can't twist backwards.”
Consequently, some of them use their paws, “a natural behavior that Bodie spontaneously offered in front of Todd at that first meeting, while we were talking,” the trainer recalls. “As soon as he saw it, there was no turning back. He said, ‘Oh my God, can you train him to do that?”
“Am I okay? Do I look okay? I have a broken arm. I have three cracked ribs. I have seven stitches in my armpit. Does that answer your question? - Peter
“I love physical comedy,” says Phillips, who happily extends the parameters of physical comedy in “Due Date” to include a multi-vehicle freeway chase, an end-over-end car flip and a shoot-out with some seriously t'd-off border security agents.
“For me,” Phillips continues, “It's fun to include shocking moments that make you say, ‘Whoa, where did that come from?' We shot the car sequence in Las Cruces, New Mexico. They let us break through the overpass and land on the road below. We closed the highway for several days to prepare and execute it but, frankly, you never know how a stunt is going to land, so we set up four or five cameras and let it happen. The car flipped back up on its wheels, but we were prepared for it to do anything.” Filming “Due Date” was a road trip in itself. Location shooting began in and around Atlanta and moved generally westward with the story, touching upon Dallas and the Texas interior and various locations in New Mexico, including Las Vegas and Santa Fe, which the filmmakers covered from a base of operations in Albuquerque, before touching down in California.
“The way the script breaks down, they have to get across the country. in a couple of days so you really need to take the southern route, which is not as long as the northern, so it makes sense in terms of driving time,” says production designer Bill Brzeski.
A separate helicopter unit covered the Grand Canyon for a key scene with Peter and Ethan perched on its rim, overlooking the Colorado River snaking its way through, far below. Between takes, busloads of visitors from all over the world arrived to tour the area and there was some concern on the part of the crew that they might forget to watch where they were going once they caught sight of Downey and Galifianakis.
The film's opening airport scenes were a combination of several elements. The plane cabin mockup was constructed on Stage 11 at Warner Bros. Studios; the curb where Peter's and Ethan's cars pull up was shot at Ontario Airport in California; and the screening area and other terminal interiors were built inside the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta.
Other practical locations in Georgia included a construction site in Atlanta's Buckhead neighborhood; a Waffle House and portions of Highway 27 in Bremen; various locations along I-75 and I-675, GA-route 20 and the Metropolitan Parkway; the Gwinnett Medical Center in Lawrenceville; the 1010 Condos on Atlanta's historic Peachtree Street; and a recently closed rest stop along I-985.
Darryl's home in Dallas was an amalgam of exteriors captured in Buckland, Georgia, and interiors shot in Encino, California. “You're never really anywhere you're supposed to be,” Brzeski says. “Las Vegas, New Mexico was built around the turn of the century and doesn't look like what you'd expect to see in New Mexico. There's a lot of Victorian architecture that doesn't match the typical Santa Fe look so buildings can substitute for almost any American small town, be it Texas or Ohio. We used it as Alabama for Heidi's house.”
The southwestern city also provided the site for one of the film's larger set pieces; a checkpoint at the U.S./Mexico border that was constructed on a bridge spanning a portion of Route 25 in Las Vegas, under which Brzeski and his team formed an encampment of Federali trailers based on actual Mexican Customs vehicles. Interiors of the office and a trailer, as well as a gimbal rig that figures into the action, were built on stage and another rotating rig, dubbed “car-on-a-spit” by one crew member, was designed for the scene in which Peter and Alan take their rented Subaru for a real spin.
All this action takes its toll on the luggage-deprived Peter, forced to spend the entire journey in one increasingly rumpled, torn, stained and slept-in suit. For costume designer Louise Mingenbach, that meant maintaining 20 versions of the suit in five basic stages of deterioration. “Definitely, the story evolves through Peter's clothes,” she says.
With Ethan's wardrobe she was able to have more fun, brainstorming with Galifianakis, who, she says, “has no vanity. Some actors want to look beautiful all the time but that's not Zach. He will wear whatever works for his character, even if it's acid-washed jeans two sizes too small.”
“I really like to look bad in movies,” Galifianakis agrees. “Originally Ethan was dressed like a hippie but I wanted him to be more arty—or, what he would think is arty. He has a perm, he has his dance shoes and his really bad tight jeans and the scarf as an accessory; he wants to be an actor and this is how he thinks actors dress.”
“Due Date” marks Mingenbach's fifth collaboration with Phillips, who says, “I have a great team. I've worked with essentially the same people throughout my career. We write some crazy thing and then I turn to my guys and say, ‘Can we pull this off?'”
Among those previous colleagues rejoining the director on “Due Date” were cinematographer Lawrence Sher, editor Debra Neil-Fisher and composer Christophe Beck.
Scott Budnick points out, “‘Due Date' marks the 10-year anniversary of ‘Road Trip,' Todd's first movie and my first job out of college. We filmed ‘Road Trip' from September to December 1999, and ‘Due Date' from September to December of 2009.”
For Phillips, it's a genre full of possibilities.
“I've been in some strange situations on the road,” confesses screenwriter Sztykiel, a Los Angelino who identified in some ways with Peter. “Here's a guy who's a little sheltered and doesn't have exposure to the 3,000 miles that exist east of his home, and it was fun to force him out of his bubble. It's uncomfortable, but you come away with a better sense of your place in the world. My advice for travelers? Go to the bathroom. Make sure your traveling partner has gone to the bathroom. Don't spend all your money on illegal substances. Don't say ‘bomb' on an airplane. Don't open your car door in traffic. Pretty simple stuff.” Sure. In hindsight.
“There's something about a road trip that brings out the extremes of human reactions and emotions,” says Phillips. “It's a great opportunity for surprises and for people to learn things about themselves or each other that they'd never see if they weren't being pushed to their limits, or having to make the kinds of quick, instinctive decisions you have to make on the road.”
At the same time, the road itself can be almost incidental. “No matter where we are in ‘Due Date,' no matter what's kind of chaos they're going through,” he concludes, “it all comes down to these two guys working out their issues.”
ABOUT THE CAST
ROBERT DOWNEY JR. (Peter Highman), a two-time Academy Award® nominee, earned his most recent Oscar® nomination, for Best Supporting Actor, for his work in Ben Stiller's comedy hit “Tropic Thunder.” His performance as Kirk Lazarus, a white Australian actor playing a black American character, also brought him Golden Globe, BAFTA Award and Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Award® nominations. Downey was honored with his first Oscar® nomination, in the category of Best Actor, for his portrayal of Charlie Chaplin in Richard Attenborough's acclaimed 1992 biopic “Chaplin,” for which he also won BAFTA Award and London Film Critics Awards and received a Golden Globe Award nomination.
Earlier this year, Downey received another Golden Globe nomination for his performance in the title role of the 2009 hit “Sherlock Holmes,” under the direction of Guy Ritchie. Downey returns to the role of the legendary detective in a new Sherlock Holmes adventure, currently slated for release in December 2011.
In summer 2008, Downey received praise from critics and audiences for his performance in the title role of the blockbuster hit “Iron Man,” under the direction of Jon Favreau. Bringing the Marvel Comics superhero to the big screen, “Iron Man” earned more than $585 million worldwide, making it one of the year's biggest hits. Downey reprised his role in the successful sequel, which was released this past spring. He returns to the role in Josh Whedon's upcoming actioner “The Avengers,” which teams Iron Man with other Marvel Comics superheroes.
Downey's other recent films include “The Soloist,” opposite Jamie Foxx; “Charlie Bartlett”; David Fincher's “Zodiac,” alongside Jake Gyllenhaal and Mark Ruffalo; Richard Linklater's “A Scanner Darkly,” with Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder and Woody Harrelson; “Fur,” opposite Nicole Kidman in a film inspired by the life of revered photographer Diane Arbus; and “Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang.” He also shared in a SAG Award® nomination as a member of the ensemble cast of George Clooney's true-life drama “Good Night, and Good Luck,” and in a Special Jury Prize won by the ensemble cast of “A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints,” presented at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival.
Downey's long list of film credits also includes “Gothika”; “The Singing Detective”; Curtis Hanson's “Wonder Boys”; “U.S. Marshals”; Mike Figgis' “One Night Stand”; Jodie Foster's “Home for the Holidays”; “Richard III”; Oliver Stone's “Natural Born Killers”; Robert Altman's “The Gingerbread Man” and “Short Cuts,” sharing in a Golden Globe Award for Best Ensemble for the latter; “Heart and Souls,” “Soapdish,” “Air America,” “Chances Are,” “True Believer,” “Less Than Zero,” “Weird Science,” “Firstborn,” and “Pound,” in which he made his debut under the direction of Robert Downey Sr.
On the small screen, Downey made his primetime debut in 2001 when he joined the cast of the series “Ally McBeal.” For his work on the show, he won the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Series, Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television and a Screen Actors Guild Award® for Outstanding Actor in a Comedy Series. In addition, Downey was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series.
On November 23, 2004, Robert Downey Jr. released his debut album, “The Futurist,” on the Sony Classics label. The album, containing eight original songs, showcased his singing talents.
Downey and his wife, Susan, just formed Team Downey, a production company based at Warner Bros.
ZACH GALIFIANAKIS (Ethan Tremblay) moved to New York City after failing his last college course by one point at North Carolina State University. He got his start performing his brand of humor in the back of a hamburger joint in Times Square, graduating to doing stand-up at night in clubs and coffee houses in the city. While working as a bus boy, he got his first acting job on the NBC sitcom “Boston Common.”
Galifianakis' breakout role came in Todd Phillips' blockbuster hit “The Hangover,” the highest-grossing R-rated comedy of all time. He will reunite with Phillips and cast-mates Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms and Justin Bartha in “The Hangover 2,” slated for a 2011 release.
He also stars in “It's Kind of a Funny Story,” which premieres at the 2010 Toronto Film Festival and opens this fall. Recently, he also co-starred with Steve Carell and Paul Rudd in Jay Roach's comedy “Dinner for Schmucks.” Galifianakis' additional film credits include the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced hit “G-Force”; the indie feature “Youth in Revolt,” with Michael Cera, Steve Buscemi and Ray Liotta; a cameo in Jason Reitman's Oscar®- nominated film “Up in the Air”; “What Happens in Vegas,” with Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher; and the critically acclaimed true-life drama “Into the Wild,” from director Sean Penn.
On the small screen, Galifianakis just started the second season of the HBO comedy “Bored to Death,” with Jason Schwartzman and Ted Danson. In addition, he hosted the critically acclaimed VH1 talk show “Late World with Zach,” and also wrote and starred in “Dog Bites Man” for Comedy Central.
Zach also has an internet talk show entitled “Between Two Ferns.” He has interviewed such guests as Steve Carell, Natalie Portman, Conan O'Brien and Charlize Theron.
When not filming, Galifianakis lives on his farm in North Carolina.
MICHELLE MONAGHAN (Sarah Highman) most recently starred to great critical acclaim in the independent film “Trucker,” which world premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. She received the Best Actress Awards from the San Diego Film Critics Society, Ft. Lauderdale International Film Festival and Vail Film Festival. Monaghan also served as executive producer on the film.
She will next been seen in Sofia Coppola's “Somewhere,” “Source Code,” opposite Jake Gyllenhaal for director Duncan Jones and “Machine Gun Preacher,” opposite Gerard Butler for director Marc Forster.
Monaghan made her feature film debut in “Perfume,” directed by Michael Rymer, then played Richard Gere's secretary in Adrian Lyne's “Unfaithful.” She followed with supporting roles in Fred Schepisi's “It Runs in the Family,” with Michael Douglas; “Winter Solstice,” with Anthony LaPaglia; Paul Greengrass' “The Bourne Supremacy”; and Doug Liman's “Mr. & Mrs. Smith.”
It was her starring role in “Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang,” opposite Robert Downey Jr. and Val Kilmer, which brought Monaghan to the attention of audiences around the world. She also received rave reviews for her performance in the film, directed by Shane Black. Next, Monaghan joined Charlize Theron and Frances McDormand in “North Country” for director Niki Caro. She then starred in “Gone Baby Gone,” with Casey Affleck and Morgan Freeman; “The Heartbreak Kid,” opposite Ben Stiller; “Mission: Impossible III,” with Tom Cruise and Philip Seymour Hoffman for director J.J. Abrams; opposite Patrick Dempsey in the romantic comedy “Made of Honor”; and in D.J. Caruso's hit thriller “Eagle Eye,” alongside Shia LaBeouf.
JULIETTE LEWIS (Heidi) received Best Supporting Actress Oscar® and Golden Globe nominations for her layered performance as adolescent Danielle, opposite Robert De Niro, in Martin Scorsese's thriller “Cape Fear.”
She reunites with Todd Phillips on “Due Date,” having previously collaborated on “Old School” and “Starsky & Hutch.”
Lewis was most recently seen alongside Hilary Swank, Melissa Leo, Minnie Driver and Sam Rockwell in the independent drama “Conviction,” which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival and opened in October. Prior to that, Lewis appeared in the romantic comedy “The Switch,” alongside Jennifer Aniston, Jason Bateman and Patrick Wilson. She also starred alongside Orlando Bloom, Mark Ruffalo and Laura Linney in Ruffalo's directorial debut, “Sympathy for Delicious,” which took home the US Dramatic Special Jury Prize at this year's Sundance Film Festival. Last year, she played roller derby girl Dinah Might opposite Ellen Page, Marcia Gay Harden, Kristen Wiig, Jimmy Fallon and Eve in Drew Barrymore's directorial debut, “Whip It.”
Among Lewis' many other films are Gary Marshall's “The Other Sister”; “Evening Star,” with Shirley MacLaine; Quentin Tarantino's vampire tale “From Dusk Till Dawn,” opposite George Clooney; the sci-fi actioner “Strange Days,” alongside Ralph Fiennes and Angela Bassett; Nora Ephron's comedy “Mixed Nuts,” opposite Steve Martin and Adam Sandler; Oliver Stone's controversial “Natural Born Killers”; “What's Eating Gilbert Grape,” with Johnny Depp and Leonardo DiCaprio”; “Romeo Is Bleeding”; “Kalifornia”; Woody Allen's “Husbands and Wives”; “Crooked Hearts” and “National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation,” with Chevy Chase.
At 12, Lewis landed her first leading role in the Showtime miniseries “Home Fires.” At 16, her performance in the critically acclaimed longform “Too Young to Die?” led to film roles. Lewis' other television credits include Showtime's “My Louisiana Sky,” for which she received an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Performer in a Children's Special, and Mira Nair's HBO film “Hysterical Blindness,” alongside Uma Thurman and Gena Rowlands. She also had recurring roles in several series.
In addition to film and television, Lewis's music career continues to evolve. Her third studio album, Terra Incognito, was released in fall 2009.
JAMIE FOXX (Darryl) won an Academy Award® for Best Actor in 2005 for his portrayal of the legendary Ray Charles in the Taylor Hackford-directed biopic “Ray.” Foxx also won a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Award®, a BAFTA Award, and an NAACP Image Award, as well as numerous critics' association awards, and shared in a SAG Award® nomination received by the film's ensemble cast.
Also in 2005, Foxx garnered Oscar®, Golden Globe Award, SAG Award®, BAFTA Award, and Image Award nominations, in the Best Supporting Actor category, for his work in Michael Mann's dramatic thriller “Collateral,” in which he starred with Tom Cruise. That same year, Foxx also earned Golden Globe Award and SAG Award® nominations and won an Image Award for Best Actor in a Television Movie for his portrayal of condemned gang member-turned-Nobel Peace Prize nominee Stan “Tookie” Williams in the FX Network movie “Redemption.”
Foxx has a number of films upcoming, including the Seth Gordon-directed comedy “Horrible Bosses”; F. Gary Gray's action thriller “Kane & Lynch,” opposite Bruce Willis; and the comedy “Skank Robbers,” which he also wrote and is producing. His recent film credits also include Garry Marshall's hit ensemble romantic comedy “Valentine's Day,” the thriller “Law Abiding Citizen,” Joe Wright's drama “The Soloist,” the thriller “The Kingdom” and Bill Condon's screen adaptation of the Broadway musical “Dreamgirls.” Foxx also executive produced the film “Life Support,” starring Queen Latifah, which closed the 2007 Sundance Film Festival.
