‘The Sitter’ star: Don’t compare us to ‘Adventures in Babysitting’
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The new David Gordon Green comedy ‘The Sitter’ has a memorable marketing campaign, with a phone number that Jonah Hill may or may not answer.
But will the film be as good as the movie that inspired it, the 1987 Elisabeth Shue classic ‘Adventures in Babysitting’?
Ari Graynor, who plays the female lead in the December 9 release, says yes -- though not because ‘The Sitter’ has much do to with its predecessor. ‘The conceit of the film is similar in its bones -- it’s a babysitter and kids and a crazy night -- but the meat of it is very different,’ Graynor told 24 Frames.
Graynor plays Hill’s reluctant girlfriend, and the reason he has to interrupt his babysititng duties, when she calls him to pick her up at a party. (In the original, Shue and the kids were sent into the streets when she had to pick up her runaway friend, played by Penelope Ann Miller, at a bus station.)
Calling ‘Sitter’ ‘both very current and very classic,’ Graynor said that unlike some other remakes, the new film shouldn’t be compared to the first go-round. ‘One really had nothing to do with the other -- [‘Babysitting’] didn’t inform how I prepared for this film at all,’ she said, in part because Hill and Green have a ‘[filmmaking] style that’s so specific.’
(Green, of course, is the indie film wunderkind who’s recently made a run of studio-based comedies including ‘Your Highness’ and ‘Pineapple Express.’ Hill, now starring opposite Brad Pitt in ‘Moneyball,’ is extending his foray into ‘80s nostalgia territory with an action-comedy reinvention of the TV series ’21 Jump Street.’)
Graynor returns to Broadway this week in the Woody Allen-written portion of the much-ballyhooed ‘Relatively Speaking,’ and she’s also currently starring on the big screen in the Anna Faris romantic comedy ‘What’s Your Number?’ The actress says she similarly resists how that movie has been compared to another on-screen phenomenon, ‘Bridesmaids.’
‘I’m excited that ‘Bridesmaids’ helped create a Hollywood trend for comedies with women,’ Graynor said. ‘But [‘Number’] was always supposed to be more of a romantic comedy than just a comedy. It was never supposed to be this big, raucous comedy like ‘Bridesmaids.’’
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--Steven Zeitchik
