Thursday, June 10, 2004

Broderick in 'Stepford' with life

By John Urbancich, Sun Newspapers

"On Sunday night, I'll be at the premiere of 'The Stepford Wives' in L.A.," he said a few days earlier. "But I am a TiVo person, so I have freed myself from the schedule. I can watch what I want, when I want."

Of course, TiVo assured him of a living-room view for "Wives" co-star Nicole Kidman presenting the Best Lead Actor (in a Musical) statuette to fellow Aussie Hugh Jackman ("The Boy from Oz"), not to mention Jackman's earlier "lap dance" routine with the real Mrs. Broderick, actress Sarah Jessica Parker.

Anyway, before jetting off to La-La Land, good-guy Broderick, 42, who plays a second-fiddle hubby to Kidman in the new "Stepford," a black comedy remake of the scarier 1975 version, sat still for a number of questions relating to the film, his career and family. Here's how he answered them.

How was working with director Frank Oz?
Well, he's very funny, and he's also very serious about comedy, as most people who work in comedy are. It gets very technical sometimes. Very often it gets to "Take a pause before this word!" or "Don't make it a question." A lot of times, it's almost scientific. I think Frank works that way about comedy, and I'm used to that.

What about the Stepford Men's Club?
It's very scary what happens when a bunch of nerdy white guys get together with a lot of money. With terrifying results. And you know, this is all comic, but you're reminded of groups of guys who came up with fascism, and, I mean, that's where a lot of bad things happened when guys get together with their cognacs and cigars.

But those scenes were really very enjoyable because all the men playing the roles found it very easy and fun to have the permission to tap into your desire to just watch big color TVs and, you know, smash robots, and play with cards and just do all the awful things that men like to do. There were a lot of real card games going on, you know, because there were decks of cards that were just set dressing, but those became real.

Chris Walken was obsessed with, "Could you turn over a card and name the card you're going to turn over, but you'll never get through the deck without hitting correctly at some point, and how far can you get?" Games like that. Or, you know, throwing a ball at a penny. I did that for three months. So, it was interesting to get into that.

Do you trust that audiences will get all the jokes about New York?
Yeah, I think people know. Whether it's real or fictionalized, there's a version of New York that everybody has in their heads, and so I think audiences will know how hard it is to get an apartment here. People read obituaries to find out where they can get a good deal. That's a joke I think from "The Odd Couple," as I recall, by the way.

But, I think people would get New York. People know about New York. If there were jokes about, you know, a small town like Cleveland . . . well, come to think of it, Cleveland even you would get.

Is the way you and your movie wife are portrayed anything similar to the way the way you and Sarah Jessica have been portrayed in the media?
Maybe there is in the way the media portrays us, but I don't think Joanna (the name of Kidman's "Stepford" wife) and my wife are alike at all. She is extremely successful and mega powerful. She could destroy this whole hotel just by looking at it. My wife, I mean. But, you know, so far I feel perfectly safe around her. Anyway, we're both from New York, the real New York, and anything we can do to help promote the fake New York, we do.

Are there new things about the city you've discovered since becoming a father (to now 19-month-old James Wilke Broderick)?
Well, I've discovered playgrounds, and that I wish there were more of them. They're really crowded, and that hadn't occurred to me, how necessary they are. We live down in (Greenwich) Village and there's a whole string of new ones because they're turning the riverfront into parkland. As soon as they open, they're immediately packed with parents and children, with a line to get on the swings. When you don't have a kid you don't really notice that, you know? And how important outside stays and how much kids need that.

Is it hard to be a celebrity and enjoy that?
No. Sometimes. Occasionally. Yeah, which is a shame. But we try to, you know. We can't keep them in the house all day. So we just have to sort of ignore that and go to the park.

Would you rather your kids be urban or suburban?
You know, I grew up in the city. It's not that I think that's the only way to raise a kid or anything. I just mean, that so far it's working. But I can see the advantages to open space and being able to ride your bike on a street that's not filled with cars, and have neighbors and hang out in the yard and not be watched so much. You can see advantages to not being here, but you can manage here.

Do the photographers follow you around?
They do. They follow us. And that's sort of a new thing. I'm hoping that that will become dull. I know I'm bored of it.

Does Sarah Jessica do any of the "Stepford" stuff?
She enjoys some of those things. She makes cupcakes. If that's literally your question. She's not very Stepford-like, but she's old fashioned in some ways. She likes cooking and homemaking. So when she has time for it, that's something that she does and she likes. And there's nothing I would change about her.

Are you happy that "Sex and the City" is over?
They kept up six wonderful, perfect years, which is an amazing achievement. I think they all felt that it was time to stop or look at it in a different way, maybe. They might revisit it. I don't know when.

It's not that I was happy it stopped. I would have been perfectly happy if it went on, too, but I trust everybody who worked on that show. I guess the movie is out of the question, for right now, anyway.

Will you be doing the film version of "The Producers"?
Yeah. Supposedly. With Nathan (Lane). In February.

Will Nicole Kidman play Ulla?
Maybe. I don't know (muttering comically). I don't want any trouble. That's what . . . yeah. I don't want to speak for her and it's a year away, but yeah, that's what I keep reading.

What about "The Odd Couple" on Broadway, again with Nathan Lane?
Well, we both would like to, but there's no date or director or anything like that. I mean, we leave it up to Manny Azenberg, the producer, and we know Neil Simon would want it.