Foxx's big-screen break came in 1999 when Oliver Stone cast him as a star quarterback in “Any Given Sunday.” In 2001, he co-starred with Will Smith in Michael Mann's acclaimed biopic “Ali.” His additional film credits include Michael Mann's “Miami Vice,” with Colin Farrell; Sam Mendes' Gulf War drama “Jarhead,” with Jake Gyllenhaal; “Stealth”; Antoine Fuqua's “Bait”; “Booty Call”; “The Truth about Cats & Dogs”; and “The Great White Hype.”
Foxx first came to fame as a comedian. After spending time on the comedy circuit, he joined Keenan Ivory Wayans, Jim Carrey, Damon Wayans and Tommy Davidson in the landmark Fox sketch comedy series “In Living Color.” In 1996, he launched his own series, “The Jamie Foxx Show,” which was one of the top-rated shows on The WB Network during its five-year run. Foxx also served as co-creator and executive producer, and directed several episodes. His first HBO Comedy Special, “Jamie Foxx: I Might Need Security,” premiered in February 2002.
In addition to his acting success, Foxx has also achieved a thriving music career. His first album, Unpredictable, topped the charts in late 2005 and early 2006 and spawned the NBC special “Unpredictable,” in which he performed with such artists as Mary J. Blige, Common, Snoop Dogg, The Game and Angie Stone. He has been nominated for eight Billboard Music Awards, three Grammy Awards, a Soul Train Music Award, and two American Music Awards, winning for Favorite Male Artist. Foxx's latest album, 2008's Intuition, debuted at number three on the Billboard 200 chart and spawned the chart-topping single “Blame It.” Foxx recently wrapped up his “Blame It Tour” in support of the album. On January 31, 2010 Jamie Foxx and T-Pain's “Blame It” won in the category of Best R%B performance by a duo/group with vocals at the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards.
ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS
TODD PHILLIPS (Director/Screenwriter/Producer) most recently directed and produced the 2009 blockbuster hit comedy “The Hangover,” starring Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis and Justin Bartha. The film became the highest grossing R-rated comedy of all time and won a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture – Comedy or Musical. He is currently in production on the much-anticipated sequel, “The Hangover 2,” which reunites the cast.
Phillips started his career as a documentary filmmaker, inspired by humor taken from everyday reality and the belief that the truth is often stranger than fiction.
His first film, “Hated,” portrayed the revolting antics of extreme punk rocker G.G. Allin and became an instant underground sensation. It was released in the summer of 1994 and went on to become the highest grossing student film of its time.
He followed that in 1998 with “Frat House,” a documentary that he produced and directed for HBO's popular “America Undercover” series. “Frat House” premiered at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival and won the Grand Jury Prize for documentary features. The unflinching exposé of life in fraternities created a public controversy that eventually caused the film to be shelved by HBO. Phillips still hopes to release it in the future.
After meeting producer Ivan Reitman at Sundance, Phillips made his crossover to features with 2000's “Road Trip,” which established him as a new force in comedy. He simultaneously produced and directed “Bittersweet Motel,” a documentary on musical cult phenomenon Phish.
In one way or another, Phillips' films explore the nature of male relationships, and in doing so he has worked with some of Hollywood's biggest comedic actors, writing and directing such films as “Old School” in 2003, “Starsky & Hutch” in 2004, and “School for Scoundrels” in 2006. Phillips was nominated for a 2006 Academy Award® for Best Adapted Screenplay for his work on “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.”
DAN GOLDBERG (Producer) marks his fifth film collaboration with Todd Phillips on “Due Date.” Previously, he served as producer on Phillips' “Old School,” “Road Trip,” “School for Scoundrels” and most recently, “The Hangover,” which won a Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy and is the highest grossing R-rated comedy of all time. Goldberg will next produce “The Hangover 2” with Phillips, releasing in 2011.
Goldberg also produced the outrageous comedy “Howard Stern's Private Parts” and the animated comedy adventure “Space Jam,” starring Michael Jordan, and was an executive producer on Ivan Reitman's romantic adventure “Six Days Seven Nights,” starring Harrison Ford.
His screenwriting credits include the classic comedies “Stripes” and “Meatballs,” both of which he also produced; “Feds,” which he also directed; and the enduring cult favorite “Heavy Metal.”
ALAN R. COHEN & ALAN FREEDLAND (Screenwriters, Story) are best known as Emmy Award-winning writers from the Fox animated show “King of the Hill” and often referred to as “the Alans.”
Among numerous other writing and producing credits, the duo also co-created the Comedy Central cult hit “Kid Notorious,” starring Robert Evans. They are currently co- executive producers on Seth MacFarlane's “American Dad.”
Prior to “Due Date,” the Alans wrote feature scripts for various studios. They currently have several television and film projects in development, including the feature comedy “The Reunion,” for producer Brian Grazer.
A George Washington University graduate, Cohen originally hails from Pittsburgh and worked for several years as a reporter in The Baltimore Sun's Washington, D.C. bureau.
Freedland graduated from the University of Michigan. He grew up in the Detroit area and worked in advertising in Chicago.
ADAM SZTYKIEL (Screenwriter)'s most recent writing credit was the comedy “Made of Honor,” starring Patrick Dempsey and Michelle Monaghan.
He is currently working on a film adaptation of the best-selling memoir “The Game” by Neil Strauss, and has numerous other film and television projects in development.
Sztykiel is a graduate of the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts.
THOMAS TULL (Executive Producer), Chairman and CEO of Legendary Pictures, has achieved great success in the co-production and co-financing of event movies. Since its inception in 2004, Legendary Pictures has teamed with Warner Bros. Pictures on such hits as Bryan Singer's “Superman Returns”; Zack Snyder's “300” and “Watchmen”; and Christopher Nolan's “Batman Begins” and award-winning phenomenon “The Dark Knight,” which earned in excess of $1 billion worldwide.
More recently, this highly successful partnership produced Ben Affleck's “The Town”; Christopher Nolan's summer blockbuster “Inception”; the worldwide hit “Clash of the Titans”; Todd Phillips' “The Hangover,” which is the highest-grossing R-rated comedy of all time; and Spike Jonze's “Where the Wild Things Are.” Legendary's upcoming releases include Bryan Singer's “Jack the Giant Killer,” Todd Phillips' “The Hangover 2,” and Zack Snyder's “Sucker Punch.” Legendary is also developing a number of promising film projects in-house, including “Warcraft,” “Godzilla,” “Gravel,” “Paradise Lost,” and a sequel to “300.”
Before forming Legendary, Tull was President of The Convex Group, a media and entertainment holding company headquartered in Atlanta, on whose Board of Directors he also served.
SUSAN DOWNEY (Executive Producer) is a principal partner of Team Downey, the production company she formed with her husband, Robert Downey Jr. A prolific film producer, she has collaborated with some of the industry's most noted talents on films ranging from action blockbusters to dramas to comedies to horror thrillers.
Downey also produced the global hit “Sherlock Holmes,” which opened on Christmas Day 2009 and grossed more than $516 million worldwide. Directed by Guy Ritchie, the film starred Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law, Rachel McAdams and Mark Strong in an action adventure mystery that brought Arthur Conan Doyle's legendary detective to the big screen as never before. She is currently producing the sequel, which again stars Downey Jr. and Law under the direction of Ritchie.
Downey also recently served as an executive producer on the action hit “Iron Man 2,” which earned more than $620 million at the worldwide box office. The follow up to “Iron
Man” reunited director Jon Favreau with returning stars Robert Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow, and also starred Don Cheadle, Mickey Rourke and Scarlett Johansson.
Previously, Downey held the dual posts of Co-President of Dark Castle Entertainment and Executive Vice President of Production at Silver Pictures. Joining Silver Pictures in 1999, she oversaw the development and production of feature films released under both banners, including “Thir13en Ghosts” and “Swordfish.”
In 2002, she made her producing debut as a co-producer on “Ghost Ship” and then co- produced the 2003 release “Cradle 2 the Grave.” Downey went on to produce the features “Gothika” and “House of Wax,” and also served as an executive producer on the critically acclaimed comedic thriller “Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang.”
Downey later produced Neil Jordan's acclaimed psychological drama “The Brave One,” starring Jodie Foster and Terrence Howard; Guy Ritchie's widely praised crime comedy “RocknRolla,” starring Gerard Butler, Tom Wilkinson, Thandie Newton, Idris Elba, Chris Bridges and Jeremy Piven; the horror thriller “Orphan,” starring Vera Farmiga and Peter Sarsgaard; and the thriller “Whiteout,” starring Kate Beckinsale. She was also an executive producer on the Hughes brothers' post-apocalyptic drama “The Book of Eli,” starring Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman.
Prior to her tenure at Dark Castle and Silver Pictures, Downey worked on the hit films “Mortal Kombat” and “Mortal Kombat: Annihilation.”
Downey is a graduate of the University of Southern California's School of Cinema- Television.
SCOTT BUDNICK (Executive Producer) is Executive Vice President of Production for Green Hat Films, overseeing the development and production of a varied slate of projects including the upcoming “Project X,” set for release in 2011. He most recently executive produced the blockbuster hit “The Hangover,” which won a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy and is the highest grossing R-rated comedy of all time.
Budnick began his entertainment career in local casting while at Emory University in his hometown of Atlanta, Georgia. Upon graduation, he relocated to Los Angeles, serving as casting assistant on Todd Phillips' “Road Trip” and then as associate to the director on “Old School,” starring Vince Vaughn, Luke Wilson, Will Ferrell and Jeremy Piven. Budnick served associate producer on Phillips' following films, “Starsky & Hutch,” starring Owen Wilson and Ben Stiller and “All The King's Men,” starring Sean Penn and Jude Law, which Phillips executive produced; and was co-producer on “School for Scoundrels,” starring Billy Bob Thornton.
LAWRENCE SHER (Director of Photography) reunites with Todd Phillips on “Due Date,” having previously collaborated on the Golden Globe-winning blockbuster comedy “The Hangover.” His work will next be seen in Greg Mottola's sci-fi comedy “Paul,” with Jason Bateman and Seth Rogan, and David Frankel's comedy “The Big Year,” based on Mark Obmascik's book and starring Owen Wilson, both releasing in 2011.
Sher's other recent credits include “I Love You, Man,” “Trucker,” “The Promotion,” “Dan in Real Life,” “The Dukes of Hazzard” and “The Chumscrubber.”
He worked as director of photography on several smaller films and music videos earlier in his career, coming to the fore in 2001 with the award-winning independent film “Kissing Jessica Stein,” followed by director Zach Braff's “Garden State.”
Born and raised in New York City, Sher studied economics at Wesleyan University where, in his junior year, he turned an interest in still photography into a fascination with motion pictures. Upon graduation, he moved to Los Angeles and began his career as a camera assistant.
BILL BRZESKI (Production Designer) previously collaborated with Todd Phillips on the 2009 Golden Globe Award-winning blockbuster comedy “The Hangover,” for which he received an Art Director's Guild Award nomination for Excellence in Production Design. Brzeski re-teams again with Phillips for “The Hangover 2,” releasing in 2011.
Brzeski's other recent credits include “Flipped,” which reunited him with Rob Reiner, having previously served as production designer on Reiner's “The Bucket List”; and re- teaming with Rob Minkoff' on “The Forbidden Kingdom,” having previously worked on the director's groundbreaking CGI movie “Stuart Little” and its sequel, “Stuart Little 2.” Some of the designer's additional credits include “Deck the Halls,” “Blue Streak,” James L. Brooks' Oscar®-winning “As Good As It Gets” and “Matilda.”
Brzeski received his undergraduate degree from Miami University and his MFA in Design from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. Originally interested in designing for the ballet and opera, he began his career in the theatre before moving to Los Angeles from New York City and designing more than 800 episodes of television series.
Brzeski also designs commercial spaces, most notably the award-winning Susina Bakery in Los Angeles.
His production design workshops at graduate and undergraduate levels have been hosted by New York University School of the Arts, Miami University, Clemson University and Loyola University Film School.
DEBRA NEIL-FISHER (Editor) re-teams with Todd Phillips on “Due Date,” having served as editor on his blockbuster hit “The Hangover,” the number one R-rated comedy of all time. The film won a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy and Fisher was honored with an Eddie Award by the American Cinema Editors for Best Edited Feature Film.
Among Neil-Fisher's other feature credits are the hit comedies “Baby Mama,” “Semi- Pro,” “Role Models,” “You, Me and Dupree,” “Without a Paddle,” “Saving Silverman,” and two hugely successful Austin Powers films, “Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery” and “Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me.” She has collaborated three times with director Donald Petrie on “Just My Luck,” “Welcome to Mooseport” and “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days.” Her work also extends to other genres, including the dramas “Fried Green Tomatoes,” “The War” and “Up Close and Personal,” as well as the thrillers “Teaching Mrs. Tingle” and “Dr. Giggles.”
In 1991 Neil-Fisher won a CableACE Award for her work on TNT's telefilm “Heat Wave,” for director Kevin Hooks. Among her earlier television credits are “The Amy Fisher Story,” “The Case of the Hillside Strangler” and the TNT thriller “Breaking Point.”
LOUISE MINGENBACH (Costume Designer) marks her fifth project with director Todd Phillips on “Due Date,” a collaboration that began on the feature film “Starsky & Hutch,” followed by “School for Scoundrels” and the 2008 telefilm “The More Things Change...” In 2009, her designs were seen in Phillips' mega-blockbuster “The Hangover,” which won a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy and is the highest R-rated comedy of all time.
The upcoming actioner “Battleship,” based on the classic board game, reunites Mingenbach with Peter Berg, with whom she worked on “Hancock,” starring Will Smith.
Mingenbach also designed costumes for the 2009 action epic ““X-Men: Wolverine.” Previously, she earned a Saturn Award and a Costume Designers Guild Award nomination for her work on Bryan Singer's “X-Men.” She has teamed with Singer on four other films, including the 1995 thriller “The Usual Suspects,” “X2,” “Apt Pupil” and “Superman Returns,” as well as the pilot for “House M.D.”
Mingenbach's additional feature credits include the Farrelly Brothers' “The Heartbreak Kid,” “Spanglish,” “The Rundown,” “K-PAX,” “Gossip,” “Permanent Midnight,” “Nightwatch,” “The Spitfire Grill” and “One Night Stand.”
CHRISTOPHE BECK (Composer) previously collaborated with Todd Phillips on “The Hangover,” which won a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture – Comedy or Musical.
He has composed scores for 50 feature films and nearly 20 television shows. With more than 15 years of experience, Beck has scored a wide array of projects, including such action films as “Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief,” “The Sentinel” and “Elektra”; the comedies “Date Night,” “Charlie Bartlett,” “The Pink Panther” and “Bring It On”; and such dramas as “We Are Marshall,” “Under the Tuscan Sun” and “Year of the Dog”; as well as the Davis Guggenheim documentary, “Waiting For Superman.”
Beck most recently composed music for the comedies “Death at a Funeral,” starring Chris Rock, Martin Lawrence and Tracy Morgan; “Date Night,” with Steve Carell and Tina Fey; “Hot Tub Time Machine,” starring John Cusack; and Chris Columbus' fantasy adventure “Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief.”
His additional credits include “All About Steve,” “The Greatest,” “What Happens in Vegas,” “Phoebe in Wonderland,” “The Seeker: The Dark is Rising,” “Saved!,” “American Wedding” and “Just Married.”
Beck began his scoring career on the Canadian television series “White Fang,” and from there went on to score three seasons of the hit television series “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” for which he won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Music Composition.
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Due Date Starring Robert Downey Jr. and Zach Galifian
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THE IDEA
From director Todd Phillips, “Due Date” stars Robert Downey Jr. and Zach Galifianakis as two unlikely companions thrown together on a road trip that turns out to be as life-changing as it is outrageous.
Downey plays Peter Highman, an expectant first-time father whose wife's due date is only days away. As he hurries to catch a flight home to Los Angeles from Atlanta to be at her side for the birth, his best intentions go completely awry when a chance encounter with aspiring actor and disaster-magnet Ethan Tremblay (Galifianakis) leads to the two of them being tossed off the plane and placed on a no-fly list...while Peter's luggage, wallet and ID take off without him.
With no alternatives in sight, Peter is forced to hitch a ride with Ethan and his canine traveling companion on what turns out to be a cross-country road trip that will destroy several cars, numerous friendships and Peter's last nerve.
The comedy “Due Date” also stars Michelle Monaghan (“Made of Honor”), Juliette Lewis (“The Switch”) and Academy Award® winner Jamie Foxx (“Ray”).
Directed by Todd Phillips (“The Hangover”), the film is produced by Phillips and Dan Goldberg (“The Hangover,” “Old School”), from a screenplay by Alan R. Cohen & Alan Freedland and Adam Sztykiel & Todd Phillips, story by Alan R. Cohen & Alan Freedland. Thomas Tull, Susan Downey and Scott Budnick serve as executive producers.
