Art Wales: Squeaky-clean role in mouse tale; FILM: Hugh Laurie co-stars alongside animated rodent in sequel Stuart Little 2.(Features)

Western Mail (Cardiff, Wales); 7/19/2002

Byline: ROB DRISCOLL

IF anyone had predicted to Hugh Laurie a few years ago that he would make a lot of money acting to an invisible animated mouse while the cameras whirred away, he might have suggested they were crazy.

But the Stuart Little phenomenon has no doubt made the popular British actor's bank manager very happy, and this week the sequel to the huge box-office hit, based on the children's book by E B White, opens in British cinemas.

In these masterful, special effectsloaded fantasy romps, Laurie and American co-star Geena Davis play the squeaky-clean New York couple Mr and Mrs Little, parents to young George (Jonathan Lipnicki) and, somewhat bizarrely, a talking mouse, Stuart Little (voiced by Michael J Fox), who gets up to countless adventures in the city. But what is it actually like on the film set, pretending to act opposite something that isn't there, but will be added later by computer-generated imagery?

``It's hell - absolutely gruelling,'' jokes 43-year-old Laurie, swiftly adding, ``It isn't actually, at all. The trick is that all film-making is about imagining something that isn't there - that's almost always the way it happens. If you play a scene where you have to react to the Titanic going down, they don't sink the Titanic just so you can look at it, they do it with a tennis ball on a stick. We have one advantage over Men in Black II in that we know what a mouse looks like. In that film they've got to imagine sixtyfoot aliens with nine heads coming out of the subway, and that's nine tennis balls on sticks, so we had it easy.''

Ex-Eton and Cambridge graduate Laurie who, at one time, was perhaps best known for his TV work with Stephen Fry in Jeeves and Wooster, has latterly become something of a regular player in internationally-successful family movies, such as Dis-ney's 101 Dalmatians, The Borrowers and now the two Stuart Little films. All of which must give him not a little kudos at home, with his wife of 10 years, Jo, and their three children, Charlie, 13, Bill, 11, and nine-year-old Rebecca.

``They're a pretty tough crowd, my children, and they're quite hard to please,'' he grimaces. ``I suppose my main goal is not to embarrass them too much, because they've got to go into the playground and look their classmates in the eye. They're pretty into Stuart Little, actually, but they won't tell it to me. To me they go, `Yeah, it's all right,' but I happen to know from other sources that they loved the first one, and I reckon they'll like this one more.''

In the new Stuart Little outing, everyone's favourite talking mouse gains a new friend in a bird called Margolo (voiced by Melanie Grif-fith), whom he rescues from a villainous falcon, voiced by James Woods. Meanwhile it's down to Mr and Mrs Little to ensure that nothing interrupts the sweet-natured pace of life in their domestic haven.

The Laurie children even had the luxury of visiting their father on the Stuart Little set. ``They came out to Los Angeles when we were shooting there, for a couple of weeks, and they came onto the set, which was good fun. It was fascinating watching the animal wranglers train the falcon - although I don't know how much of the real bird made it into the film!''

Playing the pernickety and perfect Mr Little, in his twee wardrobe of checked shirts and pastel pullovers, proved a ball for the chameleon-like Laurie, who last year played Vincente Minnelli in the TV movie Life with Judy Garland - another immaculately-accented American.

The ever-dutiful Mr Little, no doubt, is the sort of father many male adults watching the film might like to be in an ideal world - but Laurie admits he has failed to pick up any pointers from his screen alter-ego.

``I'm afraid to say I fall rather short of the ideal parent in many areas,'' says Laurie. ``Mr Little is a very good-hearted fellow with endless patience. That is not the case with me. I'm rather crotchety, to put it mildly, and something of a let-down to my own children, but I do my best, and they're very forgiving, thankfully.'' u Stuart Little 2 opens today.

Hugh Laurie
Stuart Little 2

Interviewed by Sian Kirwan for the BBC

How did you deal with acting to thin air?

It was gruelling...[laughs] No, it wasn't at all. The truth is that film-making is all about imagining something that isn't there. If you had to watch the Titanic going down, they don't sink a ship just so you can look at it, they do it with a tennis ball and you've got to watch it and pretend that your family is dying. So acting in this was similar. But we did have the advantage that we knew what a mouse looks like! In the case of something like "Men in Black", they've got to imagine 60ft aliens with nine heads coming out of the subway, so we had it easy compared to them.

Mr Little is the ideal father, is that true of you in real life?

I'm afraid to say I fall rather short of the ideal in many areas. Mr Little is a good-hearted fellow with endless patience; that's not the case with me, I'm afraid. I'm rather crotchety to put it mildly, and something of a letdown to my own children! But there we go, I do my best and they're very forgiving, thankfully.

