In "Daddy Day Care," Eddie Murphy and Jeff Garlin star as two unemployed dads who decide to open a day care center after their job search comes up empty. After all, if they can care for their own kids, how tough can taking care of few more be? Soon after opening for business, they realize they are in way over their heads.
Enter Steve Zahn as Marvin. Marvin's basically an overgrown kid, and just what the dads need to get the kids under control.
"The thing about Marvin is that he's an off-kilter version of who Steve really is," notes executive producer Heidi Santelli, adding, "It's about connecting with kids and speaking their language."
Do you relate to kids as well as your character does in "Daddy Day Care?"
I like to think I do. I'm a good dad; I spend a lot of time with my kids. So yes, but it's completely different when it's not your kids and you're at work. You are still doing your business but with kids, you have to change. It almost makes it more of a true acting experience because you have to listen. We forget about listening. With kids, you have to because it's the only way you're going to be good ? to react to what they're doing, and to mesh with them.
Your character seems to be on the same level as the kids.
I thought of the character as being this kind of older guy who is kind of by himself in his own world.
How hard was it to keep all those kids focused?
It was impossible. They were never focused, they were kids - 4 year-olds.
But that's the hard thing, how do you capture that and how do you take advantage of the time when they are there? I've worked with kids before where they were older, in "Happy Texas" I worked with some girls that were dancing, and it was a different experience because the girls were aware of what was happening. They were somewhat savvy. They were great to work with, which is mind-boggling because it was an independent where you can [only] do two takes. But with this deal, it's little kids who are unaware, for the most part, of the business. It's not like they were dressed up in a period costume on the Titanic. They were being themselves. They were just in a different environment, which at times, when kids get tired or whatever, they don't care. They are not on a set. "I want to cracker" - and you have to stop everything for a cracker.
Did you do much improv in this movie?
I don't usually do that because of my background with scripts. You don't change Moliere, you f**king do it and you make that work. Not that I think improv is bad, but I just rely more on a character than trying to think of something to say. If something comes out, it comes out.
Do you approach dramatic work differently than you do a comedy?
No. That's one thing I to do. I think it's important when you're doing it that everything makes sense and that there is some sense of a real relationship. I hate things that don't make sense. That's what is funny to me. If people laugh, then great. If they don't, it doesn't matter. You are still playing a real person in a real situation. Most people laugh at situations rather than a tagline anyway.
Why do you think you are so often cast as a smart-ass?
I don't know. I've played smart-assed guys, but there's also the dimwitted... I don't know. I'm always attracted to the vulnerable character more than I am the superhero. That's not interesting to me. I don't know anybody like that. The things that I laugh at are crazy people, people who take themselves so seriously. The guy mad in the grocery store line is funny. You put it in a movie and it's hysterical, if it's done right.
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