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May
/ June 2006:
My
Big Fat Jewish Bar Mitzvah
We go behind the scenes
with the actors and filmmakers of Keeping Up With
the Steins, this summer's most Jewtastic comedy.
Story by Gerri Miller | Photo by Steven Lippman
For some affluent, status-conscious Jews, a bar mitzvah is less a young man's religious rite of passage than an excuse for a blowout party of Biblical proportions. The 13-year-old in question becomes incidental to parental desires to impress on a grand scale, and if that means spending seven figures on grandiose themes and celebrity guest stars, well, so be it.
The absurdity of it all is the premise of Keeping Up With the Steins, a new comedy starring such notable members of the tribe as Jeremy Piven, Jami Gertz, Doris Roberts, Richard Benjamin, Spy Kids' Daryl Sabara as bar mitzvah boy Benjamin Fiedler, and Atlanta native Jaron Lowenstein as the cantor.
The Fiedlers' efforts to top the lavish party thrown by the titular Steins is the backdrop for a tri-generational family story that involves estranged — and somewhat strange — Grandpa Irwin, played by Garry Marshall, father of first-time feature director Scott Marshall. Irwin's son Adam (Piven) resents him for abandoning the family 15 years before and is livid when the aging hippie appears in a rattletrap camper, young girlfriend (Daryl Hannah) in tow. Conflict ensues, but suffice it to say that there's a happy resolution before the final chair-raising horah.
"But I don't think it's schmaltzy — there's no cheesy Hollywood ending," opines Piven, who was drawn by the script, subject, and character. Best known as raptor-like Hollywood agent Ari Gold in HBO's Entourage, he plays an agent here too, of a more sensitive stripe. Although he competes for best bar mitzvah bragging rights with rival agent Arnie Stein (Larry Miller), Adam Fiedler "is not a Type A personality, not overinvested like Ari," compares Piven, who relished the chance to play something other than the fast-talking, abrasive guy he can do in his sleep. "The idea of playing an everyman husband and father was appealing because I hadn't done it before, and I liked the idea that it was about forgiveness, what really matters in life."
Piven, whose father passed away in 2002, was attracted to the father-son dynamic in the story and the real-life one of the Marshalls on set. "I certainly lost my temper at my father," he notes. "But no matter how much pain or hurt is there, you have to remember our fathers will not be around forever."
As someone "attracted to all things Jewish," Piven was intrigued by the idea of an extravagant bar mitzvah party so opposite his own, held of all places in a church basement. "Mine was really low key. We belonged to a very liberal congregation called the Reconstructionists and we prayed wherever we could. I come from a family of theater artists and we didn't have an enormous amount of money," he explains. "My experience was so different from having the USC marching band show up or getting Ja Rule to play. That's another world to me, but it certainly lends itself to comedy."
For Daryl Sabara, playing a bar mitzvah boy wasn't so much of a stretch. Twelve at the time of filming in the summer of 2004, he celebrated his own Jewish milestone with twin brother Evan last July 4. More clued in to the meaning of the bar mitzvah than his character is initially, Sabara didn't buy into the hoopla. "We didn't really want a party. We wanted it to be about our family." After services, the twins invited loved ones over for a backyard barbecue and fireworks viewing.
But having been to a few over the top bar mitzvahs, "I just sit back and laugh," he says. "They can be fun, but I know who they're about — the parents."
Jami Gertz was very aware of that in planning her eldest son Oliver's bar mitzvah two years ago. "We were always very conscious about not overdoing things, and what was appropriate," says the Still Standing star and mother of three boys. While she's reluctant to pass judgment on those who throw basketball themed bar mitzvahs complete with Laker Girls since she typically enjoys herself at such affairs, she agrees they sometimes stray too far from the point.
Event planner Mindy Weiss, also a consultant on Steins, helped her plan Oliver's party. "She was my barometer for what's happening, what's real and what's over the top," says Gertz, whose own bat mitzvah celebration, a racquetball party at a strip mall, was ruined by 103 degree fever and a snowstorm that prevented half her relatives from getting to Chicago. "There are pictures of me on three chairs, lying down. Not my best experience. I enjoyed my son's bar mitzvah much more, and I get two more chances." Son Theo is next, in 2008.
Gertz, who'd worked with Steins producer A.D. Oppenheim on a Gilda Radner TV bio and had been directed by Garry Marshall on stage in Wrong Turn at Lungfish, was the first choice to play Joanne, the voice of reason amid the Fiedler family insanity, and she felt at home in the role. "To have my father and my son and my husband all up on the bimah reading from the Torah was so meaningful for me and it was very easy to apply that to my character and how she feels as a mom to this boy," she says, adding that she "felt very mothering" towards young Sabara on the set.
"It has a real heart to it, a real message to it and I think it's one of the better experiences that I've had, and I've been doing this a long time," she says, noting the congenial atmosphere on set. "We were always playing Uno or somebody had a guitar out."
Raised in a Conservative household and a member of a Reform synagogue today, Gertz considers herself "a traditionalist more than a very religious person. I love our traditions and celebrating them and the aspect of fulfilling mitzvot and doing good things for your family and friends. I always celebrate the Sabbath at our home," she adds, noting that Still Standing has taped on Tuesday nights so she could be free on Fridays.
