anderswolleck

Steve Martin is a god, not the G-d but a god nonetheless. When I try to remember my childhood I mostly come up with images of The Man with Two Brains and The Jerk. But in recent years his works has turned to the more complex with such theater plays as Picasso at the Lapin Agile and the novella Shopgirl.

Next month Touchstone Pictures will release the film adaptation of Shopgirl with Martin writing, producing and starring.

Shopgirl is about Mirabelle [played by Claire Danes] who oversees the rarely frequented glove counter at Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills. She is an artist struggling to keep up with even the minimum payment on her credit card and student loans, she keeps to herself until a rich, handsome fifty something named Ray Porter [Steve Martin] sweeps her off her feet. Simultaneously, Mirabelle is being pursued by Jeremy [Jason Schwartzman], a basic bachelor who's not quite as cultured and successful as Ray.

Check out the official site for Shopgirl

Daniel Robert Epstein: How was it adapting your own work into a screenplay?

Steve Martin: Ive adapted before with Cyrano de Bergerac and the play Underpants so I know the process. But as far as adapting my own work, I knew what I wanted, I knew what I liked about the book and I knew what I wanted in the screenplay. But you still know that you have to be pretty cold sometimes. I have a saying that when you're adapting something it takes the process of a failed marriage. It starts with fidelity. Then there's transgression and then there's divorce. What I mean by that is that you start off going, Oh, we're going to use this and this and this and then you go, Hmm and then there's the moment where you go, Maybe I could rewrite this. Then finally you completely separate it and look at your own work and it's internal mechanics and make sure that it works correctly and not just salvage things from the book.

DRE: Do you see this as a Los Angeles trilogy along with LA Story and Bowfinger?

SM: I never thought of that, but that's what I'm going to say from now on.

DRE: Are there personal moments from your life in the book?

SM: That's hard to answer because some of it is personal and some of it isn't. It's a work of fiction and imagination so you draw the characters from life. I know that the character of Lisa Cramer is really three specific women that I've known in my life or talked to or interviewed or whatever. So every event has almost a multiple source. Every storyline is like, This is from this part of my life. This is from someone else's life. I remember that a woman told me that she slept with someone because he wanted to so badly and I thought, It can work that way? So you're just collecting anecdotes and you don't know what you remember until you remember it.

DRE: Was it hard for you to play such a reserved character?

SM: No, not at all. I understood the character so there's none of that though it was hard to say some of the things that Ray Porter had to say. I have a friend who's a comedian that had just done a drama and he got all these kudos for doing it and he said, Steve, if I got praised for my dramatic acting it's only because when they were cutting to me I was thinking about where I was having dinner. Meaning that he was just stoic and a lot of emotion is written in nothing. Ray Porter is quite stoic.

DRE: How is doing drama different from comedy?

SM: In drama you worry and in comedy you really worry. With comedy you've got to get the laughs but drama can actually survive in silence. So you're constantly thinking and cutting for the joke and where the laugh comes. It's like another element. Drama is just as precise but you also have this obligation in comedy to make people laugh.

DRE: You wrote your first nude scene in Shopgirl, how was that?

SM: Well its not like a gratuitous nude scene. It's a perfect example of a nude scene being essential to the story. In the scene Ray and Mirabelle are sort of warming up to each other then he gets a phone call and leaves the room. While he's gone she takes off her clothes and lies down on the bed because she knew that this was the night. She accepted it and took charge of it and didn't let the game go on. I think that it's a very surprising moment.

DRE: How did the choice for you to do the narration come about?

SM: I originally wrote the narration to be read by an older woman. But it was suggested by the director that I give it a try and at first I was puzzled though ultimately I liked it because it did give Ray the feeling that he was looking back and apologizing. He was observing now from a distant place and being rational about it.

DRE: Many of your films are set in Los Angeles, what entrances you about that city?

SM: I was raised in Orange Country, California so I've lived there my whole life. But I think that the reason that most actors don't like living in LA is that they're always waiting there. You wait for a script to come. You wait for the call to come. You're driving around forever. Everywhere you look there is competition, but reason that they live there is that that's where the business is.

DRE: Was doing Shopgirl a way for you to get back to a drama?

SM: There's no rhythm to it. Shopgirl is a very special situation because I wrote the novel and I wrote the screenplay. There was no, I need a drama. Shopgirl is a work from the heart and when you do that it's very thrilling. Then sometimes, like in Cheaper by the Dozen, you work for the love of comedy and in Pink Panther you work for the love of comedy or the love of that character. That's a very specific thing.

DRE: It was interesting that Mirabelle works in Saks selling those long gloves that no one even wears anymore.

SM: In a sense thats a big metaphor for the type of girl that Mirabelle is. She's soft spoken, retiring, she doesn't put herself out there and shes not aggressive. She's got quiet beauty and in Beverly Hills that's really rare. So that's what that is about. It's about the opportunity to discover beauty in quiet hidden places. In fact the narration in the movie and in the book says, She needs an omniscient voice to say, Here she is. Here she is.

DRE: Mirabelle is an artist that makes her pictures out of negative space, what does that mean to you?

SM: Just that there's beauty in detail and the beauty is often the background. I loved exploring the actual mechanics of her life such as how she drives, where she shops, how much she spends for lunch and her car. The way she sits and wears her glasses when she drives. All of these things truly reveal her character and its so telling rather than blurting out exposition. There's almost no words spoken in the first 15 minutes of the movie until the voiceover comes in with Mirabelle in bed looking up at the stars.

DRE: Why didnt you direct this?

SM: I didn't have the heart to direct it. I couldn't write, direct, act, produce. It's too much.

DRE: You were in the movie version of Sgt Bilko and upcoming you have the remake of The Pink Panther. As a comedian and writer, why would you take the risk of inhabiting roles made famous by iconic stars like Phil Silvers and Peter Sellers?

SM: I wanted to do a physical comedy and when The Pink Panther came along I questioned myself about whether or not I could handle it. I spent a little time in that world figuring out if I could. I decided that I could and I liked the team so I went ahead and did it. By the way you'll love it.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

SG Username: AndersWolleck