Billy Crystal doesn’t like to repeat himself, but the veteran comic knows that if a bit works you keep doing it.
That’s why the 65-year-old’s taking his Tony-winning one-man show 700 Sundaysback to Broadway next fall. The same sort of rationale was applied to signing up again for the prequel Monsters University, which opened June 21.
Nothing against this well-meaning, colourful Pixar prequel, but if there was one thought that never kept me awake, even after the hundredth viewing of 2001’s Monsters, Inc., with the kids, it was: But where did the monsters come from?
I assumed, and I think most people do, that monsters are like Muppets. They evolve from smaller versions of themselves, and if you trace their lineage back far enough you arrive at a piece of felt, or perhaps a puddle of pixels.
Not so, says director Dan Scanlon, who co-wrote the script with Monsters, Inc., scribes Daniel Gerson and Robert L. Baird. Before their days at the plant that powered Monstropolis city with the screams of frightened children, they had to hit the books.
“I was going to be on board no matter what because I knew [Pixar] was going to make it great,” says Crystal at Pixar Animation Studios, just across the Bay Bridge from downtown San Francisco. “And I loved [Monsters University] because it was a fresh idea.”
Monsters, Inc., the 2001 original Pixar animation, earned more than US$562-million worldwide thanks to the endearing exploits of sidekick Mike Wazowski (voiced by Crystal) and scare champion Sulley Sullivan (John Goodman), who generated energy for their monster city by scaring kids at bedtime.
In the prequel, we find out how the unlikely team became best friends after a rocky college start.
Returning from the first fantasy is the antagonist Randall (Steve Buscemi). New is the demanding Dean Hardscrabble (Helen Mirren), who is not impressed with the two freshmen, and tells them as much.
Billy Crystal and John Goodman record their voice sessions in the same studio at the same time
Also providing voices in Monsters University are Nathan Fillion, Charlie Day, Aubrey Plaza, Alfred Molina, Sean Hayes and Dave Foley, but the movie continues to rely on the connection between Goodman’s Sulley and Crystal’s Mike Wazowski.
To refine the connection, director Dan Scanlon had Crystal and Goodman record their voice sessions in the same studio at the same time, a rarity in the animation world.
“It allowed us to bring a real presence into the movie,” Crystal says. “John’s a great partner and a wonderful guy, and it helped because we take the characters seriously.”
As usual, he doesn’t take anything for granted. He understood that Monsters Universitywould have a loyal following, but he didn’t realize the extent of it until the finished film was screened for students at the University of Southern California to a rousing response.
“They went berserk,” confirms the actor, who attended the recent preview. “Then I realized Monsters University is all about them, because they were six and seven when [Monsters, Inc.] first came out.”
After more than a decade, Crystal continues to be associated with the Monsterscharacter, whose voice is a variation on his Saturday Night Live hate-it-when-that-happens Willie persona.
Now, Mike Wazowski is all in the family after two of his four young grandchildren started to realize their grandfather was famous; he showed them Monsters, Inc. to explain why.
“I couldn’t really put on When Harry Met Sally.”
Soon after, he was doing Mike Wazowski for them on demand. (“You have to call him by his full name because it sounds better,” Crystal says). “So I answer the phone, and they say, ‘Is Grandpa Mike Wazowski there?’” Crystal says. “And I say, ‘Hey, Mike Wazowski, the kids want you to talk.’”
Raised in the Bronx, the comic’s been making people laugh since he was his grandkids’ age. “In elementary school I was always thinking of ways to be funny,” he says. “I had a tight 10 minutes.”
Graduating from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, he hit the road doing standup, then landed the groundbreaking role of the gay son Jodie on Soap. That was followed by a brief stint on SNL.
He increased his profile mightily with box-office smashes When Harry Met Sally, City Slickers and Analyze This, and by hosting the Academy Awards in the 1990s.
Since Monsters, Inc. hit in 2001, he’s been low profile, although he did return to his Oscar duties in 2012.
