| By Fred Topel
In Theaters April 8
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Jimmy Fallon knows obsession. He spent his life studying Saturday Night Live, dreaming of the day he could be a regular. So playing a die hard Red Sox fan in Fever Pitch was a piece of cake.
“In the movie, this guy has like Red Sox sheets and red Sox pillow cases and a poster of Carl Yastrzemski in his living room and a framed Sports Illustrated Tony Conigliaro that he genuflects to before he leaves the house,” Fallon said. “I’m not a crazy as that. He’s got Fenway Park in his living room, like the Green Monster painted on his living room wall.”
The one moment of fandom Fallon could relate to was one in which his character, Ben, curses spending the night with girlfriend Lindsay (Drew Barrymore) because he missed the greatest comeback game of the year. “I kind of felt that way because I was obsessed by Saturday Night Live as a kid. I used to watch it every Saturday night, and I’d tape it. I made sure I was in the room watching it by myself. I didn’t want anyone else in the room saying, ‘I like that guy, I don’t like that guy.’ I don’t want to hear that. I loved everyone. I wanted to be the next Dana Carvey. I wouldn’t go out to parties. My friends would invite me out and I’d go, “I can’t go, I’ve got to watch Saturday Night Live.’ ‘Just tape it you moron. You have a VCR.’ Yeah... so anyways, college one night they dragged me out to a party and I taped it. And I got back and the timer was not set right, of course and I missed the show. So I went to the cafeteria the next day and somebody was like, ‘Dude you saw the show last night. It was so great.’ I was like, ‘Oh, no I didn’t.’ They go, ‘It was so good, you missed it. Like the greatest thing.’”
But a bad episode of SNL wouldn’t put Fallon in a depression. Besides, he loved everything about it anyway. Baseball is win or lose, and the fans can get pretty codependent. “I based it on this guy who produced Weekend Update who went to Harvard and was a Boston fan,” Fallon revealed. “He would come in to work and he looked like he was dead, like he was sick. And I’d ask him, ‘What happened? Are you sick?’ And they’d say, ‘The Yankees beat the Sox last night. Don’t talk to him about it. He’s really upset.’ And then when the Sox won, he’d come in like, ‘Hey, what’s up, how you doing?’ Physically his body would change whether they won or lost the game and I was like Wow. You looked like you were sick. It made him ill.”
Fever Pitch filmed at Fenway Park during the Red Sox’ 2004 season. When the Sox actually won the World Series, it provided a real life happy ending for the film. “It’s a Hollywood ending from the gods. I was in shock I was so happy. It was amazing. A lot of people are comparing it to the United States beating the Russians. Yeah we beat the Russians, but then we had to go on and beat Romania or something, Finland, to get the gold. No one remembers that. But it’s like we did it! That was the best Olympics ever! We beat the Russians. Yeah, but that wasn’t the end. That wasn’t what got us the gold. So once after the Yankees, people just said whatever, just go. Even the Yankee fans were like, ‘Just give them one. I’m tired of hearing it.’”
Though a New York native, Fallon shared his earliest memories of the Boston stadium. “I went when I was a kid,” Fallon said. “My dad took me there because it’s just a legendary place. It’s weird because it’s Fenway Park. It’s not Fenway Stadium or Fenway Coliseum. That’s the greatest baseball field I’ve ever been to in my life. It’s so intimate. I mean you smell the grass, you hear the bats dropping after they’re done swinging. It’s bizarre. And there are so many cool things about it. A manual score board. You see the guy behind the wall putting up the numbers. I remember I was up on the Green Monster and people were just yelling down. ‘Hey Manny. What’s the Yankee score?’ And he’d signal them the score 2-0 real fast because you can’t see the electric score board. There isn’t one across from you if you are in the Monster seats. It’s underneath you. It’s just intimate.”
Spending several weeks living in Boston made an impression on Fallon. “What an experience. Everything about it is unforgettable. And it’s in the middle of the city which is really cool. It’s like you’re walking down the street, Lansdown Street and all of a sudden you walk through a door and you’re in Fenway Park. It’s absolutely the coolest. If you have kids or your neighbor has kids take the neighbor’s kids. Don’t kidnap them. You should take them to Fenway Park before they get old just so they can experience it. It’s a magical place.”
Yet he did not pick up the Boston accent. “My character is from New Jersey who moves there as a kid. His parents are from New Jersey so he doesn’t have to have that accent. I didn’t want to over do it and be like, ‘Hey, I can do accents.’ It’s like oh, I don’t care. We all know it’s Drew Barrymore and Jimmy Fallon.”
Fever Pitch opens Friday, April 8. |
