Mister D: This comes from a Starpulse interview with screenwriter’s Leslie Dixon:
EC: I was just going down your filmography and I saw that there are a couple of actors there that pop up in some of your movies more than once; John Travolta, Bette Midler, and Kirstie Alley. Is it mostly coincidental or do you like working with them?
LD: The John thing is coincidental because who in the hell would ever say that John is the first person we think of to put on a dress and play Edna Turnblatt? That was the brilliance of Craig (Zadan) and Neil’s (Meron) idea. I wouldn’t have thought of it. I mean he’s at the height of his career at the moment and that he would do that? It was so brave of him to do that. It was a complete coincidence but a happy one, because he was great. (Laughing)
EC: He was amazing.
LD: He was so sweet basically playing my husband’s mother. The Bette thing and the Kirstie thing are not coincidences because they have such fun, great, larger than life personalities. They’re so much fun to write comedy for, so much fun. If you’re a woman and you want to write a female driven movie, you want to write for a woman who’s funny. I also found that Bette could be very, very vulgar, and R-rated, and never offend anyone. She could say anything she wanted, no matter how disgusting and middle-America would just laugh their heads off with no problem. That was an invaluable tool because I’m disgusting, so I could channel my inner disgustingness through Bette without ruffling anyone’s feathers. And Kirstie is just so much fun.
For the full interview: Click Here
