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Hangin' With Archives
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Jennifer Love HewittandBreckin MeyerGet “Catty”by Lynn B
These fun actors are in permanent “tease” mode. Obviously friends, Love and Breckin get a kick out of gently ribbing each other and it made for a delightful interview in Beverly Hills recently. We got inside info on shooting scenes with cats and ghosts who aren’t really there and Jennifer’s summertime activities! Setting our interview scene: Jennifer Love, in her long, very black “Whisperer” hair (it’s extensions), wearing a white with red stripes Anthropologie sundress and her gold name necklace with “Love” spelled out in script. Breckin was casual in jeans and blue t-shirt with Texas license plate info on it. The two sit down and the teasing gets going right away. AGW: Last time we saw you, your hair was short and layered. Jennifer: In about fifteen minutes, I’ll be taking it out and look exactly as I did. It’s for ‘Ghost Whisperer’. I decided I wanted to have long hair today and that’s the fun thing about extensions. You can put them in and be whoever you want. AGW: Where did you get your dress? Jennifer: Anthropologie Breckin: Out of the catalogue (she gives him a look). AGW: Breckin, who is your shirt by? Breckin: I have absolutely no idea. (turns to Jennifer to look at his label). Does it say? Jennifer: (looking for a label) Doesn’t say. Breckin: But, I can tell you how to wash it. It’s cotton. AGW: Oookay. Down to business. This second time around, when did they approach you guys to do this sequel? Breckin: A couple of months after (the first movie) had been out. John Davis (producer) called and I think kind of jokingly said, ‘I’ll see ya for number two’. I’m like ‘Ha. I’ll talk to you later’. (looking at Jennifer) She was back on her show and I was off doing a movie and it slowly, just sort of trickled down with rumors and ‘oh they’re really talking about it. Oh, they actually commissioned Joel and Alec to write a new one’. ‘Well , we’ll see’ and then, just slowly, everything became more real. AGW: Did you know that it would be shot in London? Breckin: Well, the initial script had us going to London for the whole thing which I was very into but Love was doing her show and we couldn’t work it out. The new twist in the movie was this proposal (Jon finally proposes to Liz in the film) so they had to change it a little bit and have Jon follow her to London. We ended up doing a week in London without Love and then we came back and built a lot of the interior castle here. So she did not get to go to London (Jennifer frowns sadly). AGW: You guys have known each other a long time. Did that help? Jennifer: Yeah, I think so. It was really fun. This is the third job we’ve done together. When they called about doing the second one, I was like ‘It’s Breckin and I, right? He’s definitely there?’ because I didn’t know what they were going to do and they said ‘absolutely’ and I was like ‘sold. Fine. Be there’. So he was the biggest reason that I wanted to come back and do another one with the opportunity to work together. He’s a really good guy and we have a lot of fun and it doesn’t feel like work when we’re together. Breckin: Yeah, it was cool. She was working her [backside] off on her show doing seventeen hour days five days a week. It was just sick (she laughs). So, we worked every Sunday because that’s the only day she had available. It was great for us because I’m doing the whole week by myself with black beanbag sack (the Garfield stand in) and then on Sunday, a much prettier sack would come by (She dies laughing) and I’d get to act with you. It was lovely. It was a lot of fun. I looked forward to the Sundays. AGW: Did you just call Jennifer Love Hewitt a “sack”? (he grins). There were a lot of effects and live animals in this film. How did that go? Jennifer: It was really fun.