“Due Date” reunites Phillips with key members of his filmmaking team from “The Hangover,” including director of photography Lawrence Sher, production designer Bill Brzeski, editor Debra Neil-Fisher, composer Christophe Beck and costume designer Louise Mingenbach.
ABOUT THE PRODUCTION
“If you're going to travel with me to Los Angeles I have to give you a couple of guidelines. Number one: don't ask me a single question.” - Peter Highman
“It's a simple idea—two mismatched guys forced to go on a road trip together,” declares “Due Date” director and co-writer Todd Phillips. “Robert Downey Jr. is Peter Highman, an architect on his way back to L.A. from a business trip in Atlanta. He's on a tight schedule because his wife is expecting their first child and the date is all set. Everything is fine until he gets tangled up at the airport with a wannabe actor named Ethan Tremblay, who somehow gets the both of them booted off the plane and grounded for the foreseeable future.”
At that point, “simple” flies right out the window.
Stranded without cash, credit, ID or time, Peter finds himself in the galling position of having to hitch a ride home with a guy he'd rather take a swing at—Ethan. The person he holds responsible for his predicament in the first place is now behind the wheel of a rental car and offering him the passenger seat.
Though clearly not his best option, it's Peter's only option.
At first grateful for the company, Ethan soon learns that his tightly wound traveling companion is not going to be any fun at 20 Questions, nor generally receptive to the concept of going with the flow. Meanwhile, Peter realizes he's just joined forces with a guy who can casually ruin his life in more ways than he could ever imagine.
“If there really was somebody like Ethan around, he'd have been strangled in his sleep long ago,” Downey attests. “He's like a laser beam that focuses on the one thing that will drive you crazy the most, the kind of guy who will eat a whole plate of waffles before mentioning he's allergic to waffles. I'm sure a lot of people know someone like this, someone who is perfectly wired to activate all of their irritation buttons.”
Granted, Peter has a short fuse to begin with. “He's kind of an edgy, controlling, judgmental guy with some anger-management issues. And who better to help him explore those issues than Ethan Tremblay? High-strung as he is normally, Peter is now facing the birth of his first child and is thrown into this nightmare, so it's all amped up,” Downey adds.
Ethan, by comparison, gives new meaning to the term laid-back. Zach Galifianakis, who stars as the human lightning rod for trouble, observes, “Nothing affects him, no insult seems to penetrate. Ethan lives in his own head. He has no talent, and he's on his way to Hollywood to capitalize on that. These two guys meet through a series of unfortunate circumstances that are entirely Ethan's fault, to which he is completely oblivious. And every bad thing that happens from that point on is Ethan's fault. Everything.”
Says Phillips, “People always cite chemistry in these kinds of movies. They say it's the chemistry between the two lead actors that make it work. I believe what makes ‘Due Date' work is anti-chemistry; it's two guys with zero connection and zero rapport, constantly butting heads, that generates both the tension and the comedy.”
Dan Goldberg, who has produced all of Phillips' feature films since their 2000 collaboration on the hit comedy “Road Trip,” says, “The ride develops its own momentum as one thing after another happens to impede their progress.”
At the same time, their cross-country trek takes Peter and Ethan on another, more unpredictable journey than what they face geographically—one that leads them to discover as much about themselves as each other.
Provided that they survive it.
Scott Budnick, an executive producer on the film, says, “There's real emotional substance to the story and real issues, and Robert and Zach do a phenomenal job in delivering both the humor and the emotional stakes. My favorite comedies are always the ones that have heart.”
As infuriating as Ethan can be, whether mismanaging his funds, missing potty breaks or launching their car off an overpass, Phillips concedes he has his good points, citing “honesty, innocence and a humanity that makes you connect with him and root for him despite it all. Ethan is a complex character. He has just lost his father, who was his best friend, and is having a tough time dealing with that. There's an underlying desperation in everything he does and an eagerness to please to the point where just making friends means trying too hard.”
“A lot of what he does is to avoid being lonely,” says Galifianakis.
Peter, on the other hand, may come across like a self-assured, aggressive control freak but, says Phillips' “Due Date” screenwriting partner Adam Sztykiel, “You sense that his behavior comes from an emotional place and from issues he has yet to work out, that are revealed in the story. Not far beneath the alpha male posture is his own vulnerability and how terrified he is to be responsible for a child.”
“As a parent,” Downey offers, “I know the big question is how are you going to manage and protect something that you have no experience with?”
Playing on that theme were screenwriters Alan R. Cohen and Alan Freedland, who also have story credit on “Due Date.” “Peter's comfort zone is when he's in control. And everything that happens in this movie is about losing control; from his inability to get back home to the larger issue of his impending fatherhood—and whether or not he's ready for it,” Cohen says.
“We wanted to put him into a situation where he had to travel across the country with someone who was effectively a child,” adds Freedland.
Not that it would lessen Peter's pain, stress and frustration if he knew it might be pain, stress and frustration with a purpose. Still...
“When I read the script, I was moved,” recalls executive producer Susan Downey. “It's so funny and yet so human. You want a comedy to have that grounding, in the way that you want a drama to have some humor. In ‘Due Date,' though his experience with Ethan, Peter finds his human side and gets ready for the birth of his own child. It's about him becoming a man before becoming a father.”
“Guess who's got the Subaru Impreza? Me! Guess who's got the winning personality? Me! What do you have? You have a nice hairline. Fine. You have a strong jaw. But I gotta tell you, mister, your personality needs some work.” - Ethan Tremblay
Despite the “anti-chemistry” Phillips had in mind for their characters, Galifianakis and Downey generated some genuine positive chemistry from the start.
Downey vividly recalls their first meeting. “I was in Venice, California, and some weird guy walks by and says, ‘Hi, I think I'm doing a movie with you.' And I was thinking, ‘I might have to punch this guy.' Then I realized, ‘Oh my God...that's Zach.'
“Later, he came over for dinner so we could talk about the script,” Downey continues. “I asked if he had any dietary restrictions and he sent me a note detailing everything he'd need, like bottled water flown in from Barstow. It's one of my favorite things. I read it to people at parties.”
“We kind of took care of each other on the set—very different from what was going on in the movie. We'd talk every morning about how to make a scene work. It was great. Funny how hanging out with a legitimate actor raises your game,” Galifianakis returns.
“I always respond to projects based on the casting potential,” says Phillips. “I immediately start seeing a movie from the standpoint of casting it. For ‘Due Date,' I knew that if I could get Robert and Zach we could go full out.”
Phillips marks his second collaboration with Galifianakis on “Due Date,” following the comedian's breakout starring role in last year's international blockbuster hit “The Hangover,” that became the highest-grossing R-rated comedy of all time. He says, “Zach and I click because he knows I really get his humor, which can be pretty outrageous.”
In “Due Date,” however, Galifianakis creates a character that calls for a great deal of subtlety. Notes Budnick, “Every little nuance of personality and each detail—the way he walks, the way he talks, the way he thinks—Zach has figured out how Ethan Tremblay would do these things and it's reflected in every single moment he's on screen.”
At the same time, there is a core of unpredictability to the performance. “Zach brings a sense of spontaneity and danger and I think comedy is best with an undercurrent of danger so that you never know exactly what's going to happen or what someone will say or do. In that sense, he's the perfect comedic actor,” says Phillips.
And “Due Date” gives him a worthy antagonist in Downey.
“Not only is Robert a world-class actor but he's naturally funny. I wouldn't think of casting Robert Downey Jr. as anyone's straight-man,” says Phillips. “In ‘Due Date' there is no straight-man because they're both screwed up in their own ways. And the beauty of Zach and Robert playing off each other is that they're both funny but their humor comes from such different places and their styles are so different that you're not mining the same vein.”
Downey, Galifianakis, Phillips and Sztykiel “took the script apart and put it back together,” says Goldberg. “Every day there were new things that touched me and made me laugh. I believe ‘Due Date' audiences will see aspects of Robert and Zach that they haven't seen before and things that will surprise them. As a filmmaker, I'm always looking for that.”
It's a philosophy and a process that Phillips respects. “So much of comedy happens on the day you shoot,” he says, and offers the example of the airplane luggage bin scene. “It just happened as we were looking at the seating and the overhead bin and realized how that could bring them really close in a small space. Zach said, ‘What if I rub up against him while I'm reaching into the bin?' And I said, ‘What if you pull your shirt up first to wipe your glasses so it's just your bare stomach?' Comedy isn't math; it's jazz.”
Says Robert Downey Jr., “I start every day thinking here's what will happen if you do it by the book and here's what can happen if you bend yourself over backwards and forwards again and try to invite the unimagined into the situation. The set had energy like a living being; it was evolving all the time. And what's great and so funny about Todd is that sometimes, with him, it's so wrong, it's right.”
That point of view resonates with Galifianakis, who admits to being right alongside the director in appreciating “the inappropriate,” adding, “Todd and I have the same sense of humor. We like stuff that has a bit of a taboo element—things that are funny specifically because you're not supposed to laugh at them. As a stand-up comic, I love it when audiences laugh before they realize maybe they shouldn't have, and then start to question themselves.
“That's not to say that you can't be offended by something Todd or I do in a film,” he continues with mock concern. “I'm often offended by the things I do in movies.”
“You'd better check yourself before you wreck yourself.” - Ethan
“What I like about road trip movies is that essentially your characters are working without a net. You just throw them out into the elements and say, ‘Deal with it,'” says Phillips. “You don't have the support system of friends and family. People come in and out of your life for intense but fleeting moments.”
To help facilitate that, ‘Due Date' features a stellar supporting cast of characters who offer Peter and Ethan a range of memorable and often thought-provoking encounters along the way.
The first of these is Heidi, a freelance medical supplier with questionable parenting skills, tracked down by Ethan at her Birmingham home to restock his supply of “glaucoma medication.” It's one of many detours that takes them miles out of their way.
Heidi is played by Juliette Lewis, in her third screen role for Phillips. Lewis was touring in London with her band when the director called. “We worked it out so that between London and Helsinki I made a pit stop in a place I didn't even know existed—Las Vegas, New Mexico—for a couple of days, to play a pot dealer,” she recounts. “When Todd calls it's a game of trust. I don't know the role, I don't know what he wants me to do, but I know it's going to be good and it's going to be funny.”
Oscar® winner Jamie Foxx, who recently starred with Downey in “The Soloist,” comes aboard in the role of Peter's old college buddy, Darryl, now living in Dallas.
“It was a real coup to get Jamie to come in as Peter's friend—and, according to Ethan, possibly the real father of his soon-to-be-born child,” says Robert Downey Jr., alluding to yet another way in which Ethan manages to get under Peter's skin.
Within minutes of entering Darryl's home, Ethan spots a few photos, asks a few questions, adds two and two, and comes up with five. “He learns that Darryl is very close with Peter's wife and jumps to all kinds of conclusions. Then, he plants the seed of doubt in Peter's mind,” says Phillips.
“Darryl comes into the picture to do these guys a favor and it's all great...until it's not. Then things get very weird, very fast,” Foxx says of the ensuing scene that lands Peter and Ethan back on the pavement. “Working with Robert, Zach and Todd, you'd never know what to expect, but you could always count on it being a crazy, creative, collaborative experience.”
The travelers also run afoul of an ill-tempered Western Union clerk, played by Danny McBride; a paragon of Airport Security, played by Grammy Award-winning hip hop producer/musician and actor Rza; and an exceptionally indifferent TSA agent, played by Matt Walsh, the ER doc from “The Hangover.”
Meanwhile, back home anxiously awaiting Peter's return is his wife, Sarah, played by Michele Monaghan, reuniting with Downey for the first time since they teamed in the 2005 comedy thriller “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.”
“Sarah is just about 8 months and 29 days pregnant with her first baby and obviously very anxious,” Monaghan offers. “Her husband is not only m.i.a but is also traveling cross- country with a wild man whose only concern is if she has any ‘recommendations for someone who could give him a perm'?!? Clearly, the baby's arrival looks more promising than daddy's.”
“Sonny, stop. Sonny...No. Stop. Good boy.” - Ethan
Before circumstances force these two to share a rental car, Ethan already has a traveling companion: a French Bulldog named Sonny, who becomes the pair's third wheel and a point of calm amidst the escalating mayhem.
The role of Sonny, though indisputably male, was played almost entirely by a young female Frenchie trained by Mark Harden, of Boone's Animals for Hollywood.
The introduction of a dog into the script came about as Phillips sought to further ratchet up the tension between his two leads and decided that one of them should be a dog person and the other...not so much. After perusing renowned animal trainer Boone Narr's company website, he spotted what he was looking for in Bodie, an adult male French Bulldog with the big ears and wide-eyed comical expression typical of the breed.
Unfortunately, at 26 pounds, Bodie was too heavy to be constantly toted around on one arm, so, with only weeks before filming started, Harden launched a full-scale and very specific search for a six-to-10-month-old, cream-colored, slightly undersized French Bulldog. He first tried the rescue agencies, then tapped into a nationwide network of breeders before finding someone who had a full-grown female weighing in at 15 pounds.
Though Galifianakis jokes that Sonny was trained to fall asleep at the word ‘action,' Harden takes no credit for the animal's relaxed demeanor, conceding, “She's just a very settled and well-adjusted dog. She doesn't get worked up. I think she just learned early on that most of her scenes were going to take awhile and she might as well catch a nap.”
Galifianakis, who bonded with his canine co-star despite an allergy to dogs, says, “I was kind of envious at her ability to fall asleep at work. And she snores like me.”
But as much as the camera loved Sonny, there was one special trick she just couldn't manage, that required a one-day command performance from Bodie.
Harden carefully describes how the trick serendipitously made its way into the story. “French Bulldogs are unable to groom themselves in certain areas as other dogs do. I don't know if it's a combination of their short neck and wide shoulders, but they can't twist backwards.”
Consequently, some of them use their paws, “a natural behavior that Bodie spontaneously offered in front of Todd at that first meeting, while we were talking,” the trainer recalls. “As soon as he saw it, there was no turning back. He said, ‘Oh my God, can you train him to do that?”
“Am I okay? Do I look okay? I have a broken arm. I have three cracked ribs. I have seven stitches in my armpit. Does that answer your question? - Peter
“I love physical comedy,” says Phillips, who happily extends the parameters of physical comedy in “Due Date” to include a multi-vehicle freeway chase, an end-over-end car flip and a shoot-out with some seriously t'd-off border security agents.
“For me,” Phillips continues, “It's fun to include shocking moments that make you say, ‘Whoa, where did that come from?' We shot the car sequence in Las Cruces, New Mexico. They let us break through the overpass and land on the road below. We closed the highway for several days to prepare and execute it but, frankly, you never know how a stunt is going to land, so we set up four or five cameras and let it happen. The car flipped back up on its wheels, but we were prepared for it to do anything.” Filming “Due Date” was a road trip in itself. Location shooting began in and around Atlanta and moved generally westward with the story, touching upon Dallas and the Texas interior and various locations in New Mexico, including Las Vegas and Santa Fe, which the filmmakers covered from a base of operations in Albuquerque, before touching down in California.
“The way the script breaks down, they have to get across the country. in a couple of days so you really need to take the southern route, which is not as long as the northern, so it makes sense in terms of driving time,” says production designer Bill Brzeski.
A separate helicopter unit covered the Grand Canyon for a key scene with Peter and Ethan perched on its rim, overlooking the Colorado River snaking its way through, far below. Between takes, busloads of visitors from all over the world arrived to tour the area and there was some concern on the part of the crew that they might forget to watch where they were going once they caught sight of Downey and Galifianakis.
The film's opening airport scenes were a combination of several elements. The plane cabin mockup was constructed on Stage 11 at Warner Bros. Studios; the curb where Peter's and Ethan's cars pull up was shot at Ontario Airport in California; and the screening area and other terminal interiors were built inside the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta.
Other practical locations in Georgia included a construction site in Atlanta's Buckhead neighborhood; a Waffle House and portions of Highway 27 in Bremen; various locations along I-75 and I-675, GA-route 20 and the Metropolitan Parkway; the Gwinnett Medical Center in Lawrenceville; the 1010 Condos on Atlanta's historic Peachtree Street; and a recently closed rest stop along I-985.
