The Ben Stiller Show and Hey Dude, a perfect combination. With Ben Stiller's run of four movies this year alone, we are certainly getting our fill of the comic star. While all those movies haven't necessarily gone over well, Stiller continues to have a better track record than most comedians working as much as he is. With White Goodman in Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, proprietor of the glitzy Globo Gym, Stiller has created yet another classic character that is sure to be quoted for years to come.
We've seen considerably less of Christine Taylor in recent years, in contrast to her run of films in the mid- to late-'90s (such as the Brady Bunch parody films, The Craft, and The Wedding Singer). After 2001's Zoolander, Taylor took a break to concentrate on her personal life, starting a family with Stiller a little more than a year and a half ago. With Stiller's career continuing to go strong, Taylor was able to concentrate on being a mother before deciding on a role to make her return to the big screen. As Stiller became involved in Dodgeball, it was actually the suggestion of writer/director Rawson Marshall Thurber to bring Taylor aboard, feeling that she possessed her own gifts for comedic timing that would play well opposite Stiller and Vince Vaughn.
Thurber's Dodgeball is a riotously funny sports underdog movie in the tradition of Caddyshack, Hoosiers and even the less sports-oriented Revenge of the Nerds. Stiller's Red Hour production company was one of Thurber's few supporters, as most studios shied away at the preposterous idea of anyone actually making a dodgeball movie.
But Stiller believed in Thurber and believed in the script, enough so that he gave Thurber the freedom to direct and became instrumental in convincing his wife to take the part and return to features. Despite promoting his fourth movie in six months, Stiller readily greets the press, smiling and appearing relaxed as he enters the room. Taylor seems equally at ease, albeit full of energy. She stops and browses the food table before sitting to tackle our burning Dodgeball questions.
While most assume that Taylor is in the film because her husband is, it was actually the director who made the suggestion to bring her aboard. Since Stiller was already attached, she didn't want to upstage her husband. "Yeah, like I can steal the movie from Ben. I'd just had Ella, our daughter and I remember vividly Ben saying to me, 'I've got this script sent to my company. First time writer-director. He didn't tell me it was about dodgeball. He said it was called Underdogs and the writer-director wants me, meaning Ben... Vince, me as the Villain, Vince as the Hero and you as the girl.' And I was like, 'What? Really?' I had been out of the loop for so long, I'd just had a baby. I was just so not in that mode and he said, 'But I'd love for you to read it and get your feedback,' and obviously he has the company that were very collaborative and you know lots of scripts come in his direction. I read it and fell absolutely in love with it. I was so complimented. You know it was sort of the 2004 version of, it was 2003 at the time, of all the '80s movies that I grew up on that I loved from, and earlier, from Revenge of the Nerds and Meatballs. All these silly comedies where sort of the underdog triumphs and, you know, to me the appealing part was that, number one that Ben was not the leading man that was getting the girl and number two, that the girl was not necessarily 'the girl.'"
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