THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, March 18, 1995 TAG: 9503170054
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Interview
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, ENTERTAINMENT WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 108 lines
PAUL REISER was talking about his favorite subject - marriage in the '90s.
``It's not easy, but somebody's got to do it,'' the author, comedian, TV and, now, movie star, said, shaking his head and grinning broadly.
Marriage and modern romantic entanglements are Reiser's stock in trade. His hit TV show, ``Mad About You,'' co-starring Helen Hunt, is about a married couple struggling to establish the ground rules of their life together. It has brought him Emmy nominations and a secure spot (Thursdays at 8 p.m.) on the NBC schedule. His book, ``Couplehood,'' all about being two instead of one, has sold more than a million copies and reached the No. 1 spot on the New York Times best-seller's list.
He's now making a bid for big-screen success with ``Bye Bye, Love,'' a new comedy at theaters this week. It's a variation on the usual Reiser theme - he plays a single dad adjusting to life alone as well as to the weekend custody exchange of the kids.
Producer Gary David Goldberg said he cast Reiser because ``he is able to be vulnerable without being pathetic. We didn't want a silly, goofy movie.''
Clad in blue jeans, a plaid sports shirt and tennis shoes, Reiser looked vaguely like an overgrown kid.
``I don't have any big-movie plan,'' he said. ``I've learned that things just happen - or they don't happen. You can't plan it. I got my first break when I got an acting job in the movie `Diner.' It opened some doors, but it didn't mean that you could plan a movie career. I was back doing stand-up comedy. Then things just kept happening.''
What happened was a three-year stint on the TV sitcom ``My Two Dads,'' followed by his creation of ``Mad About You.''
Compared to the pressures of his weekly TV series, making ``Bye Bye, Love'' was something of a vacation. ``I'm just an actor here,'' he said. ``With the TV series, I created the show and I'm one of the producers. It's a very different responsibility. There was more time on the movie. We even had a rehearsal period in which everyone made suggestions. Ultimately, whether it fails or hits, it isn't my lone responsibility. It's a different game.''
In the movie, Reiser is one of three dads (including Matthew Modine and Randy Quaid) who meet weekly at the local McDonald's to exchange kids with their former wives. Reiser has a crush on Modine's former wife (played by Amy Brenneman of ``NYPD Blue'') and a major problem winning over his teenage daughter.
At the premiere, a male voice in the audience almost drowned out the soundtrack, cheering when Reiser finally told off his daughter. Shaking his head, Reiser said: ``It's happened before. I think there was one, just one, father out there at last night's screening who had been similarly frustrated with trying to reach and placate a teenage daughter. Sometimes there are more. The movie tends to separate men and women into two cheering camps but, hopefully, they go home together.''
The role is somewhat serious in tone, in spite of its comic touches. However, Reiser claims that he's not obsessed with becoming a ``serious'' movie actor. ``I don't have to prove I'm something more than a comedian,'' he said. ``A comedian is a good thing to be.''
He originally planned to be a musician and earned a music degree (he composed the theme music for ``Mad About You''). After college, though, he remembered all those Greenwich Village comedians he'd seen while growing up in New York City.
``Getting up in front of people for three minutes and being judged is not the most secure thing in the world,'' he remembered. ``My goal, each week, was to be invited back to a Comedy Club the next week.''
Joining a friend at a movie audition, he won the role of Modell in Barry Levinson's hit movie ``Diner.'' He's also had roles in ``Beverly Hills Cop'' and as the double-crossing company man in ``Aliens.''
``My Two Dads'' was his first TV series, but he had several cable comedy specials.
In ``Mad About You,'' he plays a documentary filmmaker who is creative but cautious and analytical. His wife, Jamie, in contrast, is a former public relations executive who is more impulsive and confrontational. (``To see Helen Hunt every day is the real plus,'' he claimed).
``It would be an oversimplification,'' he said, ``to just say he's wacky and she's neurotic. They are different things at different times. I wanted the show to be like a couple driving home from a party. That's the time when they say what they really think - no holds barred.''
Hosting the recent Grammy Awards show, he admitted, was a risk. The mixed reviews he got, coupled with the show's customarily low ratings, haven't spoiled the experience. ``It was awesome, the people who were on that stage that night,'' he said. ``For me to be a few feet from them, watching them perform, was the real experience.''
He's into his own sixth year of marriage to Paula, a psychotherapist. There are no kids. ``Add `Yet,' '' he cautioned. ``We have different feelings about it daily. We go out and see some cute kid, and that's a plus. We visit other couples and we play with some well-scrubbed, clean baby and that's another plus. We don't have to change the diapers. Then, we see, at a restaurant or somewhere, the killer kid from hell. That's a minus.''
He began his book ``Couplehood'' on Page 145 because ``readers are threatened when they've been reading a few minutes and are just on Page 8.''
He urges folks to buy his book because ``it's cheap if you compare it to what it would cost you to take time off from work and write your own book.''
Even with all the marital nitpicking in both ``Bye Bye, Love'' and ``Mad About You,'' he still recommends the institution.
He remembers that his father told him that ``happiness is the quiet lull between problems.''
In contrast, his mother told him that ``loneliness is when you sneeze and there's no one there to say, `Gesundheit.' '' ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]
20th Century Fox
Paul reiser, left, and Matthew Modine star in the new comedy film
"Bye Bye, Love."
by CNB