Darryl's home in Dallas was an amalgam of exteriors captured in Buckland, Georgia, and interiors shot in Encino, California. “You're never really anywhere you're supposed to be,” Brzeski says. “Las Vegas, New Mexico was built around the turn of the century and doesn't look like what you'd expect to see in New Mexico. There's a lot of Victorian architecture that doesn't match the typical Santa Fe look so buildings can substitute for almost any American small town, be it Texas or Ohio. We used it as Alabama for Heidi's house.”
The southwestern city also provided the site for one of the film's larger set pieces; a checkpoint at the U.S./Mexico border that was constructed on a bridge spanning a portion of Route 25 in Las Vegas, under which Brzeski and his team formed an encampment of Federali trailers based on actual Mexican Customs vehicles. Interiors of the office and a trailer, as well as a gimbal rig that figures into the action, were built on stage and another rotating rig, dubbed “car-on-a-spit” by one crew member, was designed for the scene in which Peter and Alan take their rented Subaru for a real spin.
All this action takes its toll on the luggage-deprived Peter, forced to spend the entire journey in one increasingly rumpled, torn, stained and slept-in suit. For costume designer Louise Mingenbach, that meant maintaining 20 versions of the suit in five basic stages of deterioration. “Definitely, the story evolves through Peter's clothes,” she says.
With Ethan's wardrobe she was able to have more fun, brainstorming with Galifianakis, who, she says, “has no vanity. Some actors want to look beautiful all the time but that's not Zach. He will wear whatever works for his character, even if it's acid-washed jeans two sizes too small.”
“I really like to look bad in movies,” Galifianakis agrees. “Originally Ethan was dressed like a hippie but I wanted him to be more arty—or, what he would think is arty. He has a perm, he has his dance shoes and his really bad tight jeans and the scarf as an accessory; he wants to be an actor and this is how he thinks actors dress.”
“Due Date” marks Mingenbach's fifth collaboration with Phillips, who says, “I have a great team. I've worked with essentially the same people throughout my career. We write some crazy thing and then I turn to my guys and say, ‘Can we pull this off?'”
Among those previous colleagues rejoining the director on “Due Date” were cinematographer Lawrence Sher, editor Debra Neil-Fisher and composer Christophe Beck.
Scott Budnick points out, “‘Due Date' marks the 10-year anniversary of ‘Road Trip,' Todd's first movie and my first job out of college. We filmed ‘Road Trip' from September to December 1999, and ‘Due Date' from September to December of 2009.”
For Phillips, it's a genre full of possibilities.
“I've been in some strange situations on the road,” confesses screenwriter Sztykiel, a Los Angelino who identified in some ways with Peter. “Here's a guy who's a little sheltered and doesn't have exposure to the 3,000 miles that exist east of his home, and it was fun to force him out of his bubble. It's uncomfortable, but you come away with a better sense of your place in the world. My advice for travelers? Go to the bathroom. Make sure your traveling partner has gone to the bathroom. Don't spend all your money on illegal substances. Don't say ‘bomb' on an airplane. Don't open your car door in traffic. Pretty simple stuff.” Sure. In hindsight.
“There's something about a road trip that brings out the extremes of human reactions and emotions,” says Phillips. “It's a great opportunity for surprises and for people to learn things about themselves or each other that they'd never see if they weren't being pushed to their limits, or having to make the kinds of quick, instinctive decisions you have to make on the road.”
At the same time, the road itself can be almost incidental. “No matter where we are in ‘Due Date,' no matter what's kind of chaos they're going through,” he concludes, “it all comes down to these two guys working out their issues.”
ABOUT THE CAST
ROBERT DOWNEY JR. (Peter Highman), a two-time Academy Award® nominee, earned his most recent Oscar® nomination, for Best Supporting Actor, for his work in Ben Stiller's comedy hit “Tropic Thunder.” His performance as Kirk Lazarus, a white Australian actor playing a black American character, also brought him Golden Globe, BAFTA Award and Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Award® nominations. Downey was honored with his first Oscar® nomination, in the category of Best Actor, for his portrayal of Charlie Chaplin in Richard Attenborough's acclaimed 1992 biopic “Chaplin,” for which he also won BAFTA Award and London Film Critics Awards and received a Golden Globe Award nomination.
Earlier this year, Downey received another Golden Globe nomination for his performance in the title role of the 2009 hit “Sherlock Holmes,” under the direction of Guy Ritchie. Downey returns to the role of the legendary detective in a new Sherlock Holmes adventure, currently slated for release in December 2011.
In summer 2008, Downey received praise from critics and audiences for his performance in the title role of the blockbuster hit “Iron Man,” under the direction of Jon Favreau. Bringing the Marvel Comics superhero to the big screen, “Iron Man” earned more than $585 million worldwide, making it one of the year's biggest hits. Downey reprised his role in the successful sequel, which was released this past spring. He returns to the role in Josh Whedon's upcoming actioner “The Avengers,” which teams Iron Man with other Marvel Comics superheroes.
Downey's other recent films include “The Soloist,” opposite Jamie Foxx; “Charlie Bartlett”; David Fincher's “Zodiac,” alongside Jake Gyllenhaal and Mark Ruffalo; Richard Linklater's “A Scanner Darkly,” with Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder and Woody Harrelson; “Fur,” opposite Nicole Kidman in a film inspired by the life of revered photographer Diane Arbus; and “Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang.” He also shared in a SAG Award® nomination as a member of the ensemble cast of George Clooney's true-life drama “Good Night, and Good Luck,” and in a Special Jury Prize won by the ensemble cast of “A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints,” presented at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival.
Downey's long list of film credits also includes “Gothika”; “The Singing Detective”; Curtis Hanson's “Wonder Boys”; “U.S. Marshals”; Mike Figgis' “One Night Stand”; Jodie Foster's “Home for the Holidays”; “Richard III”; Oliver Stone's “Natural Born Killers”; Robert Altman's “The Gingerbread Man” and “Short Cuts,” sharing in a Golden Globe Award for Best Ensemble for the latter; “Heart and Souls,” “Soapdish,” “Air America,” “Chances Are,” “True Believer,” “Less Than Zero,” “Weird Science,” “Firstborn,” and “Pound,” in which he made his debut under the direction of Robert Downey Sr.
On the small screen, Downey made his primetime debut in 2001 when he joined the cast of the series “Ally McBeal.” For his work on the show, he won the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Series, Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television and a Screen Actors Guild Award® for Outstanding Actor in a Comedy Series. In addition, Downey was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series.
On November 23, 2004, Robert Downey Jr. released his debut album, “The Futurist,” on the Sony Classics label. The album, containing eight original songs, showcased his singing talents.
Downey and his wife, Susan, just formed Team Downey, a production company based at Warner Bros.
ZACH GALIFIANAKIS (Ethan Tremblay) moved to New York City after failing his last college course by one point at North Carolina State University. He got his start performing his brand of humor in the back of a hamburger joint in Times Square, graduating to doing stand-up at night in clubs and coffee houses in the city. While working as a bus boy, he got his first acting job on the NBC sitcom “Boston Common.”
Galifianakis' breakout role came in Todd Phillips' blockbuster hit “The Hangover,” the highest-grossing R-rated comedy of all time. He will reunite with Phillips and cast-mates Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms and Justin Bartha in “The Hangover 2,” slated for a 2011 release.
He also stars in “It's Kind of a Funny Story,” which premieres at the 2010 Toronto Film Festival and opens this fall. Recently, he also co-starred with Steve Carell and Paul Rudd in Jay Roach's comedy “Dinner for Schmucks.” Galifianakis' additional film credits include the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced hit “G-Force”; the indie feature “Youth in Revolt,” with Michael Cera, Steve Buscemi and Ray Liotta; a cameo in Jason Reitman's Oscar®- nominated film “Up in the Air”; “What Happens in Vegas,” with Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher; and the critically acclaimed true-life drama “Into the Wild,” from director Sean Penn.
On the small screen, Galifianakis just started the second season of the HBO comedy “Bored to Death,” with Jason Schwartzman and Ted Danson. In addition, he hosted the critically acclaimed VH1 talk show “Late World with Zach,” and also wrote and starred in “Dog Bites Man” for Comedy Central.
Zach also has an internet talk show entitled “Between Two Ferns.” He has interviewed such guests as Steve Carell, Natalie Portman, Conan O'Brien and Charlize Theron.
When not filming, Galifianakis lives on his farm in North Carolina.
MICHELLE MONAGHAN (Sarah Highman) most recently starred to great critical acclaim in the independent film “Trucker,” which world premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. She received the Best Actress Awards from the San Diego Film Critics Society, Ft. Lauderdale International Film Festival and Vail Film Festival. Monaghan also served as executive producer on the film.
She will next been seen in Sofia Coppola's “Somewhere,” “Source Code,” opposite Jake Gyllenhaal for director Duncan Jones and “Machine Gun Preacher,” opposite Gerard Butler for director Marc Forster.
Monaghan made her feature film debut in “Perfume,” directed by Michael Rymer, then played Richard Gere's secretary in Adrian Lyne's “Unfaithful.” She followed with supporting roles in Fred Schepisi's “It Runs in the Family,” with Michael Douglas; “Winter Solstice,” with Anthony LaPaglia; Paul Greengrass' “The Bourne Supremacy”; and Doug Liman's “Mr. & Mrs. Smith.”
It was her starring role in “Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang,” opposite Robert Downey Jr. and Val Kilmer, which brought Monaghan to the attention of audiences around the world. She also received rave reviews for her performance in the film, directed by Shane Black. Next, Monaghan joined Charlize Theron and Frances McDormand in “North Country” for director Niki Caro. She then starred in “Gone Baby Gone,” with Casey Affleck and Morgan Freeman; “The Heartbreak Kid,” opposite Ben Stiller; “Mission: Impossible III,” with Tom Cruise and Philip Seymour Hoffman for director J.J. Abrams; opposite Patrick Dempsey in the romantic comedy “Made of Honor”; and in D.J. Caruso's hit thriller “Eagle Eye,” alongside Shia LaBeouf.
JULIETTE LEWIS (Heidi) received Best Supporting Actress Oscar® and Golden Globe nominations for her layered performance as adolescent Danielle, opposite Robert De Niro, in Martin Scorsese's thriller “Cape Fear.”
She reunites with Todd Phillips on “Due Date,” having previously collaborated on “Old School” and “Starsky & Hutch.”
Lewis was most recently seen alongside Hilary Swank, Melissa Leo, Minnie Driver and Sam Rockwell in the independent drama “Conviction,” which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival and opened in October. Prior to that, Lewis appeared in the romantic comedy “The Switch,” alongside Jennifer Aniston, Jason Bateman and Patrick Wilson. She also starred alongside Orlando Bloom, Mark Ruffalo and Laura Linney in Ruffalo's directorial debut, “Sympathy for Delicious,” which took home the US Dramatic Special Jury Prize at this year's Sundance Film Festival. Last year, she played roller derby girl Dinah Might opposite Ellen Page, Marcia Gay Harden, Kristen Wiig, Jimmy Fallon and Eve in Drew Barrymore's directorial debut, “Whip It.”
Among Lewis' many other films are Gary Marshall's “The Other Sister”; “Evening Star,” with Shirley MacLaine; Quentin Tarantino's vampire tale “From Dusk Till Dawn,” opposite George Clooney; the sci-fi actioner “Strange Days,” alongside Ralph Fiennes and Angela Bassett; Nora Ephron's comedy “Mixed Nuts,” opposite Steve Martin and Adam Sandler; Oliver Stone's controversial “Natural Born Killers”; “What's Eating Gilbert Grape,” with Johnny Depp and Leonardo DiCaprio”; “Romeo Is Bleeding”; “Kalifornia”; Woody Allen's “Husbands and Wives”; “Crooked Hearts” and “National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation,” with Chevy Chase.
At 12, Lewis landed her first leading role in the Showtime miniseries “Home Fires.” At 16, her performance in the critically acclaimed longform “Too Young to Die?” led to film roles. Lewis' other television credits include Showtime's “My Louisiana Sky,” for which she received an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Performer in a Children's Special, and Mira Nair's HBO film “Hysterical Blindness,” alongside Uma Thurman and Gena Rowlands. She also had recurring roles in several series.
In addition to film and television, Lewis's music career continues to evolve. Her third studio album, Terra Incognito, was released in fall 2009.
JAMIE FOXX (Darryl) won an Academy Award® for Best Actor in 2005 for his portrayal of the legendary Ray Charles in the Taylor Hackford-directed biopic “Ray.” Foxx also won a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Award®, a BAFTA Award, and an NAACP Image Award, as well as numerous critics' association awards, and shared in a SAG Award® nomination received by the film's ensemble cast.
Also in 2005, Foxx garnered Oscar®, Golden Globe Award, SAG Award®, BAFTA Award, and Image Award nominations, in the Best Supporting Actor category, for his work in Michael Mann's dramatic thriller “Collateral,” in which he starred with Tom Cruise. That same year, Foxx also earned Golden Globe Award and SAG Award® nominations and won an Image Award for Best Actor in a Television Movie for his portrayal of condemned gang member-turned-Nobel Peace Prize nominee Stan “Tookie” Williams in the FX Network movie “Redemption.”
Foxx has a number of films upcoming, including the Seth Gordon-directed comedy “Horrible Bosses”; F. Gary Gray's action thriller “Kane & Lynch,” opposite Bruce Willis; and the comedy “Skank Robbers,” which he also wrote and is producing. His recent film credits also include Garry Marshall's hit ensemble romantic comedy “Valentine's Day,” the thriller “Law Abiding Citizen,” Joe Wright's drama “The Soloist,” the thriller “The Kingdom” and Bill Condon's screen adaptation of the Broadway musical “Dreamgirls.” Foxx also executive produced the film “Life Support,” starring Queen Latifah, which closed the 2007 Sundance Film Festival.
Foxx's big-screen break came in 1999 when Oliver Stone cast him as a star quarterback in “Any Given Sunday.” In 2001, he co-starred with Will Smith in Michael Mann's acclaimed biopic “Ali.” His additional film credits include Michael Mann's “Miami Vice,” with Colin Farrell; Sam Mendes' Gulf War drama “Jarhead,” with Jake Gyllenhaal; “Stealth”; Antoine Fuqua's “Bait”; “Booty Call”; “The Truth about Cats & Dogs”; and “The Great White Hype.”
Foxx first came to fame as a comedian. After spending time on the comedy circuit, he joined Keenan Ivory Wayans, Jim Carrey, Damon Wayans and Tommy Davidson in the landmark Fox sketch comedy series “In Living Color.” In 1996, he launched his own series, “The Jamie Foxx Show,” which was one of the top-rated shows on The WB Network during its five-year run. Foxx also served as co-creator and executive producer, and directed several episodes. His first HBO Comedy Special, “Jamie Foxx: I Might Need Security,” premiered in February 2002.
In addition to his acting success, Foxx has also achieved a thriving music career. His first album, Unpredictable, topped the charts in late 2005 and early 2006 and spawned the NBC special “Unpredictable,” in which he performed with such artists as Mary J. Blige, Common, Snoop Dogg, The Game and Angie Stone. He has been nominated for eight Billboard Music Awards, three Grammy Awards, a Soul Train Music Award, and two American Music Awards, winning for Favorite Male Artist. Foxx's latest album, 2008's Intuition, debuted at number three on the Billboard 200 chart and spawned the chart-topping single “Blame It.” Foxx recently wrapped up his “Blame It Tour” in support of the album. On January 31, 2010 Jamie Foxx and T-Pain's “Blame It” won in the category of Best R%B performance by a duo/group with vocals at the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards.
ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS
TODD PHILLIPS (Director/Screenwriter/Producer) most recently directed and produced the 2009 blockbuster hit comedy “The Hangover,” starring Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis and Justin Bartha. The film became the highest grossing R-rated comedy of all time and won a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture – Comedy or Musical. He is currently in production on the much-anticipated sequel, “The Hangover 2,” which reunites the cast.
Phillips started his career as a documentary filmmaker, inspired by humor taken from everyday reality and the belief that the truth is often stranger than fiction.
His first film, “Hated,” portrayed the revolting antics of extreme punk rocker G.G. Allin and became an instant underground sensation. It was released in the summer of 1994 and went on to become the highest grossing student film of its time.
He followed that in 1998 with “Frat House,” a documentary that he produced and directed for HBO's popular “America Undercover” series. “Frat House” premiered at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival and won the Grand Jury Prize for documentary features. The unflinching exposé of life in fraternities created a public controversy that eventually caused the film to be shelved by HBO. Phillips still hopes to release it in the future.
