December 11, 1995
Web posted at: 10:45 p.m. EST
From Correspondent Cynthia Tornquist
NEW YORK (CNN) -- At age 50, George Banks has it made. His wife loves him. His daughter is married. He's even paid the mortgage. He thought his troubles were over, until wife and daughter both announced they're pregnant.
Steve Martin, playing Banks for the second time -- this time in "Father of the Bride Part II" -- says that learning you're about to become a grandfather is tough enough.
"It's a certain setback," he says, "because you never thought it would happen to you." (94K AIFF sound or 94K WAV sound)
But becoming a parent at 50? Martin insists that he wouldn't do it alone -- "There has to be a woman involved," he quips - - but adds that he has "nothing against it."
"Father of the Bride Part II" began to take shape while its filmmakers were still completing their original. That a sequel should be made isn't so strange --the 1950 Vincente Minnelli version starring Spencer Tracy also had a sequel. But in re-making the film for the '90s, the filmmakers needed a hook.
"These times are much franker," Martin says. "For example, in the first movie we have to assume that the daughter and the son-in-law who got married were lovers before they got married. That could never have been in the '50s."
While working on the sequel, Martin found time to pursue another dream. The "wild and crazy guy" who began writing for the Smothers Brothers has seen his career transform from that of a comic, to an actor, a screenwriter, and now playwright.
His first play is a comedy-drama called "Picasso at the Lapin Agile," which is running at the Promenade Theatre in New York. And a one-act play -- "WASP" -- is being staged at the Public Theatre.
Martin says there's a profound difference between being reviewed as an actor and being reviewed as a playwright.
""I think being reviewed as an actor, you're much more vulnerable because it's just your personality up there," he says. "And as a playwright ... it's something you've done and have confidence in and it's kind of finished in a weird way and it's about your work. But actor -- it's about your nose." (162K AIFF sound or 162K WAV sound)
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