00:00They became three of my life's closest friends and still very hard to look at
00:06this and know that Diane's not here but I feel very blessed to have the other two
00:11here and in my life. I'm Mary Steenburgen and I'm gonna look through my
00:17co-star album. These are pictures from Parenthood which is a film I made in
00:261989. And all those things sometimes are gonna miss. Sometimes they won't. Sometimes
00:32they will. Sometimes they will. What do you want me to give you? Guarantees? These
00:37are kids not appliances. The glorious Steve Martin was my husband. All of the
00:44cast Keanu Reeve, Martha Plimpton, Joaquin Phoenix, Rick Moranis. We played games as
00:52a group. We had a dinner party scene. We were all playing murder but it's a it's
00:59a card game. I just remember that it was it was extraordinary playing this game
01:06with such good actors because everybody had incredible timing. Ron Howard was
01:12very jealous of us because he was the director and he couldn't sit down and
01:16play with us. He was always like why am I director today? Besides the dink this
01:23might be my favorite experience on a movie. This is Step Brothers. Why are you
01:28guys so sweaty? All right we've already figured out how to do this. The beds match
01:31up perfectly. And here's the thing it'll give us so much extra space in our room to
01:35do activities. Please say yes. You don't need permission from us to build bunk beds.
01:39You're adults. You can do what you want. Just an absolute joy start to finish. It
01:46was one of the funniest most delicious experiences of my life. I felt like it
01:53was a reward for having survived the business so long. I had a lot of trouble
01:58not laughing. I think if you watch in the scene where they are sleepwalking and
02:06they come into our bedroom you can see that I'm about to start laughing. I asked
02:12Adam McKay why did you use that take because you can see I'm about to laugh
02:16and he goes Mary there are no takes that you're not about to laugh. There is a scene
02:21where Will Ferrell and I are in a car. I'm in the front seat. I'm driving my
02:26middle-aged son in the backseat. It was a half-page scene and we never ever got all
02:32the way through this scene. We were begging Adam McKay to let us stop and go
02:37home. We couldn't one of us would get almost all the way through it and then
02:42the other one would go and then we'd both go. Somebody's awfully quiet back there.
02:48I'm not gonna call him dad. Brennan you're 39 years old I would not expect you to
02:54call him dad. Well I'm not going to ever even if there's a fire. There's too much
03:00improvisation in the film to even describe which moments are improvised
03:05because the script itself was amazing and we would do pretty much the script
03:10as written in the morning but we would find little moments within that morning
03:16that we thought we can explore in the afternoon and the afternoons were pretty
03:20much all improvised. These are both book club one and book club two which is the
03:27next chapter. There was actually a solar eclipse one of the days we were shooting
03:32on the first film and we were all given the glasses to be able to watch the
03:38eclipse and we all did it together. Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen, my dear Diane Keaton.
03:45This dress that Diane is wearing is supposed to be Jane Fonda's wedding. It's a
03:53perfect dress for Diane because Diane loved black and white. Everything in her
03:59home was either black or white and she liked dressing in black and white and she
04:05loved polka dots. There's just a million memories and I'm having these two ladies
04:13over to my house in a few days for Candice's 80th birthday. I'm pretty sure we
04:21will be very much missing this lady. None of us had ever worked together before the
04:29first scene we had to do picking Jane Fonda up from a very heartbroken night.
04:36He's gonna cheat on me and leave me for a younger woman and then I'm gonna lose
04:40everything and it's just it's not worth it. There you go. It isn't worth it. I'm so
04:47sorry. I'm very sorry but it had to be done all right.
04:52When we finished that scene I felt like something was happening. You could just
04:58feel these women are gonna be friends of mine and they became three of my life's
05:05closest friends and still very hard to look at this and know that Diane's not
05:12here but I feel very blessed to have the other two here and in my life. The two
05:19movies were extraordinary and I did have people say to me who's the diva and I
05:25thought it's so weird that you asked that question that that's what you want to
05:30know. You want to hear about who's not getting along and there there was no diva.
05:36Everybody showed up on time knew their lines and came to play and to make a good
05:43movie and it was those two movies are to the treasured experiences of my life.
05:52This side is Elf. Well this is really something. I'm usually the one making
05:57breakfast. That's good. That's good. This again is my friend Will Ferrell who played
06:09Buddy the Elf with Zooey Deschanel who normally has dark hair but she was a
06:16blonde in that movie and sang. She has a most beautiful voice.
06:21I wish I knew how to break the spell.
06:27I'll take your hand.
06:29It's a really extraordinary experience making a movie that would become
06:36indisputably a Christmas classic. These are both from Last Vegas. I play a
06:43character that is a wannabe singer. She does sing. She sings in a small lounge act in
06:51Vegas.
06:52I understand the magic that you do.
06:58When we came back to Vegas to promote the movie we were given the key to Las Vegas.
