The star-studded cast revisits the making of their 2005 angsty Christmas classic.
“I f—ing hate her.”
Those words launched an idea, a film, and eventually, an egg-filled strata.
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“It was like a gut punch.
It definitely delayed the movie,” Bezucha says.
But after a few years and a couple of iterations, he got the chance to make his film.
ZADE ROSENTHAL/20th Century Pictures
This time around it was calledThe Family Stone.
Before Bezucha could begin building the ensemble cast, he knew he needed to nail down a matriarch.
The rest would follow.
ZADE ROSENTHAL/20th Century Pictures
THOMAS BEZUCHA:We had many different iterations.
There was a very indie cast at one point that felt very Sundance.
You should always lead with Diane Keaton.
ZADE ROSENTHAL/20th Century Pictures
No matter what the question is, Diane’s the answer.
DIANE KEATON (SYBIL STONE):I remember I really liked the script when I read it.
I knew it was great.
Everett Collection
I had a new child.
Then I met Tom, and he told me the story.
Very soon thereafter I got a call.
BEZUCHA:I’d met Rachel [McAdams] for the Amy character many years earlier.
In the intervening time, before this version she had doneThe Notebook,Mean Girls.
It was like, “She’s never going to do this movie.”
And we got a call from her saying, “That part’s mine, right?”
[Laughs] He would tease me about it a lot.
MULRONEY:I never let him forget it.
As luck should have it, they all did.
The cast was tasked with working sign language into their roles.
BEZUCHA:[Meredith] is already anxious, and they speak a language she doesn’t understand.
TYRONE GIORDANO (THAD STONE):I was playing Huckleberry Finn in Deaf West Theatre’s Big River.
And if you got it wrong, Ty would cut the scene or talk over you.
GIORDANO:As a deaf person, I loved that the family signed.
Rachel was a quick study.
Diane was comfortable getting into it, having learned a few signs from a previous film.
Brian approached it as choreography.
Dermot had many, many questions.
BEZUCHA:We had a wonderful consultant named Jack Jason, who was Marlee Matlin’s producing partner.
They’re not a family of interpreters.
They’re a family that has a deaf member and so some of them sign.
I went line by line through the script with Jack figuring out what would be natural.
CRAIG T. NELSON (KELLY STONE):I was the worst.
One day I stuck my finger in my eye because I was trying to sign.
[Laughs] That was pretty much it for me.
BEZUCHA:It’s excruciating!
She’s calling her racist without doing it.
BEZUCHA:It’s a cast of very nice people.
Rachel is Canadian so she’s nice on top of being nice.
And Sarah Jessica’s so nice so Rachel always felt badly going after Sarah Jessica.
WHITE:Thomas definitely had to amp it up sometimes.
FORD:I love that scene.
MULRONEY:Tom made the huge mistake of writing in a snowstorm.
NELSON:I do remember Luke and I being out on that doggone field.
I’ve never been that cold in my life.
NELSON:The cameras were freezing.
It was truly uncomfortable.
Then Luke and I took a train back into New York and couldn’t find a taxi.
I thought I was going to die.
[Laughs]
WILSON:You’d come around the corner and kind of get blown over.
We were holding on to each other just to stay warm.
I was like, “They would’ve gotten a car service for Diane.
They never would have done this to Diane Keaton.”
REASER:You think it’s going to be one movie, and then it’s this other movie.
I think it’s what makes the movie really special.
It had a real story to tell about family and loss.
KEATON:I thought of my mother, and how much she meant to me in my life.
What that experience is like to know you’re dying.
There was never anyone in my life like her.
She was the greatest mother.
So it was very moving for me to play that part.
The sisters sit down to dinner with the Stone family.
The eight-page scene took over two full days to film.
When they sit down, they’re looking for something to go after.
Thank God Meredith showed up, otherwise they’d all be crying.
She provided a target for their anxiety and anger.
CLAIRE DANES (JULIE MORTON):We shot forever.
But my character wasn’t the one in crisis.
I actually got to enjoy myself because I wasn’t in a state of despair.
PARKER:I was scared.
It can feel personal.
It started to feel unpleasant.
WHITE:Sarah Jessica Parker was literally everybody’s best friend.
So it was effortful to be angry at such an effervescent person.
WILSON:That scene it took a long time and I didn’t have a lot of scripted stuff.
I kept ad-libbing different stuff.
Tom would get a kick out of my ideas sometimes.
[Laughs]
DANES:I remember being very compelled by Diane’s process.
She listened to music a lot in between takes.
PARKER:Tom would call action and her headphones would come off simultaneous to the word “action.”
She had old-fashioned, wonderfully rickety, not-cool headphones.
And she was, to me, devastating every take.
It was a master class.
KEATON:It would be whatever [music] was really moving me.
I did that because, emotionally, it’s thrilling, it puts you in the place.
And I still use that when I can.
I prefer those big table scenes with a lot of people.
I’m not sure how that happened.
The end result is a brother showdown, a broken kitchen table, and a lot of spilled strata.
BEZUCHA:The more chaotic it looks, the more you better plan it.
MULRONEY:It got real under that table in that pool of uncooked eggs.
That’s my pinnacle moment when I used Luke’s hand to slap himself.
Best stunt work ever!
It’s like, “Hey, can we just do one where you don’t slap me?”
Cause they went nuts!
They’re just so funny.
BEZUCHA:Rachel, Sarah Jessica, and Diane really did slip and fall.
KEATON:Oh my god that was fun!
That’s the easiest thing to play.
It’s easier than dying.
[Laughs]
PARKER:[The food] was real.
Don’t move that noodle, don’t move that egg!"
They were like, “You want to get back into this?”
I was like, “Absolutely!”
Make me drop stuff.
DANES:People really do watch this movie annually.
That is something that is said to me.
That feels so nice to have made something that continues to bring people pleasure.
I was like, “I’m in this thing and I’m sad.”
KEATON:It was just one of those special movies.
It felt good to make it.
MULRONEY:I have the same experience of the movie as people who see it.
A couple years from now we can probably call it a classic.
Give it a little time before you throw that word around, hey.
Just so we don’t seem that old.
PARKER:Maybe I should see that movie again; it sounds really good.
To read more on holiday film favorites,order the December issueofEntertainment Weeklyor find it on newsstands now.
