Tickled Pink

18-03-2006 15:49

Although co-star Kevin Kline admits some people will try and draw comparisons between the their film and the classics, but he thinks putting Steve Martin's Clouseau up against Peter Sellers' interpretation is unfair.

He said: "It's like comparing Olivier with Albert Finney in terms of their Hamlet. They're both very different. They've both taken on this role that I think has become this archetypal comic role and made it their own. Peter Sellers, what he did was inimitable. Thankfully.

"Obviously Steve would not try to imitate him. Steve would do his Inspector Closeau. It is his own, and it is brilliant. I was great fun to do and I'm told the director rang the other day from L.A. saying that it's brilliant and Steve's brilliant and I'm brilliant... and anyone who's goes to see it will automatically become brilliant!"

He added: "I used to think you can't remake these classics, these greats. I was like; 'No-one could play Stanley Kowalski like Brando, so don't ever do a new version of A Streetcar Named Desire after Marlon put his stamp on it!' but in recent years I've changed my mind about things like that."

Steve Martin sees things a similar way, confessing: "It would have been harder to imitate Peter Sellers. I realised that Peter Sellers knew the character inside out and I figured he could probably ad-lib all day as that character. I knew that when I could do the same, I would have conquered it. "I first worked on the accent and then I worked on the outfit - the physical I didn't have any problem with at all - and, finally when I realised, 'Oh, I'm thinking like him now I felt very comfortable and I felt different from the great Peter Sellers. Plus, I don't view it as a remake because it's a totally new script."

Beyonce says taking on her role, a new completely new character in the franchise, was made a lot easier thanks to the pedigree of the cast. She revealed: "I learned a lot from watching Steve Martin, because he's so professional and so serious.

"He's been doing this for a long time and you can just see that in his mannerisms. In between takes he goes from being this wacky, unbelievable character to becoming Steve Martin and working with the director and writing the script and changing things.

"It was great doing this film. All I had to do was not laugh and wear great clothes. The clothes were one of the best things about Xania. I'm wearing Lorraine Schwartz jewellery - rubies and diamonds and pink diamonds - but I forgot to ask if I could keep them."

For Martin - the star of such films as 'The Jerk' and 'The Man With Two Brains', it wasn't about the freebies. He was just happy to get back to doing what he loves best - slapstick.

He confessed it was an indulgence: "I wanted to go back to broad comedy, and it was like here is a ready-made broad comedy. The character is so ready-made, it felt good. What I love about these kinds of comedies and our comedy 'The Pink Panther' in particular, is that it'll go from very physical to what I'll call tiny, tiny little verbal jokes.

"It's all over the place. We're always kind of coming at you - big, small, smart, dumb. You know?"

For fans of the originals, 'The Pink Panther' might leave a bit of a nasty taste in the mouth because it is less crafted that Sellers' masterpieces. However, judging by the major box office take in the US alone, and a sequel already on the cards, there seems to be rock solid proof that there's a whole new generation of people out there who want to see a little man with a dodgy moustache and funny accent fight crime with pratfalls and lucky coincidences. And that's no laughing matter.

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