Ben Stiller and Director Shawn Levy Team Up to Talk About "Night at the Museum"

Are you looking for films your kids would enjoy watching? Ben Stiller: No, I just think I ve become more aware of these kinds of movies. I actually started working on Madagascar before my daughter was born.

I mean, they take so long to do. I think you just become more aware of it, because when you have kids you want to be able to go to movies and take the family too, and actually all enjoy it together. I don t think there are that many great, live action family movies that everybody can enjoy.

That s what was exciting to me about this one. I wanted to do it because I really loved the idea. When I first heard the title, I loved the title.

I thought, Wow, that s a great idea. I grew up near the Museum of Natural History. I just felt like a gut reaction that I really would love to be a part of this movie.

As a kid, I would love seeing this movie. I thought as an adult, the kid in me would love to see this movie too. What was it like working with the monkey?

Ben Stiller: Well I guess there s a lot of screen teams [where] sometimes they are on screen and they have good chemistry, but off screen they don t get along. I d say that s sort of what me and Crystal had. First of all, she s a female monkey and she s playing a guy.

She already had a chip on her shoulder about that. She wears a diaper and I think she resents that she can t control herself. And then she got to hit me, but I guess some rule, I guess the animal protection laws or is it just because you can t hit a monkey because they will bite you?

Director Shawn Levy: I think it s just kind of viewed as morally wrong. Ben Stiller: But she could hit me as hard as she wanted. She was encouraged to hit me very hard.

Shawn Levy: You know, Ben had to stand there for half an hour, to run with whip cream all over his face as the trainer behind him said, Hit Ben, hit Ben, hit Ben. Ben Stiller: More than that it was like, Get him, get him, get him, smack the crap out of him! And she had this way of doing it when she connected that was really annoying.

I couldn t hit her back. When it came to my close up I d get the monkey puppet to hit or the green tennis ball. Ben Stiller: It isn t satisfying.

I have unresolved issues with Crystal. If I see her now, I d probably want to smack her. Ben, you have to run more in this movie than you ve had to run onscreen before.

You even end up sliding all across the floor Ben Stiller: I just studied running in all the Mission Impossibles. (Laughing) I think he s one of the best screen runners. I just wanted to emulate that.

Shawn Levy: I should add that all the sliding was Ben s idea. I mean, everyday we would do a scene and Ben would call for one of four shoes. There was the good-looking boot.

There were the sneakers for high-speed, Cruise-esque running. Then there were the slippery booties where he wanted to, again, do Tom Cruise, do the Risky Business slide across the floor. So, really, clearly [that was] an influence.

Ben Stiller: It all goes back to Cruise. Shawn Levy: Most things do. In this movie Robin Williams is more restrained and you are reacting.

Did you improvise at all? Ben Stiller: I think you never want to have to go into the scene having to improvise; you want to make sure its working on the page. But I do like to have the ability to try stuff just in the moment, to give it some sort of spontaneity.

Especially when you feel there is an area you can go to. But with Robin we really didn t do any improvisation. Shawn Levy: I think because Robin was playing an historical figure the latitude was kind of limited.

Ben Stiller: He kept on doing this hilarious improv where he would do the Teddy Roosevelt in old newsreel footage, where it would just be like the fast motion and his voice coming in and out and it was so brilliant. It was like a perfect Robin Williams bit, but we couldn t figure out a way to put it in the movie. Shawn Levy: It was funny and it still bums me out we didn t find a home for it.

But Ben is being slightly modest. Almost certainly the entire visual effects team that worked on the movie said this is far and away the most improvisational adventure/effects movie they have ever heard of. Whether it was Ricky Gervais or [Steve] Coogan or , oftentimes with Dick [Van Dyke], Mickey [Rooney], it was a heavily improvisational process.

In fact, many of my favorite scenes are almost entirely improvised. Ben Stiller: Ricky Gervais is so fun to work with in that way because he cracks up so easily. He d crack me up, I d crack him up.

The crew was bored, but we were cracking each other up. After like 12 takes they d be like, C mon! It was really fun to work with him in that way.

But Owen and I didn t really get a chance to really work together too much, because they shot all that stuff after we were finished. Shawn Levy: The interesting thing about those scenes is literally the way we did it, because Ben and Owen weren t even in the same country. Literally we shot the scene with Ben talking to a toothpick.

He would say the scripted line to the toothpick and then he would do 20 variations on the scripted line to the toothpick. Then I would literally have to watch it all and write down every variation that Ben did. Then three months later when Owen Wilson showed up, I would sit there and I would feed him all 20 versions so I could get 20 possibly reactions.

And then literally I figured out editorially which ones I wanted to put together. So it is improvisational, but it s unlike any improv I ve ever been a part of. Ben Stiller: (Laughing) And then we would take that toothpick and put it in a club sandwich and eat it after the scene to complete the process.