Skeptical Seinfeld becomes a Bee-liever

Jerry Seinfeld has a theory about why bees haven't been on Hollywood's short list of animated movie heroes."I think people didn't know how to handle the stinger," he said. "They're carrying a weapon, and they will not hesitate to use it! They have a dark side. There is a fear of bees, along with a fascination. And that's what made them interesting characters to me."So interesting that the stand-up comic and creator of the long-running TV series "Seinfeld" has written and starred in an animated movie about a heroic bee. It's called simply "Bee Movie."Already, the story of how Seinfeld came to make the movie has become the stuff of Hollywood suburban legend.Steven Spielberg invited the comedian to his house for dinner. When the filmmaker asked Seinfeld what he'd like to do, he replied, "Make a movie about a bee and call it 'Bee Movie.'" Spielberg held him to his word and turned the comic into a bee-liever."It does sound like one of those made-up Hollywood stories," Seinfeld admitted to a small group of entertainment journalists gathered at a Chicago hotel. "But it did happen. I didn't take it seriously. I mean, I'm not going to make a movie about bees. Do they really want that? Can I do it? How would I do it?"Talking to Seinfeld about making "Bee Movie" is a refreshing experience, like seeing movies from a new perspective and rediscovering how hard they are to make."I knew I could make a regular movie, you know, it was just a TV show, just longer. Could I do something that I would want to do that kids could get and like?"Seinfeld supplies the voice and personality to Barry B. Benson, a recent college grad and a prime candidate to become a worker bee at the local factory. He not only bucks conventional career bee choices, but he breaks a cardinal hive rule by befriending a human woman (voiced by Renee Zellweger)."These movies are dealing with pure imagination, you're not even dealing with the known universe," Seinfeld said. "You have to create your own universe. Who is he (Barry)? What can he do? What can't he do? Does he just talk to her? Or can he talk to any human? How far can he fly? Every single thing you have to decide. The sheet of paper was so blank, I couldn't resist it."The project occasionally resisted him, however. What he thought would be a relatively easy task turned into the most difficult challenge of his professional career."It's much harder than I thought it would be," he said. "I have much more respect for filmmakers than I ever had. I would never walk out of a movie and go, 'Aw, junk!' These things are so damn hard to do, anyone who does one accomplishes a lot."So what's the big deal about writing a movie script when you've banged out more than 90 hours of half-hour TV sitcom scripts?"The challenge with making a movie, in TV terms, is that you're making the pilot episode and the series finale all rolled into one," he explained. "And those are the two hardest episodes of any TV series, the first one and the last one. Those are the killers."The ones in the middle are actually pretty easy. People know the characters and you're kind of putting out another issue of the same newspaper. A movie takes on the challenge of introducing the characters, involving you in them, telling the story, then leaving you in this perfect place. It's absurd! I don't know why anyone does it."Seinfeld did it anyway. He had a couple of pretty good inspirations to help him."I started with 'The Graduate,' because it's my favorite movie of all time," he said. "There are similarities. He's just graduated and his parents want him to go to work in the factory like everyone else. Other than that, the movie thematically is really 'How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,' which is about the company being everything. That is the bee life, as they live for the company and they die for the company. I guess those would be the inspirations, movie-wise."As he began writing the script to "Bee Movie," the man voted No. 12 on Comedy Central's list of the greatest stand-up comics of all-time began to realize how out of his shape his muscles were. Particularly one."The story muscle. Which is my least favorite muscle," Seinfeld mused. "My favorite muscle is the joke muscle. Hey, we need the character to say something funny at this moment! What could he say? That's when I want them to call me into the room. But that's not the hard part of making a movie, as I learned."When people pay to get in to see a movie, they want a story that totally holds their attention. And I am not by nature a storyteller. I'm a stand-up comic. I like things short. It took me years on a TV show to learn how to tell a 22-minute story."I didn't really like doing that, either. I just liked doing the lines in the scene. I just liked the jokes."