Paula Zahn, co-host: Ten minutes before the hour right now. The new comedy "Housesitter" opened number three at the box office this weekend. It stars Goldie Hawn, as a woman who dreams up a whole fantasy life, and Steve Martin as the guy who tries to figure out what's going on. Before he left, Harry talked with Steve and Goldie about the movie.

Harry Smith reporting:

(Excerpt from "Housesitter," courtesy of Universal Pictures)

Smith: Can you still stand each other after all of this, after making the movie and doing all of this?

Goldie Hawn ("Housesitter"): I haven't seen him for ages.

Smith: Yeah.

Steve Martin ("Housesitter"): Yeah. We have a great time.

Hawn: I haven't seen him for ages. I've tried to get him over to the house for dinner and he won't come.

Martin: What do you mean?

Smith: How did it come to be that you ended up working together?

Martin: I was involved first, and I knew it had this great female part, so I thought of a sex change operation. But then I thought, 'No, it's not worth it.' And when you read the script, you immediately go, 'Goldie Hawn.' And that's--you know, so all the appropriate phone calls were made.

(Excerpt from "Housesitter")

Smith: What's your favorite part of the movie?

Martin: Well, I guess it's those close-ups.

Smith: My favorite part was your love scene with Dana Delaney.

Hawn: Oh, yeah.

Martin: Oh, yeah.

Hawn: There you go.

Martin: That was--that--that was funny. I mean, I don't know.

Hawn: And I had to hear about it the next day over and over again. And did we have a love scene? No.

Smith: From who? From Steve?

Martin: We had an offscreen...

Hawn: From everybody.

Martin: We had an offscreen love scene.

Hawn: From Frank, from Dana. Yeah, we had an offscreen...

Martin: I mean, offscreen...

Hawn: No, off...

Martin: Off camera.

Hawn: We had--no, not off camera, off scripted.

Martin: Off--now, see now you're confusing the audience. Do they mean an off--like back at the hotel later after the movie's over?

Hawn: No, that's what I'm trying to say--is that it was in there and then it wasn't in there, so it was not in there the final shooting so it was never in there.

Martin: No, no, no, no. It was always we go to bed and they cut away. You never see...

Hawn: You mean to tell me that there was never a love scene in there?

Martin: No.

Hawn: Ever?

Martin: No.

Hawn: You never--there was never a thing that said they kissed passionately and the thing and the whatever? I think there was and we cut it out.

Martin: You're right.

Hawn: It was a conscious decision.

Martin: Yeah. I think you're absolutely right.

Hawn: You had a problem with it.

Martin: Well, I figure they don't want to see--they don't want to see Milton Ber...

Smith: What? Say it.

Martin: They don't want to see Milton Berle's rear end, they don't want to see mine.

Smith: What do you--what do you think you did for Steve in the movie?

Hawn: Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Smith: Nothing? You just--you didn't give him anything, you didn't...

Martin: Well, that's not true. Yeah, what--I'll tell you...

Hawn: (Makes buzzer noise)

Martin: ...what she did for me was there's this certain--another level of performing when you realize you're not performing alone, you're performing with somebody. And the person you're performing with is equally adept at not only doing the joke, but setting you up for your joke. So we had this kind of delightful time, which is hard to come by, where it's sort of like pass--passing a medicine ball back and forth, you know.

Smith: Is that really true or is he...

Hawn: A what?

Smith: A medicine...

Martin: A medicine ball. It's a very heavy ball. And the reason I chose...

Hawn: Just tell me this--what a medicine--because you're on antibiotics...

Martin: The reason I chose a medicine ball--oh. The reason I chose a medicine ball is because it's heavy, like the weight of comedy.

Hawn: Oh, I'm getting it. I'm in there. That's true, we did have that kind of relationship.

Martin: It's called chemistry, however, this is the one time in show business it was accomplished through chemicals.

Smith: Or without chemicals?

Hawn: Oh, stop!

Martin: I'm looking around to see if the crew finds anything funny.

Hawn: No.

Smith: Not so far.