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'Good Company' To Keep
« on: Jan 2nd, 2005, 6:03pm » |
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'Good Company' To Keep
by Gregory Ellwood
Special to MSN Entertainment
Dec. 30, 2004
If you saw "Ocean's Twelve," you may remember a funny scene where Brad Pitt tries to calm a young Hollywood actor who is trashing his posh hotel room. The actor happens to be Topher Grace ("That 70's Show"), mocking himself as a stereotypical party hound celebrity (and from all accounts, he isn't). One of Grace's best lines during the rant is, "And I even phoned in that movie with Dennis Quaid!" Don't believe him. The movie he is referring to is "In Good Company," a surprisingly funny and engaging tale of corporate takeovers, ageism in the workplace, family obligations and that old cliché of "finding yourself." Written and directed by Paul Weitz ("About a Boy"), the flick features Quaid, Grace and recent indie golden girl Scarlett Johansson.
Grace plays Carter Duryea, an up-and-coming 26-year-old hotshot who has just been made boss of ad sales at the magazine SportsAmerica (aka "Sports Illustrated") after a corporate takeover. Displaced by Duryea's hire is Dan Foreman (Quaid), a 52-year-old family man whose wife has just told him she's expecting their third child and whose oldest daughter, Alex (Johansson), has dreams of attending N.Y.U. Needing the money, Foreman has no choice but to stay on at the sports magazine and report to the inexperienced Duryea. Things get even more complicated when Duryea meets Alex, but the film's core is the relationship between Quaid and Grace's characters.
Weitz found numerous qualities in both actors that made the onscreen relationship coalesce. "The thing I liked about Dennis for this character is that he's so masculine and clearly someone who should have the reins," Weitz remembers. "He still should be running things (or at least he would certainly think so) and I liked that guy being sort of shunted aside and having to have the humiliating situation of reporting to someone half his age, as opposed to somebody that should be thinking of retirement."
"Topher, I didn't really know his work," Weitz says. "He just came in and auditioned numerous times. He made me laugh the most and I believed that he appeared sharky enough that someone would give him that kind of responsibility. He has a good sense of humor and a degree of vulnerability, but not the kind that is sort of winking at the audience and saying 'Hey, I'm a nice guy, don't worry.' I thought it was very important that one believe he could fire Dennis Quaid, because that was an important part of the jeopardy of the movie."
While he's slowly fashioned a nice resume of work ("Traffic," "P.S."), Grace is the first to acknowledge he was lucky enough to fall into the business. Yet, like his character in the movie, he's not resting on his laurels. He's still trying to learn as much as he can, especially from someone as established as Quaid. "A big part of it for me is just trying to shut up and observe," Grace says. "Because you can ask tons of questions from people who are as accomplished as Dennis, but I think the best thing to do is just to watch how he talks to the director, how he relates to the crew. How he comes prepared everyday."
Quaid has a lot of praise for his costar as well. "I wanna work with great people. Great people really make you better. Topher and I, we read together before we even started the movie and it was just really obvious how talented he was."
Grace adds, "I should also say, there were a lot more famous people who wanted to play my role and Dennis was kind enough to put in his two cents. I don't think I would have gotten the role if Dennis hadn't stepped forward and said that I was good."
"In Good Company" opens in New York and Los Angeles December 29. Everyone else across the nation can buy tickets January 14.
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