After meeting producer Ivan Reitman at Sundance, Phillips made his crossover to features with 2000's “Road Trip,” which established him as a new force in comedy. He simultaneously produced and directed “Bittersweet Motel,” a documentary on musical cult phenomenon Phish.
In one way or another, Phillips' films explore the nature of male relationships, and in doing so he has worked with some of Hollywood's biggest comedic actors, writing and directing such films as “Old School” in 2003, “Starsky & Hutch” in 2004, and “School for Scoundrels” in 2006. Phillips was nominated for a 2006 Academy Award® for Best Adapted Screenplay for his work on “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.”
DAN GOLDBERG (Producer) marks his fifth film collaboration with Todd Phillips on “Due Date.” Previously, he served as producer on Phillips' “Old School,” “Road Trip,” “School for Scoundrels” and most recently, “The Hangover,” which won a Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy and is the highest grossing R-rated comedy of all time. Goldberg will next produce “The Hangover 2” with Phillips, releasing in 2011.
Goldberg also produced the outrageous comedy “Howard Stern's Private Parts” and the animated comedy adventure “Space Jam,” starring Michael Jordan, and was an executive producer on Ivan Reitman's romantic adventure “Six Days Seven Nights,” starring Harrison Ford.
His screenwriting credits include the classic comedies “Stripes” and “Meatballs,” both of which he also produced; “Feds,” which he also directed; and the enduring cult favorite “Heavy Metal.”
ALAN R. COHEN & ALAN FREEDLAND (Screenwriters, Story) are best known as Emmy Award-winning writers from the Fox animated show “King of the Hill” and often referred to as “the Alans.”
Among numerous other writing and producing credits, the duo also co-created the Comedy Central cult hit “Kid Notorious,” starring Robert Evans. They are currently co- executive producers on Seth MacFarlane's “American Dad.”
Prior to “Due Date,” the Alans wrote feature scripts for various studios. They currently have several television and film projects in development, including the feature comedy “The Reunion,” for producer Brian Grazer.
A George Washington University graduate, Cohen originally hails from Pittsburgh and worked for several years as a reporter in The Baltimore Sun's Washington, D.C. bureau.
Freedland graduated from the University of Michigan. He grew up in the Detroit area and worked in advertising in Chicago.
ADAM SZTYKIEL (Screenwriter)'s most recent writing credit was the comedy “Made of Honor,” starring Patrick Dempsey and Michelle Monaghan.
He is currently working on a film adaptation of the best-selling memoir “The Game” by Neil Strauss, and has numerous other film and television projects in development.
Sztykiel is a graduate of the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts.
THOMAS TULL (Executive Producer), Chairman and CEO of Legendary Pictures, has achieved great success in the co-production and co-financing of event movies. Since its inception in 2004, Legendary Pictures has teamed with Warner Bros. Pictures on such hits as Bryan Singer's “Superman Returns”; Zack Snyder's “300” and “Watchmen”; and Christopher Nolan's “Batman Begins” and award-winning phenomenon “The Dark Knight,” which earned in excess of $1 billion worldwide.
More recently, this highly successful partnership produced Ben Affleck's “The Town”; Christopher Nolan's summer blockbuster “Inception”; the worldwide hit “Clash of the Titans”; Todd Phillips' “The Hangover,” which is the highest-grossing R-rated comedy of all time; and Spike Jonze's “Where the Wild Things Are.” Legendary's upcoming releases include Bryan Singer's “Jack the Giant Killer,” Todd Phillips' “The Hangover 2,” and Zack Snyder's “Sucker Punch.” Legendary is also developing a number of promising film projects in-house, including “Warcraft,” “Godzilla,” “Gravel,” “Paradise Lost,” and a sequel to “300.”
Before forming Legendary, Tull was President of The Convex Group, a media and entertainment holding company headquartered in Atlanta, on whose Board of Directors he also served.
SUSAN DOWNEY (Executive Producer) is a principal partner of Team Downey, the production company she formed with her husband, Robert Downey Jr. A prolific film producer, she has collaborated with some of the industry's most noted talents on films ranging from action blockbusters to dramas to comedies to horror thrillers.
Downey also produced the global hit “Sherlock Holmes,” which opened on Christmas Day 2009 and grossed more than $516 million worldwide. Directed by Guy Ritchie, the film starred Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law, Rachel McAdams and Mark Strong in an action adventure mystery that brought Arthur Conan Doyle's legendary detective to the big screen as never before. She is currently producing the sequel, which again stars Downey Jr. and Law under the direction of Ritchie.
Downey also recently served as an executive producer on the action hit “Iron Man 2,” which earned more than $620 million at the worldwide box office. The follow up to “Iron
Man” reunited director Jon Favreau with returning stars Robert Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow, and also starred Don Cheadle, Mickey Rourke and Scarlett Johansson.
Previously, Downey held the dual posts of Co-President of Dark Castle Entertainment and Executive Vice President of Production at Silver Pictures. Joining Silver Pictures in 1999, she oversaw the development and production of feature films released under both banners, including “Thir13en Ghosts” and “Swordfish.”
In 2002, she made her producing debut as a co-producer on “Ghost Ship” and then co- produced the 2003 release “Cradle 2 the Grave.” Downey went on to produce the features “Gothika” and “House of Wax,” and also served as an executive producer on the critically acclaimed comedic thriller “Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang.”
Downey later produced Neil Jordan's acclaimed psychological drama “The Brave One,” starring Jodie Foster and Terrence Howard; Guy Ritchie's widely praised crime comedy “RocknRolla,” starring Gerard Butler, Tom Wilkinson, Thandie Newton, Idris Elba, Chris Bridges and Jeremy Piven; the horror thriller “Orphan,” starring Vera Farmiga and Peter Sarsgaard; and the thriller “Whiteout,” starring Kate Beckinsale. She was also an executive producer on the Hughes brothers' post-apocalyptic drama “The Book of Eli,” starring Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman.
Prior to her tenure at Dark Castle and Silver Pictures, Downey worked on the hit films “Mortal Kombat” and “Mortal Kombat: Annihilation.”
Downey is a graduate of the University of Southern California's School of Cinema- Television.
SCOTT BUDNICK (Executive Producer) is Executive Vice President of Production for Green Hat Films, overseeing the development and production of a varied slate of projects including the upcoming “Project X,” set for release in 2011. He most recently executive produced the blockbuster hit “The Hangover,” which won a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy and is the highest grossing R-rated comedy of all time.
Budnick began his entertainment career in local casting while at Emory University in his hometown of Atlanta, Georgia. Upon graduation, he relocated to Los Angeles, serving as casting assistant on Todd Phillips' “Road Trip” and then as associate to the director on “Old School,” starring Vince Vaughn, Luke Wilson, Will Ferrell and Jeremy Piven. Budnick served associate producer on Phillips' following films, “Starsky & Hutch,” starring Owen Wilson and Ben Stiller and “All The King's Men,” starring Sean Penn and Jude Law, which Phillips executive produced; and was co-producer on “School for Scoundrels,” starring Billy Bob Thornton.
LAWRENCE SHER (Director of Photography) reunites with Todd Phillips on “Due Date,” having previously collaborated on the Golden Globe-winning blockbuster comedy “The Hangover.” His work will next be seen in Greg Mottola's sci-fi comedy “Paul,” with Jason Bateman and Seth Rogan, and David Frankel's comedy “The Big Year,” based on Mark Obmascik's book and starring Owen Wilson, both releasing in 2011.
Sher's other recent credits include “I Love You, Man,” “Trucker,” “The Promotion,” “Dan in Real Life,” “The Dukes of Hazzard” and “The Chumscrubber.”
He worked as director of photography on several smaller films and music videos earlier in his career, coming to the fore in 2001 with the award-winning independent film “Kissing Jessica Stein,” followed by director Zach Braff's “Garden State.”
Born and raised in New York City, Sher studied economics at Wesleyan University where, in his junior year, he turned an interest in still photography into a fascination with motion pictures. Upon graduation, he moved to Los Angeles and began his career as a camera assistant.
BILL BRZESKI (Production Designer) previously collaborated with Todd Phillips on the 2009 Golden Globe Award-winning blockbuster comedy “The Hangover,” for which he received an Art Director's Guild Award nomination for Excellence in Production Design. Brzeski re-teams again with Phillips for “The Hangover 2,” releasing in 2011.
Brzeski's other recent credits include “Flipped,” which reunited him with Rob Reiner, having previously served as production designer on Reiner's “The Bucket List”; and re- teaming with Rob Minkoff' on “The Forbidden Kingdom,” having previously worked on the director's groundbreaking CGI movie “Stuart Little” and its sequel, “Stuart Little 2.” Some of the designer's additional credits include “Deck the Halls,” “Blue Streak,” James L. Brooks' Oscar®-winning “As Good As It Gets” and “Matilda.”
Brzeski received his undergraduate degree from Miami University and his MFA in Design from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. Originally interested in designing for the ballet and opera, he began his career in the theatre before moving to Los Angeles from New York City and designing more than 800 episodes of television series.
Brzeski also designs commercial spaces, most notably the award-winning Susina Bakery in Los Angeles.
His production design workshops at graduate and undergraduate levels have been hosted by New York University School of the Arts, Miami University, Clemson University and Loyola University Film School.
DEBRA NEIL-FISHER (Editor) re-teams with Todd Phillips on “Due Date,” having served as editor on his blockbuster hit “The Hangover,” the number one R-rated comedy of all time. The film won a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy and Fisher was honored with an Eddie Award by the American Cinema Editors for Best Edited Feature Film.
Among Neil-Fisher's other feature credits are the hit comedies “Baby Mama,” “Semi- Pro,” “Role Models,” “You, Me and Dupree,” “Without a Paddle,” “Saving Silverman,” and two hugely successful Austin Powers films, “Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery” and “Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me.” She has collaborated three times with director Donald Petrie on “Just My Luck,” “Welcome to Mooseport” and “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days.” Her work also extends to other genres, including the dramas “Fried Green Tomatoes,” “The War” and “Up Close and Personal,” as well as the thrillers “Teaching Mrs. Tingle” and “Dr. Giggles.”
In 1991 Neil-Fisher won a CableACE Award for her work on TNT's telefilm “Heat Wave,” for director Kevin Hooks. Among her earlier television credits are “The Amy Fisher Story,” “The Case of the Hillside Strangler” and the TNT thriller “Breaking Point.”
LOUISE MINGENBACH (Costume Designer) marks her fifth project with director Todd Phillips on “Due Date,” a collaboration that began on the feature film “Starsky & Hutch,” followed by “School for Scoundrels” and the 2008 telefilm “The More Things Change...” In 2009, her designs were seen in Phillips' mega-blockbuster “The Hangover,” which won a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy and is the highest R-rated comedy of all time.
The upcoming actioner “Battleship,” based on the classic board game, reunites Mingenbach with Peter Berg, with whom she worked on “Hancock,” starring Will Smith.
Mingenbach also designed costumes for the 2009 action epic ““X-Men: Wolverine.” Previously, she earned a Saturn Award and a Costume Designers Guild Award nomination for her work on Bryan Singer's “X-Men.” She has teamed with Singer on four other films, including the 1995 thriller “The Usual Suspects,” “X2,” “Apt Pupil” and “Superman Returns,” as well as the pilot for “House M.D.”
Mingenbach's additional feature credits include the Farrelly Brothers' “The Heartbreak Kid,” “Spanglish,” “The Rundown,” “K-PAX,” “Gossip,” “Permanent Midnight,” “Nightwatch,” “The Spitfire Grill” and “One Night Stand.”
CHRISTOPHE BECK (Composer) previously collaborated with Todd Phillips on “The Hangover,” which won a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture – Comedy or Musical.
He has composed scores for 50 feature films and nearly 20 television shows. With more than 15 years of experience, Beck has scored a wide array of projects, including such action films as “Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief,” “The Sentinel” and “Elektra”; the comedies “Date Night,” “Charlie Bartlett,” “The Pink Panther” and “Bring It On”; and such dramas as “We Are Marshall,” “Under the Tuscan Sun” and “Year of the Dog”; as well as the Davis Guggenheim documentary, “Waiting For Superman.”
Beck most recently composed music for the comedies “Death at a Funeral,” starring Chris Rock, Martin Lawrence and Tracy Morgan; “Date Night,” with Steve Carell and Tina Fey; “Hot Tub Time Machine,” starring John Cusack; and Chris Columbus' fantasy adventure “Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief.”
His additional credits include “All About Steve,” “The Greatest,” “What Happens in Vegas,” “Phoebe in Wonderland,” “The Seeker: The Dark is Rising,” “Saved!,” “American Wedding” and “Just Married.”
Beck began his scoring career on the Canadian television series “White Fang,” and from there went on to score three seasons of the hit television series “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” for which he won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Music Composition.
3 Views
08:35:12 06/08/10
Unstacking The Deck 05 Bruce Gagnon And Advanced Military Technology
[LESS INFO] 3 VIEWS | ADDED 08:35:12 06/08/10
This episode on advanced military technology includes an interview with Bruce Gagnon from the Global Network against weapons and nuclear power in space. The rest of our featured content is below or on our blog http://unstackingthedeck.ning.com.Intro includes excerpts from General Smedley Butler's speech War is a RacketFeatured documentary - Arsenal of Hypocrisy: The Space Program and the Military Industrial ComplexFeatured Fiction Book - Endgame by Orson Scott CardNews:Local Green Sturgeon in the KlamathKlamath River fish diseases spreadingKlamath irrigation cut more than half to help fishHH: Life inside the Humboldt County JailTS: Humboldt County Schools look to Census for more fundingNCJ: College in RevoltNCJ: Out in the Rain, A pedaling courthouse worker just wants his secure bike parking backHumboldt Herald: Times-Standard Barred from DepositionsHumboldt Herald: Times-Standard parent corp. exits bankruptcy protectionHumboldt Herald: US Marshalls Arrest 16 in HumboldtArcata Night Shelter Construction Under WaySt. Vincent de Paul, Betty Chinn set to open public shower facility in EurekaCold rain, police don't deter 4/20 revelers in Arcata; hundreds spend afternoon in Redwood Park for annual pot celebrationArcata Police Department seeks to clarify parameters of panhandling ordinance as new law goes into effect todayHumboldt County Public Health urging vaccinations against possible H1N1 resurgence Follow upSalmon season set in stone: Sport fishing gets best opportunity in years --commercial, not so muchGrand jury recommends reducing Humboldt supervisors' salaries; supes challenge findings, say there will be detailed response to reportReward offered for Eureka pharmacy banditEureka businesses increase awareness in response to robberiesHumboldt Herald: Spirited Crowd Confronts Supervisors over Richardson GroveHumboldt Herald: BofA Sues Arkley for $50 millionHumboldt Herald: Stephen Pepper on Short Sea ShippingSiskyou Land Conservancy: All Aboard! The Promise of Short-Sea ShippingHumboldt Herald: PG%E Faces SmartMeter RebellionHumboldt Herald: How to Buy a Bass AppointmentHumboldt Herald: Movin' the Mud AroundStateCA's Hidden deficit: Unemployment Insurance Fund owes $2.6 BillionMedi MJ patient found not guiltyLAPD gang unit headshots unarmed autistic manCar seizures at DUI checkpoints prove profitable for cities, raise legal questionsWhitman's fortune entwined with Goldman SachsFood waste remains persistent problem at farms, grocery stores and restaurantsState health officials under investigation for failing to disclose tripsMost "Distinguished Schools" centered near Bay Area, Southern CaliforniaGiant Russian cargo plane to land in StocktonFate of Network Admin Terry Childs Now in Jury's HandsNationalBees in more trouble than ever after bad winterUS Judge Rules Breast Cancer Gene Patent IllegalHospital Superbugs kill 48,000 a year33 states unemployment funds bankruptOrganic cheaters exposed by public protest at health products trade showTopical drugs may pollute waterwaysLaw enforcement appliance thwarts SSLHC Mandate to be enforced by IRS bounty HuntersJustice Dept to probe Monsanto MonopolyMedicating the MilitaryHome Insecticides linked to autoimmune disordersAntibiotics Linked to Increased Risk of Birth DefectsUse of Taser on Pregnant Woman Not Unconstitutional, Court RulesCNN Touts Civilian Service Corps As Way Of Shedding Student DebtNBC's 'cynical' mind-control gamesDigital Economy Bill: Nine things you can't do any moreOhio official tells residents to 'arm themselves' amid police cuts2005 destruction of KSM tapes#1 killer of US military is SuicideSpam a judge, go to jail?Copyright and WrongHow lenders overlook the warning signs of ID theftBuzzd Gmail outs Googly ties of Obama's Deputy CTOForbes: What the top US companies pay in taxesFeds find Pfizer too big to nailNJ Supreme Court upholds privacy of private emails at workFederal Judge Finds NSA Wiretaps were IllegalMagnets can manipulate moralityKeeping a closer eye on employees through social networkingPanel says Census Move on Arab-Americans Recalls WWII InternmentsWill your census answers stay privatePeople in power make better liarsRNA-loaded nanoparticles fight cancerSEC collected porn while fraud wreaked havocColleague disputes case against "suicided" anthrax suspectBeyond Nuclear report on leaking reactors finds regulator ignoring oversightLocal computer security expert investigates police practicesLegal spying via the cell phone systemNC: Amazon fights demand for customer recordsCritic: Reject Comcast Throttling DealCrime Prediction Software is Here and It's a Very Bad IdeaNY: Kellner Bill will Require State Agencies to Release their Records OnlineGroup calls for antitrust probe into Google search, ad practicesMilitary Asserts Right to Return Cyber AttacksFed raises big questions on big media's Piracy ClaimsMath tutor reveals red light camera signals are riggedPowerful LiesPfizer to pay $142 M for drug fraudAnti-Cancer Agent Stops Metastasis in its TracksInternationalRIAA, MPAA would like to scan your hard drive for infringing contentAreva plans new reactors that make nuclear waste disappearDigital photocopiers loaded with secretsAn Ultra-Thin Shape Memory Alloy For Stretchier Stents And Quake-Proof BuildingsTiny Cube will tackle space junkCooling the planet with tiny bubbles?India begins new census, collecting fingerprints and photosLovelock says suspend democracy for climate changeFirst test flight of solar planeAhmadinejad urges Ban to probe 9/11 attacks25.9 mil cell phones to be turned off for registration in MexicoPupils suffer panic attacks after school stages fake shooting of teacher in playgroundUK police ask internet cafes to monitor customersUS special forces 'tried to cover-up' botched Khataba raid in AfghanistanChief ClimateGate Investigator failed to disclose financial interest in GWA spy unsettles US-India tiesDay of Wrath' brings Russians on to the streets against PutinU.S. and Colombia Cover Up Atrocities Through Mass GravesUS special forces 'tried to cover-up' botched Khataba raid in AfghanistanMilitary can't find its copy of Iraq killing videoThailand to consider amnesty for protest leadersUS deploys 1000s drones in AfghanistanUK refuses entry to new Mossad agentChina's Internet ParadoxCA: Google and Weekly Paper Ordered to Identify Anonymous PostersRussian authorities Raid HP Moscow Offices in Bribery ProbeClimate skeptics force Queen's University to hand over dataUK: New speed cameras trap motorists from spaceIreland may be next to censor internetHow facebook is putting its users lastGoogle Street View logs WiFi networks, Mac addressesMilitants dead after Pakistani air raids kill 70 civiliansIraq Video Brings Notice to a Web SiteOutro includes excerpts from Aldous Huxley's speech The Ultimate RevolutionWe also mentionedThe Assassination of Russia
8 Views
17:46:49 04/11/10
Date Night starring - Steve Carell and Tina Fey
[LESS INFO] 8 VIEWS | ADDED 17:46:49 04/11/10
Action-comedy maestro Shawn Levy, the director of the blockbuster “Night at the Museum” franchise, teams up with two of the comedy world’s biggest talents, Steve Carell (“The 40 Year Old Virgin,” “The Office”) and Tina Fey (“Baby Mama,” “30 Rock,” “SNL”) for an adventure that turns a run-of-the-mill married couple’s date upside down – way upside down, in DATE NIGHT.
