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We're Hangin' With..... JENNA ELFMAN by: Lynn B. You probably
enjoyed watching pretty, funny actress Jenna Elfman on the "Dharma
and Greg" t.v. series. She's a classically-trained ballerina and
this early experience helped her with the extensive, physical stuntwork
she performed in the new comedy adventure movie Looney Tunes: Back
in Action. When we spoke to Jenna in L.A., the blonde actress looked
prim and proper in a brown velvet jacket, gold pendant and slacks. She
was a friendly chatterbox as she told us about how tough it is to play
an uptight studio comedy executive, act with toon characters and get bruised
doing the wacky stunts required. Jenna: [Laughs] Birth. We all were sort of baby sat by them on the weekends while our moms caught up on sleep or house chores or what have you. Honestly, I remember that they were a part of my life while I was a kid, and my brother is ten years older than I am and my sister is thirteen years older. So, they were kind of out at soccer practice while I was at home drinking my bottle and watching 'Looney Tunes'. AGW: Who is your favorite Looney Tunes character? Jenna: Bugs, totally because I've always thought despite how many people were trying to take him down, he always had grace and he was always sort of gentlemanly about the attack. He'd sort of take it with dignity and still have his own grace about it. I thought, 'Oh, that's kind of respectful and endearing.' AGW: Bugs Bunny hinted in his press conference that there was something going on between you two off the set. True? Jenna: Well, he didn't ever want to be on the set when we were filming which made it sort of hard on the humans. He decided to come in during post production and do his performances which is kind of snotty and a little bit rude, but that's okay as long as he does good work, it doesn't really matter. AGW: Kidding aside, was there anything actually there on set for you to relate to in your scenes with the animated characters? Jenna: In rehearsal, they had life sized puppets of these characters, and the puppeteers would do their voices and lines while manipulating the bodies. They were so good at their voices and dialogue that it really helped us because it made it real. It's hard to act with nothing. It's extra hard to do comedy with nothing because comedy is very much like a dance. There's a resistance and you feel each other moving and you respond. Comedy is very much about rhythm, and when there's nobody there, it's really challenging and it did not come easily to me for the first couple of weeks. AGW: Did it make you appreciate working with live actors more? Jenna: Oh, totally because for the first two weeks, I didn't even work with Brendan [Fraser]. It was me and Bugs. I was so excited to work with Brendan anyway because he's spectacular and talented and he knows what he's doing with comedy, and we have a good dynamic together. I was actually just so relieved to have someone to respond to who I could see and exchange dialogue and humor with. I don't think that I've ever been so excited to see a scene partner. AGW: Was it a big challenge to be so physical in a part instead of just relying on the dialogue? Jenna: Well, to be so physically active comes natural too because I like physical comedy, but I did find it hard to be more reactionary because I'm used to doing more of the type of comedy where you're the impetus and in the first half of the movie, I'm more the straight man. That's a very new role for me to play. I'm never the straight man and that's a whole different technique. I had to view [my character] as someone who has lost their sense of humor because they're so hell bent on their career and has so tried to make in a man's world that she's forgotten the potency of being a woman and owning her womanhood. AGW: Did
Brendan give you any tips on working with animated characters? He's done
this before. Jenna: You know, he's a big guy, but he seemed fine. I think that's because of George of the Jungle and all of the movies he's done. I know he probably did a lot of harness work in The Mummy just because of the action sequences. So, he seemed fine and he's not one to sit there and complain anyway. I may have had more violent harness work to do than he did. AGW: Can you give us some examples? Jenna: There's the scene with the [mechanical] dog and I'm on the boxes with the net around it. I did all of that myself and I had about fourteen bruises all down my legs because I was bumping into the boxes constantly and I was really having to hold on. So, that was intense and painful and then, when I'm getting hoisted up with the helicopter, I'm holding onto the ladder and I'm thrashing about, kicking and I had to hold on for dear life. My arms were killing me and I was getting bruised, and I had to do it like ten times. We were shooting it outside and the clouds came over mid take and we had to do it again, or maybe the wind was blowing the hair in my face and you couldn't see me in the one moment that they wanted. There was this massive wind machine that was blowing my hair straight over my face. I'm trying to think about how to keep my face kind of to camera while holding on for dear life and kicking him. So, I'm actually really grateful for my dance training. AGW: There is a really cool spy car in the movie. Did you really get to drive it? Jenna: Yes, I did. I have a sports car and I enjoy driving. I like high performance vehicles. So, we were on a desert road that was closed at both ends with cops protecting it. There were scenes where I had to drive the same speed as the camera truck so that we kept the same focal distance, and so, we just established what that speed limit was and we'd drive, but then, you get to the end of the take, you've got to turn around and go back,[she grins and raises an eyebrow] and I got back to point A rather quickly! It's those convertible sports cars, you can go from zero to a hundred in the blink of an eye, and so, I tested that out. I had fun. Us too. Thanks, Jenna. |
 
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She
really did enjoy driving a sleek, silver spy car in the film and couldn't
wait for her two young nieces to see the movie.
Jenna:
I got a bunch of the dailies in those first two weeks of his scenes with
Daffy and I watched to see what he would do because he does know what
he's doing and he makes it look so real and so high energy. Brendan had
a lot of physical contact with the entities and even though there's nothing
there, you imagine it. So, by flipping them on the ear or giving