News
Heading Uptown With Brittany and Dakota
Published: Aug 14, 2003 - 02:44 AM
In this interview, Brittany Murphy and Dakota Fanning are joined by co-stars Jesse Spencer and Donald Faison and their producers to chat about bringing their latest film, Uptown Girls, to the big screen.
Rich orphaned girl loses money to conniving financial planner; newly poor girl becomes nanny to precocious, neglected, bratty young charge; girl loses ritzy, superior friends; nanny and charge go through rough times and many a learning experience is had as they become an odd couple of friends. That?s the story behind MGM?s upcoming Uptown Girls, starring Brittany Murphy and Dakota Fanning. While such tales have been told before, but Uptown Girls, set in New York City, is able to explore self-realization, using comedy and emotional healing, to make the story fresh and entertaining.
Rich orphaned girl loses money to conniving financial planner; newly poor girl becomes nanny to precocious, neglected, bratty young charge; girl loses ritzy, superior friends; nanny and charge go through rough times and many a learning experience is had as they become an odd couple of friends. That?s the story behind MGM?s upcoming Uptown Girls, starring Brittany Murphy and Dakota Fanning. While such tales have been told before, but Uptown Girls, set in New York City, is able to explore self-realization, using comedy and emotional healing, to make the story fresh and entertaining.
Uptown Girls comes from one of the production companies behind Oscar-nominated In the Bedroom, GreenStreet Films. Headed up by actor-turned-producer/director Fisher Stevens (remember Ben from Short Circuit) and John Penotti, with Uptown Girls, GreenStreet ventured out into relatively new territory: producing a Hollywood film with a higher budget than usual, topping out at about $20 million, with about two-and-a-half weeks more shooting time.
The added time and money certainly had its effect on the production. ?This was a much easier experience than In the Bedroom,? Stevens relates as his partner Penotti, close by, nods in agreement. ?Budget had a lot to do with it, and time, and we?ve worked on now nine movies, and we?ve never had more than 35 days to shoot a movie and here we had 53 days to shoot a movie.?
Before GreenStreet, or anyone else, ever heard of Uptown Girls, an idea had to be hatched and a script born. That idea came from Allison Jacobs, a young writer who was working as a personal assistant to Stevens and as a receptionist at GreenStreet. Recounting her experiences trying to break into show biz Jacobs laughs, ?I made sure these guys had the best sandwiches in Manhattan for lunch.?
Jacobs, who?s lived in New York for some time now, wanted to create a story that could relate experiences she has in the city to audiences who may never have been to Manhattan. ?I came up with the idea of this very precocious nine year old girl, whose parents were never around because they were too busy and what happens to a little girl like that,? says Jacobs. Thus, the mold for the character of Ray, the young charge and one half of Uptown Girls was derived.
As for the other half, Molly Gunn, grew out of Jacobs own experiences in the Big Apple, recounting, ?[The character was] just based on my experiences living in New York City and all the great opportunities I had to see this life of babysitting kids and how magical New York was, and the architecture and the park. I just wanted to make a New York story.?
The added time and money certainly had its effect on the production. ?This was a much easier experience than In the Bedroom,? Stevens relates as his partner Penotti, close by, nods in agreement. ?Budget had a lot to do with it, and time, and we?ve worked on now nine movies, and we?ve never had more than 35 days to shoot a movie and here we had 53 days to shoot a movie.?
Before GreenStreet, or anyone else, ever heard of Uptown Girls, an idea had to be hatched and a script born. That idea came from Allison Jacobs, a young writer who was working as a personal assistant to Stevens and as a receptionist at GreenStreet. Recounting her experiences trying to break into show biz Jacobs laughs, ?I made sure these guys had the best sandwiches in Manhattan for lunch.?
Jacobs, who?s lived in New York for some time now, wanted to create a story that could relate experiences she has in the city to audiences who may never have been to Manhattan. ?I came up with the idea of this very precocious nine year old girl, whose parents were never around because they were too busy and what happens to a little girl like that,? says Jacobs. Thus, the mold for the character of Ray, the young charge and one half of Uptown Girls was derived.
As for the other half, Molly Gunn, grew out of Jacobs own experiences in the Big Apple, recounting, ?[The character was] just based on my experiences living in New York City and all the great opportunities I had to see this life of babysitting kids and how magical New York was, and the architecture and the park. I just wanted to make a New York story.?