Phil (Carell) and Claire Foster (Fey) are a sensible, loving couple with two kids and a house in suburban New Jersey. The Fosters have their weekly “date night” – an attempt at re-experiencing the spice of the dates of yesteryear, involving the same weekly night out at the local Teaneck Tavern. Their conversations quickly drift from barely-date talk to the same chore-chat they have at the dinner table at home. Exhausted from their jobs and kids, their dates rarely end in fore- or any other kind of play, let alone romance.
After seeing two of their best friends – another married couple with kids in suburban New Jersey – split apart from living the same life they themselves lead, Phil and Claire begin to fear what may lie ahead: a state of bland indifference and eventual separation.
In an attempt to take date night off auto-pilot, and hopefully inject a little spice into their lives, Phil decides a change of plans is in order: take Claire into Manhattan to the city’s hottest new restaurant. The Fosters, however, don’t have reservations. Hoping to be seated sometime before the clock strikes twelve, they steal a no-show couple’s reservations. What could it hurt? Phil and Claire are now the Tripplehorns.
The real Tripplehorns, however, it turns out, are a thieving couple who are being hunted down by a pair of corrupt cops for having stolen property from some very dangerous people. Forced on the run before they’ve even finished their risotto, Phil and Claire soon realize that their play-date-for-parents has gone hilariously awry, as they embark on a wild and dangerous series of crazy adventures to save their lives. . . and their marriage.
The ritual “date night” dinner is something all too familiar to most married couples – even directors of blockbuster movies. “I was in the process of making the second Night at the Museum film,” recalls filmmaker Shawn Levy, “and, as is kind of our ritual, once a week, my wife and I go out to dinner.”
At one such dinner, the Levys found themselves sitting at the restaurant they frequented, ordering the same food, talking about the kids, what’s coming up that weekend, who’s going to buy the gift for which birthday party, etc., etc. “In the middle of all that, I said to my wife, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool to do a movie about a date night, where you just did one thing differently? And, from there, you have an unraveling of everything, to the point of it threatening your life and your marriage, with all kinds of crazy stuff going on. But, in the midst of all that crazy stuff, you end up recapturing the vitality that date night was invented in the first place to preserve.’”
The next morning, Levy came in to his production company office and told his staff, “Okay, we’re going to do a movie called DATE NIGHT, and here’s what it’s about, and let’s get a writer. Let’s go.”
Levy’s search for a writer didn’t take very long. “I had written a small, quirky film, called ‘(Saint) Peter,’ which Shawn had read and fell in love with, recalls screenwriter Josh Klausner. “Shawn was determined to find something for us to work on together. He very graciously took a big chance and had me fly out, and we started brainstorming.”
Levy and Klausner met at Levy’s bungalow on the Fox lot, where they quickly broke the story. “We are both in the same stage of life,” Klausner says. “We both have children and go out on date nights, knowing what they’re supposed to be, but realizing they never end up being that anymore because there are so many other things that get in the way. So we started talking about those experiences.”
“We talked about our marriages,” Levy adds. “And we found that there are certain commonalities in trying to sustain a vibrant, romantic relationship,” and not simply becoming roommates. “It’s the question of in the midst of grownup life, how do you keep couple-hood fresh?”
DATE NIGHT was originally conceived as more of a suburban story centered around a parent-teacher conference night, but quickly evolved into, as Klausner calls it, “the perfect ‘North by Northwest’ setup” of mistaken identity.
“Shawn and I really wanted what spurs on the evening to be something that we all might do,” Klausner continues. “Phil and Claire simply can’t get a seat at a restaurant, and, since nobody’s answering the call for a reservation, they just decide, ‘What’s the harm in taking it?’ And it leads them down the rabbit hole. From there, they end up on the worst night of their lives, which ends up being the best night for their relationship.”
Levy describes the film as being “in the spirit of action comedies I remember fondly, like ‘Beverly Hills Cop’ or ‘48 Hrs.’ DATE NIGHT has a real hybrid tone, because it’s first and foremost a comedy. It also has a hefty dose of action, as well as a lot of heart, because it’s about the things that people deal with in relationships.”
For Levy, DATE NIGHT is a change from the family-friendly hits he’s helmed, like “Cheaper by the Dozen,” “Pink Panther” and “Night at the Museum.” DATE NIGHT is more of an adult-skewing comedy,” Levy points out. “In a way, it’s the other side of the movies I’ve done, which have been focused on the child-parent relationships. DATE NIGHT is focused on the marriage side – what happens after the children go to sleep.”
Levy was keen to keep the emotional side of the story intact through the mayhem experienced by the characters. “If you’re making a movie about relationships and being a married couple, it must be more than just funny, because life doesn’t work that way,” the director explains. “This movie has some surprising moments of poignancy.”
“A lot of comedies these days feel like a compendium of gags tied together to follow a narrative story,” notes Klausner. “DATE NIGHT, at its heart, is about marriage and being in love with somebody, but at the same time, life gets in the way. It’s honest, which is something Steve and Tina wanted, too. I’m proud that this movie has preserved that soul.”
When Levy learned that Steve Carell and Tina Fey were hoping to find a project on which they could work together, he knew he had found his DATE NIGHT duo. “We got an early draft of the screenplay to Tina and Steve, who always struck me as the dream pairing for a movie about marriage,” Levy says. “They said, ‘Yeah, we relate to this, we want to do an action comedy that’s also honest about relationships.’ So they said they were in.”
While Levy usually takes a break between completing one feature and beginning the next, he found himself prepping DATE NIGHT while editing “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian,” in order to take advantage of his stars’ availability. “Steve’s and Tina’s series commitments [on, respectively, “The Office” and “30 Rock”] provides only a limited window for feature film work,” Levy explains. “They told us, ‘Look, we want to do this, but we’re free now, and we’re not going to be free in six months – what do we do?’ I said, ‘Well, we make the movie right now!’ I didn’t get a break between films, but I got a comedy with Steve Carell and Tina Fey, who are two of the most intelligent, interesting people working in comedy today. So a lot of my job was to come up with the idea, get the two perfect actors for the movie, and then get the hell out of the way.”
While slight alterations to the script were made to match the stars’ comedic voices, DATE NIGHT was essentially tailor-made for the pair. “It felt like the film was written for them,” says Klausner. Adds Levy: “Three minutes into this movie, you buy Steve and Tina as a married couple. They have a powerful chemistry together. They clicked completely on screen.”
Phil, says Carell, “feels underappreciated by his friends and family, but he sort of keeps that feeling close to his chest. He’s a very loving guy, but he and Claire have reached a plateau in their relationship. He needs to snap himself out of it, if possible. And the night that he and Claire experience together is a defibrillator for their marriage.”
Carell’s comedic skills, along with his ability to stir audiences’ hearts, made him the perfect choice for the role, Levy says. “Steve is super funny, and his chops as an actor are fantastic. He not only carries entire comedy sequences on his back, but three scenes later, he’s moving you to an emotional place with such sincerity and nuance. There’s no end to what he can do.”
Carell says his own date nights, like Phil Foster’s (and Levy’s and Klausner’s), leave much to be desired. “Sometimes the worst part of date night is actually leaving for the date – when you see your babysitter sitting down, getting all cozy, turning on the TV. That sometimes seems much better than the night that lies ahead.”
Fey, like Carell, has the ability to be riotously funny while still portraying the emotional side of her character realistically – to turn down the volume on jokes and simply allow them to happen. For example, in response to a nudge for sex from her husband, Fey’s Claire offers a very normal, ‘Yeah, hang on a minute” moment as she pulls out her dental mouth guard in preparation for sex with her husband, with enough drool to instantly turn off her mate.
“Besides being obviously really pretty and intelligent, Tina has a complete willingness to make an ass out of herself,” says Levy. She’s completely up for goofing on herself and being the butt of the joke, and that’s very charming.”
Fey describes Claire as “a working mom of two kids, who, like almost everyone I know, is just a little worn out by the day-to-day life of raising your kids, getting them out the door, getting them to school, having a job, keeping a house clean. She’s a good person who is just kind of worn into the ground a little bit. I certainly identify with how just physically tiring it is to be a parent and have a job – sometimes it feels like a real effort to just be present for your spouse.”
So which would be scarier – being in a boring marriage or being chased by the mob (both of which the Fosters experience in the film)? “I would say that being married to a person in the mob would be the scariest,” Fey jokes.
Along their night-from-hell journey, Phil and Claire encounter a cavalcade of characters on both sides of the law. Levy’s casting choices for these roles was sometimes unexpected – and always spot-on. His intent was to provide the story with a “Wizard of Oz”-like experience. “You’re with your heroes, but along the way, they’re being affected and changed by the people they meet, and I just thought wouldn’t it be fun if at every turn of the road, you’re surprised all over again by who has suddenly appeared in this movie. And the cast members fit the roles perfectly.”
The surprise apparently wasn’t limited to the audience. “I read the script,” says Fey,” and I thought, ‘Oh, these are really good parts for somebody.’ I never thought we would get this lucky to have that caliber of people in all these different parts.” Having what otherwise would have appeared to be small roles portrayed by big name actors only helps bring them alive, Carell notes. “When you see them acted out, they’re even better than they were on the page.”
And getting high-powered stars to join the DATE NIGHT team wasn’t just a matter of coincidence. “So many people were so keen to find a way to work with Steve and Tina – they just found a way to make it work,” says Levy.
Mark Wahlberg portrays a former real estate client of Claire’s the pair turns to in the middle of the night. “I play a guy named Holbrooke Grant, who is a security expert who Claire and Phil come to for help,” Wahlberg explains. “They just catch Holbrooke at a bad time – he’s with his beautiful Israeli girlfriend.” The pair ends up turning Holbrooke’s night upside down, as well.
Wahlberg had the simplest costume in the entire cast. “There is no wardrobe – just a pair of silk genie pants,” he recalls, noting that he regularly found himself freezing on the air-conditioned set. That the top half of his costume was missing (except for an ample supply of makeup covering Wahlberg’s countless tattoos), was a fact not lost on the female members of the cast and crew. “Mark was shirtless for three or four days,” Fey says, prompting a noticeable increase in the number of women who suddenly had additional tasks to address on set on the days he was on the job. “I had friends texting me, ‘Can I get on the Fox lot and visit you today?’” Fey laughs.
Also coming to the aid of the beleaguered couple is Taraji P. Henson, an Oscar® nominee for her work in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” who plays NYPD Detective Arroyo, who, though she doesn’t exactly believe the Fosters “chased by bad guys” story, begins to become suspicious of a couple of her colleagues. “She’s sort of a hero,” the actress says.
Playing thugs Collins and Armstrong, who are after the Fosters (whom they believe are the Tripplehorns) are Common and Jimmi Simpson. Common is a familiar face to audiences for his role as a murderous cop in “Street Kings” and for his work as a musical artists (his hits include “Love of My Life” and “Testify”). Simpson has made occasional appearances as Lyle the Intern on “The Late Show with David Letterman.”
Common describes the duo as “one of the many catalysts to get this mundane couple out of their comfort zone – mainly by shooting guns at them.” The two are essentially hunters, he adds, noting, “I’m the muscle.”
Collins and Armstrong’s formidable boss is gangster Joe Miletto, from whom the Tripplehorns have apparently stolen something of importance that he wants back. The casting of acclaimed actor Ray Liotta as Miletto delighted Carell and Fey. “We were shooting a scene with Ray one night,” recalls Carell, “and Tina looked over and said, ‘I feel like I am in a 3D version of ‘Goodfellas. Ray Liotta is actually walking up and talking to me.’ It was like a ride at a theme park.”
Playing a heavy in a comedy, particularly for actors used to appearing in dramatic films, requires a special knack, one which DATE NIGHT’s group of toughs embraced with gusto.
“It’s really in the writing, so it’s dependent on your commitment to it,” explains Liotta. “If the situation’s just a little more heightened, you’re going to laugh.” Common agrees: “Shawn expressed to us from the beginning – you’ve got to keep it real. The more real it becomes – because you’re playing off Steve and Tina – the funnier it becomes.”
Portraying the “real” Tripplehorns – actually a drug dealer named Taste and his wacky stripper girlfriend, Whippit – are James Franco and Mila Kunis. Despite their different life circumstances, the pair has much in common with the Fosters, being in the same spot in their relationship as their clean-cut counterparts. Notes Josh Klausner: “Whether you’re a drug dealer or a suburban husband, you still feel the pangs of ‘You never look at me the way you used to’ and ‘You don’t have time for me.’ What the two couples are going through is exactly the same,” making the exchanges between the two couples both hilarious and poignant at the same time.
Kunis describes the pair as “very passionate – when they’re angry, they’re very angry, and when they’re happy, they’re madly in love.” Whippit, specifically, she describes as a “psycho, who is very up and down. She goes through three different emotions within two and a half script pages.”
