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 ollywood
laughs at itself in a new romantic show biz comedy called America's
Sweethearts. And no one escapes unscathed. The paranoid studio
executives, neurotic movie stars, gossip-hungry media - the movie pokes
fun at all of them.America's Sweethearts is set in the weird world of a press junket where a new studio blockbuster, Time Over Time, is about to be launched and its stars are about to be endlessly interviewed by an avalanche of press. The trouble is, the film's celebrity star couple who are on the verge of a nasty divorce in real life, are suddenly re-united to promote their new movie, even though they now despise each other. Making matters worse, the film's control-freak director, played by Christopher Walken, is holding the film hostage and he has not let anyone, including the studio execs, see his "masterpiece" prior to this promotional junket. The film's publicity agent, Lee, played by funnyman Billy Crystal, frantically tries to keep the junket from total mayhem. He makes up the story that the celebrity couple are happily back together again, but the truth is that the film's star actress has a new boyfriend and the star actor is falling for his wife's once fat and frumpy personal assistant. In order to keep control of the situation, publicist Lee has chosen a remote desert resort as the location for the junket |
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weekend. There he tries to distract the show
biz reporters with lies and false promises, hoping they won't uncover the
truth about either the cast or the film's problems. The movie is Crystal's brainchild. "It started when I was looking for something to do as an offbeat romantic comedy," said Crystal. Eventually a first draft, co-written by Crystal and Peter Tolan (who also collaborated on the screenplay for Analyze This), was snapped up by Revolution Studio's founder, Joe Roth. "It was really just a first draft that I sent to him," Crystal says, "but an hour and a half later I got a call, and Joe said, 'Look, we're going to do this movie.'" Roth, who also directed America's Sweethearts, pushed Crystal to finish the script a.s.a.p. so that the 10-week film shoot could start in January, 2001. "I'm the reason Billy didn't host the Oscars this year," jokes Roth. "I didn't want to wait around till after the ceremonies to make this movie." America's Sweethearts features an all-star cast. Seth Green is Crystal's assistant, Stanley Tucci is the eccentric studio chief, Catherine Zeta-Jones plays the leading lady with a mega diva quotient and John Cusack plays the vain leading man who eventually falls for Kiki, his wife's sister/personal assistant, played  Oscar-winner
Julia Roberts.When Roth first took the idea to Hollywood's hottest actress, Julia Roberts, he hoped she'd be interested in playing the movie diva but, said Roth, "she said she'd already done a role like that, in Notting Hill, and she was interested in playing the sister instead. She said she wanted to play the only sane person in an insane world." - Brigitte Berman |