Do you choose a film like this because of your own children?

They're a pretty tough crowd, my children. I suppose my main goal is not to embarrass them too much because they've got to go into the playground and look their classmates in the eye, and if they've got other children going "Your Dad's crap!", that would obviously be tough on them! So I hope I haven't embarrassed them too much. In fact I'm told from other sources that they loved the first "Stuart Little" and I think they'll like this one more. Of course they wouldn't admit that to me though!

Has the huge success of this role led to others in America?

I don't know what's happened as a direct result. To be perfectly honest I thought my own part in this film was just being a pair of ankles really, just walking through the frame every now and then. Finely turned out ankles, I like to think, but ankles none the less! Its hard to say what's directly come of it. Certainly its great to be involved with something as successful as this and, particularly in America, that doesn't do any harm, but I'm struggling to think what came from it directly...nothing I think!

With all your writing and film work is there any chance of a return to television and teaming up again with Stephen Fry?

I certainly hope so. We're not very good at planning to be honest, we don't have a Sasco year planner - which is something we keep meaning to get - with the month written on it so we can say 'invade Poland in February'. We just bumble along without ever really planning what we're going to do, although he is directing his first film this autumn and if I don't get a part in that there are going to be some pretty sharp questions asked! So I hope to be working with him pretty soon.

Interview With Geena Davis

Geena Davis finds happiness in motherhood and `Stuart Little 2'.(Arts and Lifestyle)

The Boston Herald; 7/14/2002; Schaefer, Stephen

At 6 feet, Geena Davis has heard plenty of jokes about her height. Being asked to play the mother of Stuart Little, a 3-inch talking mouse, wasn't one of them.

"I think that kind of in-joke was just a side benefit but not the original impulse," said Davis, who returns as Mrs. Little in "Stuart Little 2," opening Friday. "My guess always was (that) I had so much experience with interspecies relationships, I could parent a rodent. I'd been the girlfriend of `The Fly' and kissed aliens in `Earth Girls Are Easy.' "

For Davis, who defined Hollywood's action heroine in her heyday with "Thelma and Louise" and "The Long Kiss Goodnight," Mrs. Little is a return to the slyly ironic comedy that kick-started her career on television two decades ago.

In this two-years-later, $100 million sequel to E.B. White's tale of a Manhattan mouse and his family, Mrs. Little, Mr. Little (Hugh Laurie) and Stuart's elder brother George (Jonathan Lipnicki) are joined by baby sister Martha (played by twins Anna and Ashley Hoelck).

Because Stuart is a computer-generated image, as are his new girlfriend, the yellow canary Margalo (voice of Melanie Griffith), and the evil Falcon (voiced by James Woods), the cast had to, well, act as if Stuart was there as they listened to Michael J. Foxdeliver Stuart's lines. Cast members would either look at a laser pointer or a ball dangling from a fishing pole to get the sight lines correct for the camera.

"We have to figure out where everyone is looking, and it takes a long time to get all this organized," Davis said. "If he's moving, they have a laser pointer so we can follow it, and the camera is timed so the pointer doesn't come on the film, so they have nothing to erase later.

"It was interesting with the baby Martha. How do you get the baby to look at nothing? It was just so hard, and I was very keen to do it! Everyone else didn't care that much, but I wanted her to have a relationship you can see with Stuart. The camera would start - and I'm, `Look! Look! Look right there!' and then we start the dialogue, and I'm trying to puppet her head. It was really hard."

Actually, it was good training, for Davis at 46 became a first-time mother nearly three months ago. The Wareham native gave birth to a daughter, Alizeh Keshvar Davis Jarrahy. Davis met her 15-years-younger surgeon husband (her fourth) Reza Jarrahy two years ago, and they married in September. On this weekend morning when Davis is doing a full day of press, her schedule has been determined with breaks for breast-feeding.

Her daughter "wasn't planned," she said. "I'm really lucky it worked."

Because so much recent attention has been given to successful women who postpone having children, Davis took the occasion to disengage herself from any role-model image-making.

"It's very spectacular and wonderful, and I'm lucky and I appreciate it's rare," she said. "Don't think I'm setting the tone and you can wait as long as you want."

Her ambitions for her infant sounds like those of any modern mother. "I'm interested that she be adventurous and self-confident and make her own decisions. You always walk that line when you allow them to do things."

As for her previous parenting experiences, Davis laughed. "My goddaughter stayed with me when she was 16 - and I'd never taken care of any kid. Her mother said to me, `When she goes to a party make sure - and I'm, `Wait a minute! A party? You have to let her go to a party?' I pictured her sitting in the house doing homework all the time. She wanted to go out and party."