The name “Taste,” Franco says, is left over from an earlier concept of the character – a 6 ft. 7 in. bald man with “TASTE” tattooed on his forehead. “So when they asked me to be in the movie, I said, ‘Well, I’m certainly not that.’” The character’s description was then rewritten, but the name stuck. “I was up for facial tattoos, too,” Franco says with a laugh. “We just went for the cheesy ‘Grim Reaper.’”
Kristen Wiig and Mark Ruffalo play the Fosters soon-to-be-splitting couple friends, Haley and Brad Sullivan. “Their parting brings up the question about getting bored with your spouse and moving on, or just sticking it out,” says Wiig. “I think Haley plants the seeds in Claire’s mind.”
Also taking on key roles are “Gossip Girl’s” Leighton Meester as the Fosters’ babysitter Katy, and “The Dark Knight’s” William Fichtner as district attorney Frank Crenshaw.
All the cast members appreciated Levy’s ability to balance action and comedy, which in turn allowed his actors the freedom to come up with their own gags. “That’s the only way you can afford to have time to play around or to improvise and do extra takes,” notes Fey. “That only happens if everyone – especially your director – really knows what they’re doing.”
For Levy, there’s a method to the potential madness of improv. “Sometimes, after we’d get what I want, Steve and Tina would come to me and say, ‘You know what? Could I get one more take? I’ve got an idea that might lead somewhere.’ Sometimes we couldn’t use it, but more often than not, it was gold and it ended up in the movie,” such as the duo’s restaurant shenanigans game of guessing what’s up with the couple sitting across the way.
“Every person in any field wants to go to work and feel respected for what they do,” says the director. “So when you say to an actor, ‘We’re going to do the script that I’ve written for you, but I want to hear what’s in your head. I actually think that the ideas you come up with might be as legitimate or better than what we scripted,’ it makes your actors feel like partners and collaborators, and not mouthpieces. It makes them feel like part of the creative team, rather than a piece of machinery.”
MEET THE TWINS
While attempting to escape their pursuers, the Fosters “borrow” Holbrooke Grant’s car, the much-too-powerful-for-Phil Audi R8. When Phil inadvertently smashes into a taxi cab, the two vehicles’ bumpers become hopelessly locked together. Nonetheless, the chase continues, the conjoined twin automobiles smashing their way down Manhattan streets.
The complicated sequence came about when Levy and Klausner were brainstorming ideas for a chase scene. Concerned about repeating the oft-used, cliché urban car chase, Klausner recalls, “I remember sitting in a room with Shawn, telling him, ‘You know, do we really have to do a car chase, because how many times have we seen a car chase in these movies? How interesting can that be?’”
Levy then related to his writer a story from his teenage years. “He was just learning to drive, and was trying to park, but he ended up smashing into another car in front of him and getting stuck on that car. His father just drove by and shook his head.” Thus was born the idea of conjoined cars.
But just having two cars barreling down the street wasn’t enough. “Shawn wanted to do something that nobody had ever seen before,” says 2nd unit director and stunt coordinator Jack Gill, who planned and executed the sequence. “Once we got the basic idea of conjoining the cars, we began figuring out not only how to build the cars, but how to make it work comically. I then started adding eccentricities, like spinning them around in circles and having characters fire guns at them.”
Besides having six different cars that, each of which handled a specific aspect of the chase stunts, Gill built a 40 foot frame, upon which the Audi and cab bodies were placed. “So there’s just one rigid frame,” he explains. The stunt driver was situated at the leading end of the conjoined vehicles. “So when the cab is facing forwards, with the Audi ahead of it facing the wrong way, the stunt driver is actually driving from inside the Audi’s trunk, looking out the back so he can see where he’s going and drive around corners.” In addition, for most shots, the rig’s rear wheels – those under the rear end of the conjoined vehicles – could also steer, in the same manner as those of a hook-and-ladder fire truck.
Needless to say, don’t try this at home on your own Manhattan street.
New York City ordinances limited the production to the types of stunts that could be filmed on Manhattan streets. So following a week of night work in New York, the stunt team moved to downtown Los Angeles to complete the sequence.
“We had about six blocks to work with on Broadway, which was great,” Gill recalls. “We needed a long stretch locked down, because when you conjoin two cars together, you’ve got a thing that’s forty feet long – getting it up to speed and shutting it all down can be tough. You can’t just do it in two blocks.” The sequence was filmed with up to six cameras, including a special “balloon cam,” with wheeled buoys on each corner, which allowed the camera to be sent into the path of the speeding car pair and getting hit head-on, without damaging expensive camera equipment.
Carell did actually drive the R8 himself for a number of shots. “We wanted the car to have way too much power for a guy like Phil to handle,” says Gill. “So I asked Audi to disconnect the all-wheel drive, which meant putting all 560 horsepower into the rear wheels.” So what was Carell’s impression? “He said it felt like somebody hitting him in the back of the head with a shovel when he stepped on the gas.”
In one shot, Phil must make his way to the cab while Claire is driving the Audi at high speed. “We did all the transfers across the hood with doubles – that was all real,” notes Gill.
Close-ups of Carell and Fey were done against a green screen set at Twentieth Century Fox. Since the chase acrobatics had already been filmed, besides their scripted lines, Carell and Fey filled in the gaps with their gut-busting ad-libs. “I’d show them footage and explain to them, ‘Here’s what we did last week downtown with the real cars – what do you think?’” Gill says. “And we’d bounce off ideas until something really clicked. And then Shawn was always there to say, ‘You’re right on track here – that’s really funny!’ It really helps when you have a collaboration where everybody can talk ideas out.”
Even with all the excitement, Levy kept the scene’s theme on track. “Once we had the concept of having the two cars stuck together, then we could find a way to thematically tie it in to what the movie’s about, which is this couple that has to learn to communicate to survive,” he explains.
Indeed, even with all that happens to them on this fateful night, the Fosters achieve their goal: to reinvigorate their relationship and reconnect with the love and excitement that brought them together in the first place.
“DATE NIGHT is kind of like a fable,” says Levy. “It takes place over a very short period of time, but in some way, it’s timeless, because it’s a story about a journey two people make in their relationship. And we leave the night feeling like they will go back to their lives and no one except for the people involved that night might ever know what happened. We’ve watched them experience this crazy night, but the real adventure of their married life, now that they’ve found each other again, is just about to begin.”
“They’re comfortable enough again with each other to be able to say ‘Knock it off’ and ‘I love you’ within the same five minutes,” says Steve Carell.
Tina Fey has just one last piece of relationship advice: “Go on a date night and see DATE NIGHT.”
ABOUT THE CAST
STEVE CARELL (Phil Foster) has emerged as one of the most sought-after comedic actors in Hollywood. First gaining recognition for his contributions as a correspondent on Comedy Central’s Emmy® Award-winning “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” Carell has successfully segued into primetime television and above-the-title status in the film world with equal aplomb.
Carell currently stars as Michael Scott, the pompous and deluded boss of a Pennsylvania paper company, in the Americanized adaptation of Ricky Gervais’ acclaimed British television series “The Office.” Now in its sixth season, the show continues to flourish in ratings and has earned Carell three Emmy Award nominations and four Golden Globe® nominations for his work on the show, and earned the Golden Globe in 2006. In the last two years, the show has won the Screen Actors Guild Award® for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series.
Carell opened his first lead feature, “The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” which he co-wrote with director Judd Apatow, at #1, a spot it remained in for two straight weekends. The surprise hit of 2005 went on to gross more than $175 million worldwide and had #1 openings in 12 countries. The film generated over $100 million in DVD sales in North America alone. On an award level, the film was honored with an AFI Award® named one of 10 Most Outstanding Motion Pictures of the Year and took home Best Comedy Movie at the 11th annual Critics’ Choice Awards®. The film also earned Carell and Apatow a co-nomination for Best Original Screenplay by the Writers Guild Association.
In 2008, Carell starred as Maxwell Smart in the much-anticipated action-comedy “Get Smart,” opposite Anne Hathaway and Alan Arkin. The film grossed over $230 million worldwide. A sequel is due in 2011. He also lent his voice as “The Mayor of Whoville” in Twentieth Century Fox’s animated film “Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who!” based on the children’s book written by Dr. Seuss. Directed by Jimmy Hayward (“Finding Nemo,” “Monsters, Inc.”), Carell played opposite Jim Carrey, and helped launch the film as an international success earning over $295 million worldwide.
In 2006, as part of an ensemble, he starred in “Little Miss Sunshine,” which earned an Academy Award® nomination for Best Picture and won the SAG Award™ for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. The black comedy also starred Greg Kinnear and Toni Collette. Previous film credits for the actor include “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy,” “Bewitched, and “Dan in Real Life.” Carell’s feature film breakout role in “Bruce Almighty,” opposite Jim Carrey, led to a sequel starring Carell in 2007, “Evan Almighty.”
Carell recently announced the start of his new production company, Carousel Productions. Carell’s endeavors and successes in acting, writing and producing were an organic segue in the creation of Carousel Productions. Born in Massachusetts, Carell now resides in Los Angeles with his wife, actress Nancy Walls (NBC’s “Saturday Night Live”), whom he met while at the Second City Theater Group in Chicago, where both were members. He is the proud father of a daughter and a son.
TINA FEY (Claire Foster), one of the most visible and popular figures in television today, writes, executive produces and stars in NBC's three-time Emmy Award-winning comedy series “30 Rock,” a workplace comedy which takes place behind-the-scenes of a live variety show. Her performance as head writer Liz Lemon on the fictional “TGS with Tracy Jordan” has earned Fey an Emmy, two Golden Globes, three SAG Awards, and a People’s Choice Award®. This year alone, “30 Rock” won five Emmy Awards and was nominated for many others.
Prior to creating “30 Rock,” Fey completed nine seasons as head writer, cast member and co-anchor of the “Weekend Update” segment on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live.” Fey is an Emmy winner and two-time Writers Guild Award winner for her writing on SNL, also receiving an Emmy for her spoof of vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
Since her transition to being in front of the camera, Fey has won much acclaim, including being named one of Entertainment Weekly’s Entertainers of the Year, People Magazine’s Most Beautiful People (three times), and one of Time magazine’s Prestigious Time 100.
Other awards include, in 2008, a Producers Guild Award and a Writers Guild Award for Outstanding Comedy Series for “30 Rock.” She has also won two Gracie Awards and a Made in New York Award and has been nominated for a People’s Choice Award for Choice Comedy Actress and a SAG Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series
Fey expanded to feature films in spring 2004 as both a screenwriter and an actress opposite Lindsay Lohan in the hit comedy “Mean Girls,” which earned her a nomination for a Writers Guild Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Most recently she starred alongside “Saturday Night Live’s” Amy Poehler in the film “Baby Mama” for Universal Pictures, which exceed the $50 million dollar mark at the U.S. box office. Fey also starred in the Ricky Gervais comedy “The Invention of Lying,” released in 2009.
MARK WAHLBERG (“Holbrooke Grant”) earned Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for his standout performance in Martin Scorsese’s acclaimed drama “The Departed.”
Wahlberg’s remarkable film career began with Penny Marshall’s “Renaissance Man” and “The Basketball Diaries” with Leonardo DiCaprio, followed by a star turn opposite Reese Witherspoon in the thriller “Fear.” He has enjoyed playing diverse characters for visionary filmmakers such as David O. Russell, Tim Burton and Paul Thomas Anderson.
Wahlberg’s breakout role in “Boogie Nights” established him as one of Hollywood’s most sought-after talents. He later headlined “Three Kings” and “The Perfect Storm” with George Clooney, and “The Italian Job” with Charlize Theron. He followed those with “I ♥ Huckabees,” “Four Brothers” and the football biography, “Invincible.” He then appeared in “Shooter,” based on the best-selling novel Point of Impact. Wahlberg reunited with “The Yards” director James Gray and co-star Joaquin Phoenix in “We Own the Night,” which Wahlberg produced.
In 2008, Wahlberg starred in M. Night Shyamalan’s “The Happening,” and in “Max Payne.” He recently appeared in director Peter Jackson’s adaptation of “The Lovely Bones.” Due out this year is “The Fighter” for director David O. Russell and “The Other Guys,” with Will Ferrell.
Wahlberg is an executive producer on “The Fighter” and “We Own the Night,” as well as on the HBO series “Entourage” and “In Treatment,” which have received six Golden Globe and three Emmy nominations.
Future projects include the new HBO series, “Boardwalk Empire,” with Martin Scorsese and “How to Make it in America,” along with other feature film projects. A committed philanthropist, he founded The Mark Wahlberg Youth Foundation in 2001 to benefit inner city children and teens.
TARAJI P. HENSON (“Detective Arroyo”) earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress portraying Brad Pitt’s mother in David Fincher’s highly acclaimed “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” Most recently, she starred in Tyler Perry’s “I Can Do Bad All By Myself,” which opened to number one at the box office.
For three years, Henson starred as Raina Washington, the youngest female detective on Lifetime’s “The Division.” She was also a regular on David E. Kelly’s “Boston Legal” and had a recurring role on ABC’s “Eli Stone.” Henson appeared in featured roles on “ER,” “Strong Medicine,” “CSI,” “House,” among others.
Henson received rave reviews for her role in Focus Features’ “Talk to Me” opposite Don Cheadle. Henson was named Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Feature Film at the 2005 Black Movie Awards and received the Best Actress nod at the 2006 BET Awards for her performance as Shug in the gutsy drama “Hustle & Flow,” produced by Oscar-nominated filmmaker John Singleton. She received two nominations at the 2006 MTV Movie Awards™ including Best Breakthrough Performance.
Upcoming films include “Karate Kid” opposite Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan, which filmed on location in Beijing for Columbia. Henson plays Rainn Wilson’s love interest in the upcoming indie comedy “Peep World,» also starring Sarah Silverman. In the indie drama “Once Fallen,” Henson stars with Ed Harris and Brian Presley. She starred in Sony’s “Not Easily Broken” opposite Morris Chestnut, and opposite Forest Whitaker in “Hurricane Season.” She starred in Tyler Perry’s “The Family That Preys” with Kathy Bates and Alfre Woodard.
Born and raised in Washington, D.C., the Howard University grad has a strong passion for helping disabled and less fortunate children and reveals, “I always stress to kids to have faith in themselves—the greatest recipe for success is self confidence.”
COMMON (Collins), a Grammy Award® winning artist, made his big screen debut as a musical performer in “Dave Chappelle’s Block Party,” in 2006. In January 2007, he made his acting debut co-starring opposite Jeremy Piven, Ben Affleck, Alicia Keys and Ryan Reynolds in “Smokin’ Aces.” Since then he’s co-starred opposite Denzel Washington in “American Gangster,” directed by Ridley Scott; David Ayer’s “Street Kings,” starring Keanu Reeves and Forest Whitaker; and “Terminator Salvation,” directed by McG, starring Christian Bale.
ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS
SHAWN LEVY (Director/Producer) is one of the most commercially successful film directors of the past decade. To date, his films have grossed over 1.5 billion dollars worldwide. Levy has honed his craft, seamlessly weaving comedy and heart into captivating stories that resonate with audiences. His youthfully enthusiastic approach to filmmaking is evident in the storylines and characters he creates – reflecting his joyful intensity for each project at hand.
Levy is currently developing several films to produce through his production company, 21 Laps, which is housed at Twentieth Century Fox. These projects include “The Ten Best Days of My Life” (with Amy Adams), “Neighborhood Watch,” “The Devil You Know” and “How to Talk to Girls” for Fox; “Factracker” for MGM; “The Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp” and “The Cutlass Islands” for New Regency, “Men of Magic” for Universal; “The Berenstain Bears” for Walden; and “The Spectacular Now” and “Table 19” for Fox Searchlight.
Currently, Levy is in pre-production on the futuristic father-son boxing drama, “Real Steel,” starring Hugh Jackman, for Steven Spielberg’s Dreamworks.
Levy’s 21 Laps recently produced the 2008 comedy «What Happens in Vegas,» starring Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher, which went on to earn over $200 million worldwide.
Levy both produced and directed the blockbuster “Night at the Museum,” starring Ben Stiller, Robin Williams, Owen Wilson, Ricky Gervais, Dick Van Dyke and Mickey Rooney, which grossed over $580 million worldwide and “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian,” starring a wide array of today’s most notable comedic talent including Ben Stiller, Amy Adams, Jonah Hill, Bill Hader, Hank Azaria, Owen Wilson, Ricky Gervais and Steve Coogan, which grossed over $400 million worldwide.