AGW: Okay,
how does acting with a computer-animated cat that isn’t really there
work anyway? AGW: Do you just tickle Garfield’s imaginary chin and then they later make him fit what you do? Breckin: On the first film, we were a lot more hesitant to do things because it was like ‘well, that’s twenty thousand dollars every time you touch him’. ‘So, okay I won’t touch him. I don’t know how to do this’. With this one, Chris Bailey, the effects guy, told me ahead of time, ‘we’ve kind of streamlined it. We really know what we’re doing now so the more interaction you have with Garfield, the better. So, if you’re sitting there talking to him, it’s actually better if you tickle under his chin or if you goof off with his ears because it make it more believable for the audience’. AGW: So do they tell you where his ears are? Breckin: No. They just give me the freedom of wherever I put them. You get tired throughout the day do I’d be like ‘Garfield, I swear’… (indicates petting him way up high above his own head) and they said ‘Garfield is not a lion. You can’t touch him way up there’. There were a couple of scenes in the first movie where I’m holding nothing and I gave him a pet kind of too hard and they had to make Garfield kind of scrunch down like ‘what the [heck] are you doin’?’ This one, we definitely had more freedom on. AGW: Jennifer, you are talking to cats that aren’t there and people [ghosts] who aren’t there. Is this a trend with you? It seems kind of odd. Jennifer: It worries me too actually. AGW: What is actually there on “Ghost Whisperer” when you are talking to a ghost? Jennifer: We always do what we call an ‘MOG’ shot, Mit Out Ghost. We do the master first with the actor so that I know what they are doing, what they’re looking like so it’s much easier than what he (glancing at Breckin) had to do in this movie. Then they take (the actor) away and have me stand there and do the same thing with the close ups or the over-the-shoulders. They do one with (the ghost actor) there and one where they’re out. Most of the time, we’re not playing the whole scene so I’ll just do my lines and I won’t have anybody speaking in between. AGW: So you just kind of talk to yourself a lot? Jennifer: Yeah. It’s only embarrassing when we’re shooting outside with Melinda (her character) in the middle of the park and everybody’s looking at her like ‘what’s wrong with this person?’ And we have new extras on the show who don’t know what the show’s about and they’re like ‘why is she standing there talking to herself? This is weird’. And, you’ll hear them talking sometimes, like ‘what’s this stupid show about? What is she doing in the middle of the park’? And I don’t have time to go up and explain to them that I’m not really weird, that I’m talking to somebody. They just can’t see them. Breckin: Oh, you’re not weird. Jennifer: (punching him) You’re weird too. AGW: Anything we can look forward to next season? Breckin: A lot of ghosts and they’re gonna whisper. Jennifer: Breckin’s going to come on the show next year. He wants to do it. After his nineteen movies are released. Breckin: I want to watch the show. I haven’t seen it. Jennifer: We have some really exciting stuff happening in the very beginning of the show but it’s all top secret. AGW: Were you surprised to find success on television again? (Jennifer started her career on TV’s “Party of Five”) Jennifer: Any time you do a project, you never really know how people are going to take it especially on TV. I think they used to be more forgiving with shows than they are now. Shows got a bigger chance so yeah, I was really happily surprised by it and a little nervous to go into a second season and, hopefully, be able to do bigger and better than we did in the first season and have people still watch. Jennifer: Would you do this again? Try to make a movie when you are shooting a full TV schedule? Jennifer: I’d have to think about it long and hard. Not because it was actually that taxing but more I just worried that I was going to work really hard all week then get to ‘Garfield’ and just not be good and not give him (turning to Breckin) what he deserved out of his fellow actor and be grumpy or not well and then go back on Monday and still not be good on ‘Ghost Whisperer’ either because I’d hadn’t kind of caught up. But, if something great came along, I’m sort of a workaholic and you can’t really pass up something that you love. AGW: Do you and other TV lead actors hang out now? Jennifer: It’s amazing because I’ll see people who are the lead on a one hour drama, people who would never talk to you, talk to you. People like Jennifer (Finnigan) from ‘Close to Home’ she’ll come up and go ‘oh my God. Are you okay?’ I’m like ‘I’m all right. Are you okay? Are you sleeping?’ and she goes, ‘no, not really’. I’m like ‘well, call me. I’m up’. It’s this small group of people who are absolutely just wrecked, the most unhealthy people ever but psyched to be there. AGW: Why can’t you sleep? Jennifer: I learn lines for the next day. Most of the actors on the show are learning lines for two scenes. I have to learn lines for eight. Plus, I’m the cheerleader on the set because I’m the one that’s always there so I kind of have to keep the energy level up. It sounds like I’m complaining. I’m not. It’s really the best job ever. AGW: But you must be enjoying your summer time off. Jennifer: Yeah. I chose not to work. There were a couple of things I could have gone and done and I was like ‘do I go and work or do I just take a month and a half or two months to just rest?’ So, other than doing a few publicity things here and there, I’ve really done nothing. There is more stuff that I’ve learned how to cook and I’ve laid out in the sun and played with my dog and just kind of been a person, which is extremely important because, come July 10th, I’ll no longer be a person. For nine months it’ll just be work, work, work. So, I’ve just rested and he’s done twenty-two films. (laughs). Every half a second he does a new movie. AGW: Does it feel like that, Breckin? You don’t have any time off? Breckin: I have time off. I just finished a movie yesterday, literally. It’s so silly. I’m going to start another in August. AGW: What did you finish yesterday? And, what else have you done recently? Breckin: It was a movie called Blue State with Anna Paquin that we just finished yesterday and I’ve got a movie called Caffeine and one called Ted’s MBA which is really interesting actually. It means Ted’s mini-brief affair. I’m Ted and havoc ensues. Actually, it’s a pretty dark movie which is fun to do. But, I’m not going to do anything until August then I’ll do another movie but I always say, half joking, that my job’s a vacation. I get to goof off with a cat that’s not there and play with Love and pretend to be other people and wear make-up for a living so I really don’t need a vacation. I’m fine. It’s really fun to go to work and my kid can come to the set and see all the animals in ‘Garfield 2’. That’s a blast. AGW: Jennifer, what did you learn how to cook? Breckin: Cat! (Jennifer and I are appalled). No, shrimp scampi with some red sauce. AGW: She fed that to you? Jennifer: No. And I’ve become a Risotto person, which I now make and steak and really good spaghetti. AGW: Where do you get your recipes? Jennifer: Different books or family recipes. Breckin: From ghosts. Jennifer: You are so fired. This is just who he is. Breckin: (continuing the tease) Ghosts are like (whispering) ‘Use a cup of parsley, trust me’. ‘No, a tablespoon. ’ Tell me you are not doing a cooking episode this year. Jennifer: I talk to ghosts on a show that highly effects people. You talk to a fat, orange cat and wear pleated khakis, okay? So I don’t want to hear anything from you (he laughs). AGW: Were any of the real life animals on set uncooperative at all? Breckin: No. It’s freakish how well-trained some of these animals are. Tyler and Chloe play Odie. Chloe is so adorable, sweetest little dog only wants to be petted. Tyler could not care less about you. Tyler wants to do his job. When we start goofing off on set, Tyler gets moody. He just wants to act. He’s like the DeNiro dog. It’s lovely. But the things that the trainers can get the bulls to do and things like that, it’s just unbelievable. It was a messy outside area by our trailers, pretty disgusting. It kind of became an animal bathroom. I don’t know why they parked out trailers right there. It really was like having a zoo next door. You’d go out there and there were parrots and monkeys and pigs and everything. Jennifer: You’d be in your trailer and you’d hear kaw-KAW! (She makes a really effective bird call noise]. Breckin: Wasn’t a lot of napping in the trailers but it was a blast. AGW: Jon travels to London to propose in this film. What is the craziest thing you both have ever done for love? Jennifer: I don’t know, nothing really crazy. Breckin: Didn’t somebody write a song for you? Jennifer: (rolls her eyes) Yeah. Somebody wrote a song for me. It was a good song (She claims ex-boyfriend singer/songwriter John Mayer didn’t write the song. She is currently dating Scottish actor Ross McCall who guested on “Ghost Whisperer”). Breckin: (still teasing) Was it Axel Rose? (mass laughter). Okay, I’ll answer the question. I enjoy the romance. I flew to Australia for a girl once. She wasn’t there. No, she was there and then she broke up with me when I got there so I got on a plane and came home. (we say awwwww). But it would have really been cool if it had been a movie and they wrote that she didn’t break up with me. But, she’s dead now… not really. AGW: Jennifer, are you still singing? Jennifer: I really haven’t had a chance to do any album or anything like that but I’m always singing. I love it and it’s always something I’ll find my way back to. Breckin: She is always singing by the way. I’m kidding. You’re giving me the look. Jennifer: He’s just been mean to me all day. Breckin: I have not been. I have nothin’ but love for Love. Jennifer: Pick, pick, pick pick. Breckin: I love you.
pictures on this page courtesy of and copyright 20th Century Fox, 2006 |
 
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She’s
the popular “Ghost Whisperer” on CBS TV and we all know what
she did last summer… well several summers ago now. He took an hilarious
Road Trip and popped up with Lindsay Lohan in Herbie, Fully
Loaded. The duo joined forces as Jon Arbuckle and his lady love,
veterinarian Liz Wilson in Garfield: The Movie. The two go to
London in the sequel with their fave chubby, computer-generated orange
furball in Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties. 
Breckin:
It’s always fun when you’re doing the CGI stuff, to actually
get to work with someone or something who is real, who’s there.
So many more animals; bulls and walruses. It was crazy. And Tim Curry
doing the voice of Prince and Billy Connolly in it. It was so great to
have more people to react to. It was refreshing because you do get a little
bit worried that you’re just working with a sack all day and it
was nice to have Love show up and have Billy there.