Bedazzled : Production Notes


Poster Image, BedazzledWhat if you could be anyone that you wanted? What if your every wish came true? Director Harold Ramis had those very questions in mind when he began thinking about creating a new version of the 1967 film comedy "Bedazzled."

Ramis and his partner, producer Trevor Albert, both were fans of the original "Bedazzled," a take-off on the Faust-Mephistopheles legend starring Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, and directed by Stanley Donen. However, Ramis and Albert both recognized that the story needed updating. "We loved what Stanley, Peter and Dudley did," says Albert. "But it was made over 30 years ago, and a lot of culture have passed since then."

Using the original film as a point of departure, Ramis and Albert wanted to make their version edgier and more audacious, while retaining the original legend's timeless themes. People will always be seduced by temptation, even if the temptations themselves change.

When Ramis began writing the script, with Larry Gelbart and Peter Tolan, he tried to catalogue what he thought most Americans would wish for. He decided that most would want to be rich, powerful, famous, brilliant or athletic. However, Ramis was really looking to make a more important point. "We spend our lives wishing for those things, which we think will make us happy, successful, and attractive to other people," he says. "And they really don't. I wanted to say that you don't get there by wishing."

The role of Elliot required an uncommonly versatile actor, as the character undergoes several dramatic transformations, each requiring a different performance. Ramis was more than pleased with his choice. "Brendan Fraser has the soul of a misfit in the body of a hero," he explains. "He is handsome, and has tremendous physical strength and energy, yet he can also be really goofy, completely self-effacing and humble." Trevor Albert was equally impressed. "Brendan is such an accomplished actor that he makes the characters he inhabits totally believable," he says. "He brings humor to each of the different Elliots he plays in the film, and really makes them his own."

While Elliot's "alter-egos" are outrageous, Brendan Fraser points out that the character is based in reality. "We all know someone like Elliot," Fraser claims. "He is a social misfit who is friendly and benign, but hasn't figured out how to communicate with people in a way that isn't overbearing. So he finds it really difficult to refuse the Devil when she offers to change his mundane existence into a life - or lives - filled with adventure, intrigue and derring-do - everything he craves."

The Devil gives him all of these things, but at the same time she makes sure that his new lives go hopelessly awry. While myth, literature, films and theater have long portrayed the Devil as a male (or at least having masculine traits), Harold Ramis had something else in mind. Or, his wife did: "Actually, she came up with the idea of making the Devil a woman," he recalls. "We were talking one night about who should play the Devil. I was naming different actors and finally she asked, 'Why can't the Devil be a woman?' The idea has a lot of emotional and psychological resonance. After all, most men are bedeviled by women. And with women achieving real power in our society, I thought why not a female Devil?"

Ramis also wanted to avoid traditional notions of good and evil - and the easy stereotyping that can result. "Our Devil is not a villain," he insists. "She's more naughty than evil. I also wanted her to be beautiful, really sophisticated and much more worldly than Elliot."

To cast the temptress, Ramis had the enviable task of making up a list of what he calls every "devastating" woman in Hollywood. "Elizabeth Hurley was way at the top of the list," says Ramis. "And when she came in to meet with us, she had just the right kind of comic spirit. Elizabeth is very sophisticated, sexual and powerful, and she has a wonderful joie de vivre. I always thought Elizabeth and Brendan would be great together, because he's so innocent and pure in a certain way, and Elizabeth seems so worldly." Trevor Albert adds, "Elizabeth has an energy and an air about her that are captivating, powerful and commanding."

Hurley embraced the character's mischievous nature. "I loved that she's really playful," Hurley admits. "Although she tries to frighten Elliot at times, she's more interested in charming and beguiling him into giving up his freedom. The Devil enjoys influencing Elliot's decisions about his wishes, knowing full well that none of them will work out. She lives to ruin them."

Alison, like Elliot, undergoes several physical changes. She appears as a different idealized love object in each of Elliot's wishes, including: a Latina spitfire and wife to a drug lord; a spacy, tattoo-wearing free spirit; a sexually aggressive sports reporter, and a Grace Kelly-like sophisticate. O'Connor enjoyed all the different Alisons. "I think the characters that are the most extreme and far removed from one's own personality and looks, are the most fun to play," she offers. "Each of my transformations is different, and I appreciated them in different ways."

Alison isn't the only person at Elliot's workplace who figures into his wishes. A quartet of colleagues - played by Orlando Jones, Paul Adelstein, Miriam Shor and Toby Huss - who alternately ignore and taunt Elliot at work, also turn up as different people in each of Elliot's different worlds. A beloved cinema classic inspired, in part, this element of BEDAZZLED: "I was thinking of 'The Wizard of Oz,'" Ramis explains, "in that all the people Dorothy knows on the farm turn up as the characters in her Oz fantasy. The co-workers also give the film an additional theatrical conceit - and provide a wink to the audience."

