KEEPING UP WITH THE STEINS - Champion Pictures

Director’s Statement
KEEPING UP WITH THE STEINS
I grew up in a school full of Jewish kids in L.A. I went to a lot of fancy, over-the-top Bar- and
Bat-Mitzvahs, and felt left out since I never got to have one myself because... I'm not Jewish.
This issue came up again when I was sent the script for “Keeping Up With The Steins,” a comedy
about three generations of a Jewish family. I loved the script and wanted to direct it. I explained
to A.D. Oppenheim (producer) and Mark Zakarin (writer/producer) that I married a Jewish
woman and therefore, in a way, I have a Jewish mother. Luckily that was close enough.
When it came to casting, I always pictured Jeremy Piven in the role of the father, Adam Fiedler
and I was very excited when Jeremy liked the script and signed on to do the film. He's funny, he
could give the character the edge that it needed and also, most importantly, I knew that he could
pull off the emotional turn at the end of the movie. For the role of Adam's father and Benjamin's
grandfather, Irwin, we had problems casting as it seemed no one particularly wanted to do the
skinny-dipping scene. In the meantime, we had my dad, Garry Marshall, read as Irwin while we
were casting the part of Benjamin, mainly because he was the oldest person I knew. The more he
read, the more we realized that he would be perfect for the part. When we asked him to do it, he
asked with whom he would be skinny-dipping. We said Daryl Hannah, and he was in.
Everything fell into place to make an extremely talented group that worked really well together
including Jami Gertz, Doris Roberts, Cheryl Hines, Daryl Hannah, Richard Benjamin, and Larry
Miller. We shot the film in 27 days in L.A. and I achieved exactly what I sent out to make: a
funny, warm family comedy about three generations of a Jewish family and the Bar Mitzvah that
drove them all crazy. In the end, I had, not one, but three Bar Mitzvahs, all of which were just
how I envisioned them. Through this experience, I feel I have finally become a man.
- Scott Marshall