Garry Marshall
The man who brought us TV's Happy Days and films like Pretty Woman now delivers another romantic comedy, Raising Helen, starring Kate Hudson—whose mom, Goldie Hawn, starred in another Marshall film, Overboard, 17 years ago.
by Joan Brasher | posted 5/21/2004
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Garry Marshall is an American icon. The producer/director brought us such classic TV sitcoms as The Odd Couple (1970-75), Happy Days (1974-84), and Mork and Mindy (1978-82). And on the big screen, he's brought us the likes of Pretty Woman, Frankie and Johnny, Runaway Bride, and The Princess Diaries (with a sequel coming in August). (Meanwhile, Marshall's kid sister Penny was also making a name for herself, starring in TV's Laverne and Shirley and directing films like Big, A League of Their Own and The Preacher's Wife.) Garry Marshall also directed 1987's Overboard, starring Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell. During the filming of Overboard, Hawn's 8-year-old daughter Kate Hudson (also Russell's stepdaughter) was running around the set, already aspiring to be an actress. Sixteen years later, Kate is Marshall's leading lady in the romantic comedy Raising Helen, opening next week. Christianity Today Movies joined other members of the religious press for this recent conversation with Marshall.
Kate Hudson, director Garry Marshall, & John Corbett on the set
The actors say you're a lot of fun to work with.
Garry Marshall: I am a total believer of making the process a good time—make it memorable, have some fun, try to shoot high in your quality and then don't get crazy, see what happens.
It's not often you see a movie in which a clergyman is the romantic interest. What's behind that?
Marshall: That was one reason I took the picture. I thought it was an interesting spin on the love story. And to be very honest, with some of the religious things going on in the news, I thought there should be a positive statement, you know, that religion has a good place and it has its good people. It was a difficult thing, though, because John Corbett was really against playing a nice fellow. He had done too many movies in a row in which he was a nice guy, and he didn't want to be a nice guy any more. But, slowly, this intrigued him that it was a different kind of love interest. Some of the early takes had 14 religious jokes, but we didn't need them all, so we took some out. I thought it came out well. We played it for some Lutherans, and they thought it was good. We can't compete with Mel Gibson, but we figured we could do our part [laughter]!
Did you get any flack at all?
Marshall: It was the weirdest flack. There was one moment where they (the preview audience) said that the ministers shouldn't touch the kids. I asked why. They said, "Well, with all that is going on in the world, maybe it ought to be such and such." I said, "I don't think they're going to think about that." That's the only piece of flack that ever occurred.
I've been directing a lot of years. In television, they wouldn't let you do a show about a religious person—unless they flew like the Flying Nun. But in the '60s and '70s, they always felt the priest or the minister would not be a good topic for a comedy show, because the audience would perceive that nothing bad could happen to them. But now I think it has changed. It can be done, I think, with humor. In this movie, people were more concerned about how these kids are going to survive. Kate Hudson, with these three kids, meets a religious man who is solid enough that these kids will be alright. It built the case better than if she was running around with a bartender or a band singer or something. There is nothing wrong with a bartender or band singer, but this man would give us solidarity.
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