Brendan Fraser with the Director Harold RamisHarold Ramis and fellow writers Peter Tolan and Larry Gelbart let their imaginations run wild to create Elliot's wishes and fantasy worlds. Ramis relied on a talented team of artists to bring these ideas to cinematic life. Production designer Rick Heinrichs (who won an Academy Award® for his work on "Sleepy Hollow (1999)" while BEDAZZLED was in production) and director of photography Bill Pope ("Matrix, The (1999)") made invaluable contributions to the film's visual style. "Rick and Bill came up with some amazing looks for each of Elliot's wishes," says Ramis. "I think BEDAZZLED is the best-looking film I've ever made. I really felt covered on the visual side."

With the Devil as a principal figure in the story, it is not surprising that one of Heinrichs' mandates was to design various permutations of Hell. Elliot's software company office, with its low ceilings and claustrophobic, beehive-like cubicles, is its own kind of Hades, as is the drug lord's South American jungle estate - which Heinrichs created in an arboretum in Arcadia, California.

The Devil's disco, the DV8, is Heinrichs' most elaborate vision of the Underworld. He engineered the cavernous, two-story set to hold 400 extras. Heinrichs built another set, the Devil's office, 10 feet up above ground to enable the filmmakers to crash an organ through its floor. He adorned the Devil's office set with Hieronymous Bosch paintings and file cabinets fashioned from morgue cadaver cabinets.

Costume designer Deena Appel, whose previously designed the way-out outfits for Austin Powers - International Man of Mystery (1997) and its blockbuster sequel, also played a key role in creating the film's look. Appel immediately impressed Ramis with her creativity and enthusiasm. "I knew Deena was wildly imaginative from her work on the 'Austin Powers' films, but she knocked us out with her ideas for BEDAZZLED," says Ramis. "For our first meeting, she came in with an elaborate book of tear sheets - images that she associated with the film. Her ideas were dazzling."

Appel relished the film's design challenges. "It was like making seven different movies at one time," she points out. Appel even personally dressed many of the DV8 extras, with a combination of futuristic, trendy and retro looks.

Appel worked closely with Elizabeth Hurley to design the Devil's intimidating and titillating garb. "I decided that I wanted to look like a cross between Cruella de Ville and a softcore porn star," says Hurley, who was involved in choosing every piece of clothing for the Devil.

Hurley and Appel went with a decadent look, using furs, sequins, studs and snakeskin. Every costume fit like a second skin, and Hurley never wore a heel that was less than 5 inches. And of course the color red was an integral part of all of the Devil's outfits. Hurley's favorite designers made important crimson-hued contributions. "Versace made me two unbelievably sexy, red dresses and some fabulous red snakeskin boots," she states. "Fendi made the kinkiest red coat imaginable, and Sonia Rykiel created a gorgeous red feather jacket and some killer patent studded sandals."

But there's more to the Devil than haute couture. In her continuing efforts to confuse Elliot, she dresses as a nurse, cop, meter maid, and schoolteacher. "One of the Devil's powers is demonstrating how much control she has," observes Appel. "And what woman wouldn't want to be able to flash from one situation to the next and have the perfect outfit to go with it?"

While the Devil's wardrobe helps define her, Elliot's various looks depended more on physical transformations. Makeup artist Ben Nye Jr., hair stylist Robert Hallowell, and prosthetics expert Matthew Mungle, working closely with Brendan Fraser, created the looks of the different Elliots.

The giant basketball-playing Elliot was perhaps the most challenging. Nye and Mungle built an enormous head to make the scale larger. Then, Hallowell fashioned two jumbo-sized hairpieces, one of which was used for a gag involving the character's non-stop and torrential sweating. The three artists changed the shape of Fraser's ears, and added a bald cap and forehead that would blend seamlessly into his skin tones. "The basketball star was a very difficult character to put together," Hallowell remarks. "Probably the only thing that was real was Brendan's tongue."

Mungle, Nye and Hallowell also completely altered Fraser's looks for the Colombian drug lord, giving him a large, hooked nose, dark hair, formidable sideburns and a mustache. Hallowell provided another version of Elliot - the ultra-sensitive man - with an unusual reddish hair color, while Nye added freckles to enhance the look.

This work, impressive as it was, only served to help Fraser complete his character. "Brendan's portrayals of the different Elliots is really what makes them come to life," says Mungle, "because he is an amazing artist and actor." Adds Harold Ramis: "I really looked forward to working with the different Elliots. Brendan applied his dexterity and physical skills to each of them, and it was masterful."

The skills of Fraser, Hurley, O'Connor, Ramis and the rest of the BEDAZZLED team help remind us that there's probably a little bit of Elliot - and the Devil - in each of us. "Dante said that heaven and hell are right here on Earth," Ramis concludes. "And we make the choice in the way we live."