About Steve :: Actor :: Movies ::
My Blue Heaven
Page 1

1990

This is another of Steve's movies with Nora Ephron. He plays a gangster from New York, the only movie Steve attempted with an accent (if you don't count Movers and Shakers -- and it's best if you don't).

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Paula Zahn, co-host: And it's 10 minutes before the hour right now. Steve Martin is not a very likely gangster, Rick Moranis even less likely as an FBI man assigned to keep Martin on the right side of the law. But that's who they are in the new comedy "My Blue Heaven." This is the third film that you guys have worked together on.

Rick Moranis ("My Blue Heaven"): Yes. "Little Shop of Horrors," "Parenthood" and now "My Blue Heaven."

Zahn: Now Rick said, after what he -- for you -- with you for three songs, he says he thinks you're the funniest guy he knows.

Steve Martin ("My Blue Heaven"): Ah, he's just saying that because he's on--he's doing an interview. No, we all know very funny people, and I enjoy Rick and Rick probably enjoys me. And, you know -- but there's a lot of other funny people, but I can't really name one right now. But I'msure there must be.

Zahn: Why do you work so well together?

Martin: Well, I think we have an understanding, as -- as many of our comedy colleagues do, that you don't work alone.

Moranis: We're after the same thing, which is to try and come up with the best thing we can come up with. So...

Zahn: How different was the chemistry this time around than in the other films you had worked on together? (unintelligible)

Martin: We had the most scenes together we've ever had really, because in "Parent," we only had a few scenes together, and "Little Shop," I was -- only a little bit. So this was the most we ever really acted together.

Moranis: Yeah.

Martin: So it was different in that sense that, you know...

Moranis: Also, there was -- for the -- for the purpose of the film, there was -- there was a relationship that the characters had which evolved in the film. We were antagonistic, yet we were becoming friends and we were always kind of riding that line and at the same time trying to come up with good comedy bits. So it -- it posed a couple of different challenges.

Zahn: Were there any surprises that you encountered along the way in the filming in this in changes your characters had to make?

Moranis: Well, I think we were all surprised. I was surprised that when Steve -- and this is before we started shooting -- but when Steve started trying on the clothes that they had made for him, he became this guy. It was really great to see. He put on these shiny shoes and they were cut a little different, tight around the waist. And he started moving a little bit different and he did his hair. And, all of a sudden, he was Vinnie. And then at night after we were finished shooting, he'd go back to this kind of look, and he was still Vinnie.

Martin: And Melanie wore a police outfit the whole movie, and I was dressed like Vinnie and he was dressed like FBI. And we'd go into restaurants at lunch, you know, just -- in a small town -- not a small town, a nice town of San Luis Obispo and we're just sort of a weird group.

Zahn: So could either one of you ever live in Fryburg?

Martin: Well, I have a real affection for a little place like that.

Moranis: Yeah.

Martin: I think it would be very cute.

Zahn: You look like you're having a great time in the supermarket.

Martin: It was fun. It was like -- a supermarket is like a big sound stage only it's got food in it. We went in and made up three or four jokes, like -- like Rick here wrote a wonderful little scene for his pal Steve. He -- when I picked up Carol Kane, it was his joke.

Zahn: Do you two plan to work together on another project? Anything in the works?

Moranis: Steve owes me a day. I did a day on his latest picture, "L.A. Story," which is -- I think that day was a wonderful day.

Martin: Thank you.

Moranis: I think the picture will be OK, but that day was fantastic.

Martin: Hmmm, you were especially good that day.

Moranis: He owes me a day. I may ask him to do a film. I may ask him to do -- come over to the apartment and help me out with some stuff we want to take from the dining room...

Martin: Yeah.

Moranis: ...to the...

Martin: It's whatever he wants.

Moranis: So we'll be working together. It might not be in the business, but we'll be working together again for at least a day.

Zahn: Five minutes before the hour right now. CBS This Morning continues right after this.
 

Paula Zahn, co-host:

And it's 10 minutes before the hour right now. It has been a summer of movie blockbusters this summer, and there's one that's causing a lot of people to laugh -- a new one starring Steve Martin. It's called "My Blue Heaven." Respected by his peers, revered by his fans, Americans have come to expect a lot from Steve Martin, and the kind of comedy never lets us down. Whether we choose to remember him as King Tut or as everyone's favorite wild and crazy guy, Steve Martin has earned a prestigious place in the comedy hall of fame. During the past 10 years, he's devoted his career to film, playing parts as different as the love sick loser in "Roxanne" to the slightly neurotic dad in last year's popular "Parenthood." Fans may not recognize Martin in his new film. In "My Blue Heaven," co-starring Rick Moranis, Steve plays Vinnie, a gangster who turns government informer to save his own skin. Steve's familiar silver hair has been died brown and teased into a punk hairdo. His GQ wardrobe is gone, replaced by the meanest in polyester. And his accent is decidedly more Brooklyn than Hollywood.

Rick said that you were so affected by the role of Vinnie that even though you would change into Steve Martin clothes at night to go out to dinner that you were still very much in the persona of Vinnie.

Steve Martin: It's fun to walk around and be this guy all the time. I mean, I'm not a guy who stays in character all the time, but even Rick was doing the voice after a time, and even John Cusack was doing the voice after a while, and we were all kind of talking like Vinnie.

Zahn: So what is it you like about Vinnie? Why did you decide to do him?

Martin: I -- I liked the character's optimism. You know, when they're bigger than life, it's a great opportunity for an actor. And although he's a con man and probably a bad guy really, there's something about people whether they're bad or naughty -- I think Vinnie's more naughty than bad. (Footage is shown of an excerpt from "My Blue Heaven.")

Zahn: Now originally I understand that you saw yourself in the role as the FBI agent.

Martin: Yeah, I was originally hired to play the role Rick Moranis played, and we tried to cast the Vinnie role and people we wanted weren't available outside or the usual thing. And Nora said, What if you played Vinnie?' I said, I can't possibly. I can't -- I...'

Zahn: Why? Why didn't you think you could pull him off?

Martin: I didn't -- I just didn't. I'd never done anything like it, and it's such a -- and I don't do accents. I don't do characters, really. And he's one of the people who never is neurotic -- you know, never has self-doubt. He doesn't have any sort of modern problems. He's just a nice g -- a guy.

Zahn: How much is that like you?

Martin: Well, I can't say -- you know, a little bit neurotic, but I'm pretty optimistic.

Zahn: Steve has good reason to be optimistic. Many see him as one of Hollywood's most bankable comedians, and by all accounts, his four-year marriage to English actress Victoria Tennant is a happy one. They will team up on screen for his next project, a film he's also written called "L.A. Story."

Martin: The last picture I wrote was "Roxanne," and this is -- it's not a continuation of that. It's a film set in LA, which is a crazy place to begin with, and it's a love story set in LA.

Zahn: Whether it's a love story, a comedy or a drama, Steve Martin is always in good company.

First Unidentified Man: Steve, what is comedy?

Second Unidentified Man: Yeah, yeah.

Third Unidentified Man: Good question.

Second Unidentified Man: Right.

Martin: Comedy is the ability to make people laugh without making them puke.
 

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