When the poster art was first released for “The Fabulous Four,” it was the talk of social media, where many thought it had to made by a fan who put together a wish list of performers they’d like to see in a film together. But the fact was that the stars all aligned to make it happen. And according to the cast, even the production of the comedy that opened Friday from Bleecker Street was a wild ride.
The compiled career accolades of the film’s dream cast of Susan Sarandon, Bette Midler, Megan Mullally and Sheryl Lee Ralph includes one Oscar, six Emmys, four Golden Globes, three Grammys, two Tonys, six SAG Awards, two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, a Peabody Award and a Kennedy Center Honor.
The end result is a comedy about four old friends who reunite in Key West to be bridesmaids in the wedding of one of them, Marilyn (Midler). But Sarandon’s reserved character, Lou, is unaware of the real reason for the trip, as she and Marilyn had a falling out decades earlier because Marilyn ended up marrying Lou’s boyfriend when they were in college.
“It’s about friendship, but it’s also about forgiveness,” Sarandon says. “It comes out later that she never even apologized. But it wasn’t just that she lost the guy; it was that she lost her friend, her ‘do or die’ that had been through everything with her before that.”
The four characters — Lou (Sarandon), Marilyn (Midler), Alice (Mullally) and Kitty (Ralph) — have all very distinctive personalities and eccentricities. Lou is a successful but sullen surgeon; Marilyn is an always-smiling bride-to-be who loves being in love; Kitty is a Mother Earth type who earns a very respectable living in the cannabis industry; Alice is a free-spirit (with loose morals) and is about as spontaneous as one can be.
Although Sarandon had originally been offered the role of Marilyn, she asked for a change. “I liked the challenge of playing someone like Lou, who is so mopey,” she says. “How do you make somebody that says ‘no’ to everything active, somebody who will not let the joy in? How do you see that character and just not think, ‘God, she’s Debbie Downer’? So I had to find some eccentric passion of hers to redeem her.”
And apologies to JD Vance — but her eccentric passion is that she’s a cat lady!
In the film, Lou is lured to Key West by being told she won the opportunity to adopt a six-toed cat from a foundation on the island. One scene has Lou looking at video of her cats on her smart phone. Those cats were Sarandon’s real pets.
“I suggested a FaceTime with my cats, so my assistant filmed my cats,” she reveals, adding with a laugh, “My cats feel that there were much better takes of them.“ She admits there was a lot of drama whenever the cats were used “because, for some reason, they were not very professional, I mean, as you can count on cats to be,” she jokes. “There was a lot of craziness trying to control the cats and figuring out how to work with them that made that night pretty crazy.”
Among the unplanned craziness was an adlib from Mullally that had everyone in stitches. “Megan coming up with the line, ‘You know, you have sex with your cat; it happens.’ That wasn’t in the script,” Sarandon says.
Susan Sarandon Facetimes with her cats in “The Fabulous Four.”
Mullally’s improvisational skills were on overdrive during the entire filming. “Megan coming at things all the time from this unpredictable place just kept everything really fresh. … So many of her responses were improvisational and just always having a good time when the other characters are panicking or angry. Megan’s adjustment to that character was so brilliant.”
Mullally was suffering from Covid during this interview, and she sounded terrible. But she did weigh in about how much fun the film was to work on. “Alice is kind of like a gnat that’s buzzing around the other characters annoying them and not paying attention to any responsibilities,” she says. “Originally, my character had a dire health issue, and I suggested that maybe that wasn’t gonna be conducive to comedy,” she laughs.
The fun didn’t end when the cameras stopped rolling. Mullally said they’d go back to Sarandon’s hotel room and the laughing continued. “Just kind of recapping crazy things that had happened during the day and crying with laughter. There’s nothing better.”
Sarandon recalled one event even better. “Megan and I went to a live performance of the ‘Rocky Horror Show’ during Pride Week in this little club. It blew their minds when we showed up.”
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