07:04I still see John Turtletop now and then and we talk to Morgan. I haven't bumped into the
07:12other guys for a while but I have to say it was a delight working with all of them.
07:18They were just great.
07:20This was the night I won my Oscar for the movie Melvin and Howard. This is when my
07:28character goes to get remarried to her husband Melvin. Jonathan Demme directed this
07:37film. He was one of my favorite directors. I just loved the script. I loved the project. Paul
07:44Lamette plays Melvin Dumar and he was wonderful in it. Jason Robards plays Howard Hughes. He was one
07:54of my life's great friends. Experience of the film was beautiful and then to be nominated on top of
08:01it was thrilling and the movie had been a quiet film that the critics loved but it hadn't made
08:10the studio a lot of money so they didn't do the takeout ads for me. I don't think he expected
08:17me to win
08:18but I did.
08:19Well I'm gonna have to figure out something new to dream about that's for sure.
08:24This is from the movie What's Eating Gilbert Grape. I played Miss Betty Carver who was in love with
08:34her grocery delivery boy and this is a very steamy scene I did with Johnny.
08:42Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my. Oh my.
08:49Leo DiCaprio played a developmentally disabled kid and he he was pretty much in character
08:58as that character from the moment he would get to the set so much so that people felt like that
09:05was
09:06who he was and it was just a brilliant performance that I think he'll always be proud of.
09:14I think this photo is from the premiere of Philadelphia and this is my friend Jason Robards
09:24and Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington and myself. Our characters are engaged in a legal battle because
09:34Tom Hanks character has been fired from a law firm simply because he has AIDS.
09:43We've been talking it over your future that is and we feel that because we respect you so much
09:48we must be honest with you. Excuse me am I being fired? When this film came out it was unusual
09:57to have a
09:58gay couple in in the movie but it was really it was really a film about justice and there was
10:06a lot of
10:07injustice happening toward people with AIDS and so we we were proud to make that movie the way we did
10:16and when we did and it was directed by the great Jonathan Demme. I do remember that Jason Robards and
10:23I
10:23were really naughty talking about what we'd had for dinner the night before because Tom Hanks was
10:29basically on this very stringent strict diet to lose weight so much so that when I was traveling to
10:38Philadelphia I walked toward my seat the man next to me would be this man that you had gotten
10:50sadly used to at this point you could really see when someone had AIDS they were very gaunt and
10:55had often lost their hair so he had a bandana on his head very frail and then he looked up
11:03at me and
11:04it was Tom Hanks. I couldn't believe it he had such commitment as far as that character was concerned.
11:10I just want what is fair what is right. This is from a movie called Four Christmases. Vince Vaughn was
11:19very funny in this and also Reese Witherspoon starred and also produced the movie. This one is from the
11:29proposal. I got to work with the great Betty White which is one of the thrills of my life. Now
11:37do you
11:37prefer being called Margaret or Satan's mistress? We've heard it both ways. Actually we've heard it
11:45lots of ways. She's kidding. I love this this is Sandy Bullock and Ryan Reynolds the great Betty White
11:52and there I am and my husband both in this film and in the book club films Craig T. Nelson
12:00who's a delight to work with. Well this is from Back to the Future 3. Here I am dancing with
12:09the doc
12:10played by Christopher Lloyd. It was just a beautiful experience. I love westerns. I love horses and I love
12:19that whole genre. Michael he's an amazing human being. Chris Lloyd was in the first scene of my very first
12:27movie going south so that's how long I had known him so it was very easy to to play that
12:35I was in love
12:36with him because I've adored him for a long time. Toulouse. This film is very special to me it's called
12:46The Dink. You could be a great pickleballer. That was fun. These two become pickleball partners.
12:56They don't start out that way. They don't like each other very much at first. They were two lost souls
13:03who really made a difference in each other's lives. I read the script and I just laughed out loud from
13:10beginning to end. I love the fact that it was pickleball and that I might actually get better at
13:17that sport. I'm a huge fan of Jake Johnson's. I'm a huge fan of Ben Stiller who was producing it.
13:25I definitely fell in love with Josh Greenbaum the director. He's magnificent.
13:32Quite an unusual rom-com. I can't even think of another film to compare it to.
13:38We serve underhand. What's that? Underhand. Oh I know obviously. Bang!
13:44Just so much humor in the movie but there's also an equal amount of heart. And I also
13:50will always have this image in my mind. We were at this pickleball center, the Calabasas pickleball
13:59center and it has lots of pickleball courts. And on one of the last days someone had gotten paddles,
14:08the production had gotten paddles for every single member of the crew. And all of the guys, the grips,
14:15the drivers, the camera crew, the caterers, everybody was divided into four per court and we were all
14:24playing pickleball. It was so much fun. And I've never had that experience on a movie where the entire
14:33crew ends up playing a sport together. But we did that day and it was great.
14:37I'm out.
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