big momma's house

The big moment everybody remembers from the shoot of Big Momma’s House is the one when Martin Lawrence first stepped out of his caravan in the fat suit. “I was floored,” says producer David T Friendly, not a man to be easily impressed. “I remember him just walking out of the trailer. He was going to a stage to do a little test we did where he was doing kind of a fake cooking show. And I honestly just remember thinking, ‘This looks better than I could have ever hoped for: here is a comedy classic’.” In the movie, which he had been instrumental in developing (and on which he has an executive producer credit), Lawrence plays an FBI agent called Malcolm who has a penchant for going undercover. Indeed, the first time you see him in Big Momma’s House, it is going to be a while before you realise that you’re looking at the star of the film. “I think it gives the audience a nice treat,” says Friendly.

The big treat, though, is Lawrence when he is disguised as Hattie May Pierce, known to one and all as Big Momma, who lives in the little Georgia town of Cartersville. Big Momma is the grandmother of Sherry (Nia Long), who is on the run from a homicidal escaped convict whom Malcolm is after. So, when Sherry and her son Trent (Jascha Washington) head for Cartersville to hide out at Big Momma’s house, Malcolm decides to impersonate the old lady (whom Sherry hasn’t seen for 10 years) in order to catch the criminal. Getting in character required Lawrence to be on set every morning at 5.00am and spend between two-and-a-half and three-and-a-half hours having up to three inches of prosthetics applied to him by Oscar-winning make-up designer Greg Cannom (who made over Robin Williams into Mrs Doubtfire). He was then fitted into a ‘fat suit’ with its own built-in cooling system. For Cannom, the challenge of Big Momma’s House was even greater than that of Mrs Doubtfire. Not only is there a scene where Big Momma plays basketball, wearing shorts: there is also a real-life Big Momma in the film (played by Broadway actress Ella Mitchell). That meant the make-up job had to be good enough so you’d believe that her fellow Cartersville residents would not spot the switch. And, moreover, so that we could see the two together - and not completely lose sight of the star of the film. Cannom delivered. Until he heard Lawrence speak the first time he saw the star in full make-up, eight-year-old Jascha Washington thought he was talking to Ella Mitchell. “I thought it was a real lady. And then Martin goes, ‘Hey man!’ Course, I tried to fake like I already knew that it was him under the suit. But I didn’t.” The only one to be relatively unfazed by the whole process was director Raja Gosnell. “It was a bit disconcerting for the first half-minute or so,” he admits. “But, after that, it’s definitely Martin in there. He and I have always been very straight with each other and that didn’t change whether he was Big Momma or Malcolm. You look in his eyes and you’re talking to Martin, so I got past that in about 30 seconds.” The whole thing started a little over two years ago, when writer Darryl Quarrles turned up in Friendly’s office to pitch a story. Friendly wasn’t much interested in it. “So, at the end of the meeting,” recalls the producer, “we asked him if he had anything else that he was interested in writing and he pitched the idea for Big Momma’s House. “When he was finished with describing this one-line idea, I said, ‘That’s a hit movie! We’re buying that, and you’re writing it for us!’ It was kind of exciting, because we got to develop from a pitch as opposed to somebody walking in with a screenplay. We got to have a lot of input into the shaping of the script.” So, too, did Martin Lawrence, who came aboard shortly afterwards. Being executive producer as well as star, Lawrence was also involved in the choice of director - not that there were any serious contenders for the job other than Gosnell. “He’s somebody who has great training in the world of comedy,” says Friendly. “He was, as you know, the primary editor on all the Home Alone movies, and then he directed Home Alone III and Never Been Kissed. There’s a very short list of comedy directors who can do this kind of material well. Comedy is very difficult to execute. Basically, I asked him to read it, and then we moved forward quickly because he’s done a lot of very good work for Fox – he is kind of a home-grown Fox man – and Bill Mechanic, the chairman of the studio, is a fan, and all the executives down the line. So there was a consensus that, if Raja wanted to do it, we would give him the movie. It wasn’t difficult.”