Passing down Jewish traditions to her sons is important to Gertz, who recently visited Israel with her extended family, her first trip there since she was 11. "My son Oliver and I study Torah together once a week," she says. "I want him to have that knowledge."
She's understandably perplexed about an odd new trend. "Oliver goes to school where there are a lot of non-Jewish kids who have these big 13th birthday parties because they've felt they're missing out. They want a big-ass dance party."
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Director Scott Marshall can relate. "I grew up in L.A. and I went to private school in the Valley and the majority of the kids in my class were Jewish. In sixth and seventh grade, they all started having bar mitzvahs. I didn't get to have one and I felt a little left out," says the Italian-Catholic Marshall, who attended several bar mitzvahs and performed at a few with his amateur band.
An early attempt at a bar mitzvah-themed script fizzled, but when he came across Mark Zakarin's screenplay for Steins, he leapt at the chance to direct it. "I got to shoot three bar mitzvahs, so it was my way of having one. I learned the Haftorah with Daryl. I knew the brachas."
He also loved the movie's themes of taking responsibility and repairing familial rifts. "Life is too short to hold grudges and be mad at someone you're related to," he says.
Shooting the movie on a tight $3 million budget in 25 days was a challenge, leaving little time for rehearsals or extra takes. Marshall spent the biggest chunk on Zachary Stein's Titanic-themed bar mitzvah, the last scene shot. "It had to be huge because the whole movie hinged on this being the biggest thing you've ever seen and trying to top it," he explains, noting that he originally hoped to shoot the scene on the Queen Mary, "but we couldn't afford it." Fortunately, the synagogue playing the synagogue had a spare ballroom.
The only other budgetary sacrifice was the Fiedler's dog. "We couldn't afford the trainer," says Marshall, noting that the film also lost its original title, Lucky 13, to avoid confusion with a same-named prior release. But somewhat miraculously, Marshall got the actors he wanted for the roles, including a certain Jewish entertainer whose cameo appearance we won't spoil.
Production was delayed one month to accommodate Jeremy Piven's Entourage schedule, but in retrospect, "Entourage was the best thing that could have happened for us. Jeremy became so big from it," Marshall says gratefully. Jaron Lowenstein, who'd done music for Garry Marshall's movies Runaway Bride and Princess Diaries, was the "obvious choice" for the heartthrob cantor.
Ultimately, so was Garry Marshall as Irwin. Carl Reiner, Mel Brooks, and Martin Landau were either unavailable or balked at baring bottom for a skinny-dipping scene, and Garry had read Irwin's lines opposite possible Benjamins during auditions. "He was perfect for the role, and didn't want a body double," laughs the junior Marshall, who has worked with his dad both as an actor and second unit director on his films.
"He was editing Princess Diaries 2 at the time but he would come in, always knew his lines, and didn't give me any trouble. He gave me a couple of funny bits once in a while, but he behaved."
Marshall, who's married to a Jewish woman and has two children (son Sam removes a yarmulke from the head of his real-life grandpa in the movie), gives similar praise to the child actors on the set. "I love working with kids," he enthuses, outlining plans for teen comedies in various stages of development. As for Doris Roberts, "We were so psyched when she agreed to do it."
Roberts signed on because of the character, family theme, and cast, particularly Garry Marshall, who produced her series Angie 27 years ago. Grandma Rose, she says, is "very unlike Marie Barone in Everybody Loves Raymond. She sits back and watches and listens and tries in her way, subtly, to make sense of things with a sweetness rather than with a sharp tongue."
The five-time Emmy winner is the real-life grandmother of three, but there are no bar or bat mitzvahs on the family horizon. Her son followed her lead and married an Italian-Catholic. "I tell my grandkids they're Jewish from the waist up," she laughs.
Not raised to be observant and more spiritual than religious now, Roberts was nevertheless moved while filming the bar mitzvah ceremony. "I thought it was so simply, honestly, correctly done that even if you were not Jewish you'd be pulled in emotionally."
Jaron Lowenstein, one half of the twin singing duo Evan and Jaron, got the part of Cantor Nathan with a couple of bars of "Hatikvah." While he'd been approached to act before, Steins came at the right time during a break from music activities. Preparing the bar and bat mitzvah students for their big days was a natural fit for the 32-year-old, Orthodox-raised singer, who, like Sabara, had a joint bar mitzvah with a twin brother named Evan.
"I got to split the work but still got twice the presents," laughs Lowenstein, whose parents threw "the kind of lavish party where you might ask, ‘Who is this for?' But they were trying to give us the best party we could have, not better than anyone else's," he underlines. The sole disappointment was that the baseball theme the boys wanted proved to be too expensive. "It was a clown theme — a little emasculating," confides Lowenstein. "But it was fun nonetheless."
He likes the way Keeping Up With the Steins "pokes fun at the people who are having these $100,000 affairs" as a competition. "I didn't think about it much before."
"I think we need to take a look at things that have reference to our culture," says Piven. "This movie isn't just for Jews, but there's no reason we shouldn't go out and support it. This is My Big Fat Jew Bar Mitzvah," he quips, referencing the indie blockbuster about a Greek wedding. "If the Jews don't show up, I will be disappointed." 
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