He directed the successful 2006 comedy, “The Pink Panther,” starring Steve Martin, Kevin Kline, Beyoncé Knowles, and Jean Reno and served as the executive producer of “Pink Panther 2.” Levy also directed “Cheaper By The Dozen” starring Steve Martin, Bonnie Hunt, Ashton Kutcher and Hilary Duff, which went on to gross more than $200 million worldwide.
In 2002, Levy directed both the hit romantic comedy “Just Married,” starring Ashton Kutcher and Brittany Murphy, which grossed over $100 million and the family comedy “Big Fat Liar,” for Universal Pictures, with Frankie Muniz, Paul Giamatti and Amanda Bynes.
Levy graduated at the age of 20 from the Drama Department of Yale University. He later studied film in the Masters Film Production Program at USC, where he produced and directed the short film Broken Record. This film won the Gold Plaque at the Chicago Film Festival, in addition to being selected to screen at the Director’s Guild of America.
JOSH KLAUSNER (Screenwriter) attended Princeton University, where he was involved in the theater community as an actor, playwright and director, and studied theater luminaries Bobby Lewis and Albert Innaurato. Klausner’s thesis play, “Scratch,” received the Francis LeMoyne Page Prize for Excellence in Theater. After graduation, Klausner co-created the short “Season of the Lifterbees,” which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 1992, and won the Time Warner Grand Prize at the Aspen Shortsfest and a regional AMPAS Student Academy Award for Best Dramatic Short.
In 1994, Klausner began working as an assistant to the Farrelly Brothers, on their first film, “Dumb & Dumber,” moving on to work as 2nd unit director on the Farrellys’ hit 1998 film, “There’s Something About Mary” and again in 2001’s “Shallow Hal.”
In 2000, Klausner wrote and directed HBO’s “The 4th Floor,” starring William Hurt, Juliette Lewis, Austin Pendleton and Shelley Duvall. He did additional screenplay work on “Shrek the Third,” and wrote the original screenplay and storyline for DreamWorks
Animation’s upcoming “Shrek Forever After,” to be released later this year.
Klausner is currently working on a number of feature film projects, including a live action adaptation of “Thomas the Tank Engine,” and an adaptation of Adena Hapern’s The Ten Best Days of My Life for Shawn Levy’s 21 Laps, which will star Amy Adams. He is also collaborating with Sir Paul McCartney on “High in the Clouds,” an upcoming animated feature film based on the former Beatle’s children’s book.
JOE CARACCIOLO, JR. (Executive Producer) began his career in film as a production manager on director Sidney Lumet’s “Running on Empty” and “The Verdict.”
Caracciolo executive produced the hit comedies “Marley & Me” starring Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston, “What Happens in Vegas” starring Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher (for 21 Laps), and “The Devil Wears Prada” starring Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway. His other executive producing credits include “Just My Luck,” starring Lindsay Lohan, “Hide & Seek,” a psychological thriller starring Robert De Niro and Dakota Fanning, and “Uptown Girls,” a comedic New York fairy tale starring Brittany Murphy and Dakota Fanning. Additionally, he produced the teen thriller “Swimfan,” directed by John Polson.
Caracciolo’s other feature film credits include James Foley’s “Glengarry Glen Ross,” Jon Amiel’s “Copycat,” and “The Man Who Knew Too Little,” and writer-director John Waters’ “Serial Mom,” “Pecker,” and “Cecil B. Demented.”
JOSH McLAGLEN (Executive Producer) has worked as an assistant director on dozens of blockbuster films alongside some of Hollywood’s top directors. He has been 1st AD on “Tango and Cash,” “Alien 3,” James Cameron’s “Titanic,” “The X-Files,” “Cast Away,” “The Polar Express, and “Beowulf,” the latter three for director Robert Zemeckis, and again for Cameron on “Avatar.”
In 2002, McLaglen began wearing a producer’s hat, working his way from associate producer (“The Polar Express”) to co-producer (“Beowulf,” “Avatar”) to executive producer. In 2006, he began working with director Shawn Levy, as both 1st AD and co-producer on “Night at the Museum,” becoming executive producer for that film’s sequel, “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian,” as well as for “Date Night” and the upcoming “Real Steel.”
TOM McNULTY (Executive Producer) is the president of production at 21 Laps, a production company based at Twentieth Century Fox in Los Angeles. McNulty joined 21 Laps at its inception with the company’s principal, director Shawn Levy and has set up over a dozen film projects at Fox, Universal, Warner Brothers and New Line. 21 Laps films include “Cheaper By The Dozen 2,” as well as the hit comedy “What Happens In Vegas” starring Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher, “St. Peter” starring Elizabeth Banks and Sam Rockwell, and “The Rocker,” the latter marking their first producing effort together.
Prior to joining Levy, McNulty was the executive vice president of production at Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison Productions for over six years. There, he oversaw the development of the entire slate of films, notably “Mr. Deeds,” “Anger Management,” “50 First Dates,” “Are We There Yet,” “Click” and “Dickie Roberts Former Child Star.”
Prior to joining Happy Madison, McNulty was an executive at Out Of The Blue Entertainment, where he was an executive on “Big Daddy” and “Deuce Bigalow Male Gigolo.”
McNulty arrived in Hollywood as an actor, appearing in “Boys on the Side” opposite Whoopi Goldberg and “Escape from L.A.” with Kurt Russell. McNulty grew up on Long Island and attended The Catholic University of America in Washington DC.
DEAN SEMLER, ACS/ASC (Director of Photography) began his career in his native Australia, lensing “Mad Max 2” (aka “The Road Warrior” in North America) in 1982 for George Miller, for which Semler received an Australian Film Institute (AFI) nomination. Semler reteamed with Miller for “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.” Semler won both the AFI and Australian Cinematographers Society awards for the Aussie thriller “Razorback.”
By the late ‘80s, Semler was serving as director of photography on several U.S. productions, including “Cocktail” with Tom Cruise and Bryan Brown, and the western “Young Guns.” The following year, he returned to Australia for “Dead Calm,” starring Nicole Kidman and Sam Neill, for which Semler won the AFI award.
After filming the “Young Guns” sequel in 1990, Semler shot Kevin Costner’s “Dances With Wolves,” for which Semler received multiple honors, including an Academy Award and American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) Award. He reteamed with Costner in 1995 for “Waterworld.”
Throughout the ‘90s and into the following decade, Semler shot the comedies “City Slickers,” “Nutty Professor II: The Klumps,” “Bruce Almighty,” and “Get Smart.” He also filmed Mel Gibson’s epic “Apocalypto.”
Most recently, Semler was director of photography on Roland Emmerich’s “2012,” and on “Secretariat,” starring Diane Lane and Scott Glenn.
DAVID GROPMAN (Production Designer), after working in television and independent films, designed the studio features “Of Mice and Men,” “Waiting to Exhale,” and “The Cider House Rules,” for which he was nominated for an Oscar.
Gropman received an Art Directors Guild award and BAFTA nomination for his design for “Chocolat.” Gropman worked on John Waters’ “Hairspray,” for which Gropman was nominated for a Satellite Award. The Art Directors Guild once again recognized Gropman with a nomination for period film design for “Doubt,” which takes place in the 1960s.
CHRISTOPHE BECK (Composer) reunites with Shawn Levy, after composing the scores for the Levy-helmed projects “Just Married,” “Cheaper by the Dozen,” “The Pink Panther. Recently, Beck reteamed with director Chris Columbus on “Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief,” after composing the score for Columbus’ “I Love You, Beth Cooper.”
The Montreal native started piano lessons at age five and was writing music for his first-ever band, Chris and The Cupcakes, before his teen years. During high school, Beck studied flute, saxophone, trombone and drums, and performed in rock bands. While studying music at Yale University, Beck had an epiphany, discovering that his talent for composing exceeded that for performing. He wrote two musicals with his brother Jason (a.k.a. Chilly Gonzales, the Berlin-based hip-hop recording artist), as well as an opera based on The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe
Upon graduation from Yale in 1992, he moved to Los Angeles to attend USC's prestigious film scoring program, where he studied with Oscar winner Jerry Goldsmith, among others. Beck was immediately attracted to the creative challenges unique to the marriage of music and picture, and a personal recommendation from the head of the USC Music Department led to his first professional assignment, the Canadian TV series “White Fang.” Soon thereafter, he was asked to score a new TV series (then in its second season), “Buffy, the Vampire Slayer,” based on the 1992 cult classic film, for which he received the Emmy for Outstanding Music Composition during his three seasons with the show.
The prolific talent has scored 40+ feature films and nearly twenty television shows since 1993. His film compositions include a wide array of projects and genres including the action films “The Sentinel” and “Elektra,” the comedies “The Hangover,” “Drillbit Taylor,” “What Happens in Vegas,” “Charlie Bartlett,” “Pink Panther 2,” and “Bring It On,” and the dramas “Under the Tuscan Sun,” “Year of the Dog,” “Phoebe in Wonderland” and the Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury nominee “The Greatest.”
Beck has also composed scores for “The Seeker: The Dark is Rising,” “School for Scoundrels,” “License to Wed,” “Fred Claus,” “We Are Marshall,” “Confidence,” “Yours, Mine and Ours,” “Taxi,” “A Cinderella Story,” “Saved!,” “Garfield” and its sequel, “Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties” “Cheaper by the Dozen,” “American Wedding,” “Post Grad,” and “All About Steve.”
MARLENE STEWART (Costume Designer) earned her first credits working on music videos, including memorable designs for fashion-forward pop superstar Madonna. Stewart created image-shaping costumes for 11 Madonna videos, including “Vogue,” “Material Girl,” “Like a Prayer” and “Express Yourself.”
Stewart’s film work spans a wide variety of genres, periods and looks. She has collaborated with an intriguing array of directors, ranging from Alejandro González Iñárritu on “21 Grams” to Oliver Stone on “The Doors” and “JFK” to Michael Mann on “Ali” and Beeban Kidron on “To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar.”
Most recently, Stewart designed the costumes for Ben Stiller’s “Tropic Thunder,” Nancy Meyers’s romantic comedy “The Holiday” and Kimberly Peirce’s drama “Stop-Loss.”
Her credits also include Andy Tennant’s “Hitch,” James Cameron’s “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” and “True Lies,” Mary Lambert’s “Siesta,” Joel Schumacher’s “Falling Down,” James L. Brooks’s “I’ll Do Anything,” Curtis Hanson’s “The River Wild,” Joe Pytka’s “Space Jam,” Rob Bowman’s “The X Files,” Tony Scott’s “Enemy of the State,” Dominic Sena’s “Gone in 60 Seconds,” David McNally’s “Coyote Ugly,” and Antoine Fuqua’s “Tears of the Sun.”
After earning a degree in History at the University of California, Berkeley, Stewart studied at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles. She received the Bob Mackie Award for Design for her student work and began her design career by launching her own women’s clothing line, Covers. A Boston native, Stewart designed the costumes for three Madonna tours as well as tours for Cher, Paula Abdul, and Gloria Estefan. She created music video looks for Janet Jackson, Rod Stewart, Bette Midler, Debbie Harry, Smashing Pumpkins, the Bangles, and the Eurythmics, and was the first recipient of the American Music Awards’ Best Costume Design Award for the video “Material Girl.”
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23:00:08 12/24/09
Movement, QuickStart and the Brain
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John J Ratey, MD, is an Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, Research Synthesizer, Speaker, and Author, as well a Clinical Psychiatrist maintaining a private practice in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He has lectured and published 60 peer reviewed articles on the topics of Aggression, Autism, ADHD, and other issues in neuropsychiatry.
Dr. Ratey has authored A User¹s Guide to the Brain(2000) and co-authored Shadow Syndromes(1997) with Catherine Johnson, PhD. From 1994 to 2005 he co-authored Driven to Distraction(1994), Answers to Distraction (1995) and Delivered from Distraction (2005) with Edward Hallowell, MD, all published by Pantheon/Random House. Additionally, he has edited several books including The Neuropsychiatry of Personality Disorders (1994), published by Blackwell Scientific.
Most recently, Dr Ratey has penned, Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain published by Little Brown. In Spark, Dr. Ratey guides the reader to an understanding of neurobiology and inspires the reader to reach for their potential, and embrace exercise that is crucial for the brain and body to operate at peak performance.
Spark is fueling a movement to re-engineer school practices and medical recommendations to establish curriculum, lifestyles and corporate practices based on scientific principles. Providing the scientific foundation and research data, Dr Ratey has been drafted into the groundswell of those whose mission it is to revitalize schools, combat the obesity crisis, stave off the encroaching epidemic of Sedentarism, by returning to evolutionary principles of physical exercise and proper diet thereby combating syndrome X, the underlying causation of much chronic disease.
"Dr. Ratey's work is going to save physical education, by reforming it. Exercise and the youth of this generation will be the vanguard that will lead the nation back to health." Phil Lawler, Architect of the Naperville PE Project.
Each year since 1995, Dr. Ratey has been selected by his peers as one of the Best Doctors in America. In his dedication to the changing the world, Dr. Ratey has founded The Ratey Institute whose mission is to broadcast life changing science and establish the best practice policies first in our school and then other organizations to reclaim human health
Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain, released in 2008, is the culmination of years of experience with the brain body connection, new research data, and the synthesis of biological sciences. Spark is revolutionizing how we see the human species. A call to return to our evolutionary roots; to get in sync with our metabolic design honed through eons of survival to optimize mental and physical health. Dr. Ratey is the spark that will set your old paradigms on fire, which will clear your mind to see a new vision for mankind, and inflame a passion of commitment to create a healthy future for our posterity.
Paul Salitsky - Bio
Research Interests:
Sport & Exercise Psychology, momentum in sport, emerging leadership, coaching education, exercise and cancer patients/survivors, coaching youth sport
Awards:
Certified Consultant - Association for Applied Sport Psychology
Professional Societies:
US Olympic Committee Sport Psychology Registry
American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, & Dance
American Psychological Association (Div. 47)
American College of Sports Medicine
Association of Applied Sport Psychology
International Society of Sport Psychology
International Society of Sports Vision
North American Society for the Psychology of Sport & Physical Activity
North American Society for the Sociology of Sport
USA Volleyball Resource Advisory Committee for Sports Medicine & Performance
USA Track & Field Sport Psychology Committee
Publications:
* Sachs, M.L., Burke, K.L., & Salitsky, P.B. (Eds.) 1992. Directory of graduate programs in applied sport psychology. Assoc. for the Advancement of Applied Sport Psychology.
Teaching Interests:
Sport & Exercise Psychology, Motor Learning, Sport Sociology, Motor Development, Coaching Education
Michael Thompson, Ph.D. is a consultant, author and psychologist specializing in children and families. He is the clinical consultant to The Belmont Hill School and has worked in more than five hundred schools across the United States, as well as in international schools in Central America, Europe and Asia.
He and his co-author, Dan Kindlon, wrote the New York Times best-selling book, Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys (Ballantine Books, 1999). He is the author of Speaking of Boys: Answers to the Most-Asked Questions About Raising Sons Ballantine, 2000), and co-author (with Catherine O'Neill Grace and Larry Cohen, Ph.D.) of Best Friends/Worst Enemies: Understanding the Social Worlds of Children (Ballantine, 2001) and Mom, They're Teasing Me: Helping Your Child Solve Social Problems (Ballantine, 2002.) About Best Friends, Worst Enemies the Publishers Weekly review declared, "Not since Dr. Spock and Penelope Leach has there been such a sensitive and practical guide to raising healthy children." The Pressured Child: Helping Your Child Achieve Success in School and in Life (with Teresa Barker, Ballantine, 2004) was written to help parents understand the complex journey of children through school, from Kindergarten through senior year. His latest book, It's a Boy!, is a comprehensive guide for the parents of boys.
A dedicated speaker and traveler, Michael Thompson has appeared on The Today Show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, ABC 20/20, CBS 60 Minutes, The Early Show and Good Morning America. He has been quoted in the New York Times, The Washington Post, Newsweek, Time and U.S. News and World Report and has been a guest on NPR's "Morning Edition" with Susan Stamberg, "Talk of the Nation" with Ray Suarez and the Diane Rhem Show. He has written, narrated and hosts a two-hour PBS documentary entitled "Raising Cain" to be broadcast in January of 2006. Dr. Thompson is married to Dr. Theresa McNally, a psychotherapist specializing in adoption, and is the father of Joanna, 23, and Will, 18.
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15:03:11 02/25/09
How To Raise Your Parent Katie #2
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Katie reacts to her mom's reaction to her grades.
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15:01:12 02/25/09
How To Raise Your Parent Mom
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an everyday mom muses about her daughter's grades.