Will motherhood alter this Oscar winner's career plans? Is she less interested now?

"I already didn't care so much, in that I've always taken however long it takes between projects to find something that appeals to me. I'll wait until something so great comes that it drives me out of the house. I've been good at amusing myself and not be `I've gotta work.' I'd rather have something I care about, otherwise why do it? I'll keep on like that."

As for what little Alizeh will say when she's old enough to watch her mom in the "Stuart Little" movies, Davis smiled. "It will be fun to show it to her when she can understand it. I think she'll say, `Why is Mommy on TV?' and `Who is that mouse?' "

COPYRIGHT 2002 Boston Herald

Friday Live: The mouse with it all.(Features)

South Wales Echo (Cardiff, Wales); 7/19/2002

THE best gifts often come in the smallest packages, and the old adage certainly holds true for Stuart Little 2.

This is a charming and heart-warming sequel to the 1999 smash-hit about a talking mouse adopted by an impossibly perky human family.

Everything that worked so well in the original - a witty screenplay, appealing characters, great special effects and wholesome family values - has been polished even more in this second picture.

Michael J Fox once again voices courageous little mouse Stuart, who lives with his adopted human family, the Littles (Hugh Laurie, Geena Davis, Jonathan Lipnicki), in sprawling New York City.

Life in the Little household changes forever with the arrival of Margalo (Melanie Griffith), a beautiful canary who steals Stuart's heart. But our plucky hero's happiness is jeopardised by the dastardly Falcon (James Woods), who wants to get his talons into Margalo's plumage.

Stuart Little 2 is a sweet, old-fashioned family film spruced up with superb special effects and a wonderfully dark sense of humour.

Director Rob Minkoff orchestrates the big set pieces with aplomb, including an exhilarating aerial chase in Stuart's new bi-plane.

The computer animation is flawless throughout, right down to the way the wind ruffles Stuart's fur.

Whether you've got children or not, this is well worth a watch.

Culture: To boldly go where we have before

Birmingham Post; 7/19/2002; Mike Davies
02

[Excerpt about Stuart Little 2]

Stuart Little 2 Cert U, 78mins

Last week the CGI dog. This week the rodent. Giventhe phenomenal success of the original (family adopt talking mouse, remember), there was never any doubt that a sequel would eventually appear. The question was, could it recapture the same innocent family fun or would it turn out to be just a cynicalexercise in raking in obscene amounts of cash?

The good news for audiences is that it does. The good news for the studio is that it will.

Two years on and, with a new addition to the family in the form of baby Martha, Stuart (voiced to perfection once again by Michael J Fox) is feeling left out again. Brother George (Jonathon Lipnicki) has a new friend and mom (Geena Davis) is beingoverprotective about his size.

However, as genial dad Mr Little (Hugh Laurie) observes, every cloud has a silver lining and Stuart's just happens to crash land into his car in the form of injured bird Margalo (Melanie Griffith) who's fleeing the talons of the villainous Falcon (JamesWoods). Now Stuart has a friend and - those uncertain about cross-species relationships may want to look away now - perhaps something more.

Unfortunately (and grown ups who saw One Night At McCools or has working knowledge of femmefatales, feathered or otherwise will have sussed this already), Margalo's arrival wasn't quite as accidental as it seemed.

Playing it as perfectly straight as lines like 'you let our son go down the drain' demand, Davis and Laurie are as impossibly gee whiz wholesome as before. Though quite frankly a little (ahem) Lipnicki goes a long way. But whereas in the original thesibling bonding storyline meant George frequently shared centre stage, the follow-up wisely opts to spend more time with its two and four legged CGI creations and their adventures.

Impressive though the animation was in the first film, it seems almost primitive compared to what's achieved here. Stuart is rendered even more realistic, right down to the individual hairs. But even he pales alongside the incredible work achieved inrealising the sight of the falcon in full dive mode.

Appropriate then that Woods walks away with the film's best vocal performance too.

With a football match, a dizzying flight in a toy plane and a car chase through some heavy pedestrian traffic there is a certain element of CGI showing off but the technical grandstanding isn't at the expense of the story - although Nathan Lane's cattykitty Snowbell (the real star of the original) and Steve Zahn's sly alleycat Monty are disappointingly shortchanged on screen time giving it slightly less of an adult crossover appeal than say Shrek . But for the kids, Stuart Little 2 is an absolutemust-see. You're a big as you feel, says Stuart. And this feels massive.

©2002 Independent Newspapers (UK) Limited.