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LOS ANGELES: Jerry Seinfeld became a billionaire thanks to a long-running television comedy that chronicled the chaotic lives of four people living in New York's concrete jungle.
So at first glance, it might seem odd that the 53-year-old "Seinfeld" star chose the highly-organised world of bees as the setting for his first foray into animated movie-making in "Bee Movie," released last week.
Seinfeld said he got the idea for "Bee Movie", which also features the voices of Renee Zellweger, Chris Rock and John Goodman, after seeing a documentary and being struck by the "utopian" nature of life within the hive.
"I always get a kick out of these shows where they kind of focus on one species, and you get to know them, and they show you how they live, and how they function, and what they do," he told reporters in an interview.
"The bee ones always kind of made me laugh because they seem so utopian - their social structure, their corporate structure. They're so organised and focused. And that just made me laugh.
"That's a funny setting for a comedy, a perfect society where everyone knows their place. Because life is not like that."
The hero of Seinfeld's film is a bee named Barry, who discovers that humans are stealing honey for profit. Outraged, Barry launches and wins a lawsuit against mankind, with disastrous consequences for the environment.
While Seinfeld derived the idea from watching documentaries, plans for the film only gathered pace when he mentioned it over dinner with Steven Spielberg.
Soon afterwards Seinfeld was contacted by Spielberg's fellow Dreamworks executive Jeffrey Katzenberg and the film swung into development.
For Seinfeld, the project posed a series of challenges, not least adapting to a format where it might take months for a punchline to be realised, as opposed to the rapid-fire immediacy of stand-up comedy.
"It's as opposite as anything I have known or could conceive of," Seinfeld said. "Nothing could be more different from being a stand-up comedian, where there's no technology, everything is instant and direct with the audience.
"In animation, you have an idea for a joke and it can literally be years before you actually see it come into fruition.
"But that was part of the attraction for me; I wanted to see if I could do something very different."
Overseeing production, Seinfeld said, was like "directing a play but in slow motion. And by slow motion I mean months".
"It was really hard to get my brain to slow down that much and just wait. There was one joke in the film that I didn't see until the night of the premiere. And I wrote it four years ago."
Despite the crop of successful recent animated films such as "Shrek" and "The Incredibles" that have struck the box-office jackpot by appealing to both children and adults, Seinfeld said he never contemplated tailoring his offbeat, observational sense of humour to capture a wide audience.
"I just wrote it the same way I wrote my stand-up, and the way I wrote the television show," he said. "I just think 'That's funny, let's do that'.
"The only thing I can do in my profession is trust my instincts. There really is no other way". Even so, initial audience reaction indicates that "Bee Movie's" humour has clicked across a broad age range, Seinfeld said.
"I talked to somebody who told me they took their two-year-old to a screening and they loved it; and I know my mother saw it with a bunch of her friends who are in their 90s and they loved it too," he said. "Now that wasn't something that was ever in my mind to do.
"I always used to do a joke in my standup routine that there's no such thing as fun for all the family. You don't see massage parlours that offer ice-cream and free jewelry. Everybody likes something different."
Seinfeld is a rarity amongst entertainers in that he has steadfastly eschewed the conventional route taken by many comedians - stand-up, followed by television, followed by the movies.
In the 10 years after television viewers said goodbye to Jerry, Elaine, George and Kramer in the season finale of "Seinfeld," the series creator has steered clear of Hollywood, preferring instead to continue stand-up comedy.
Asked why he still does stand-up, he replied, "Because I know that's what I am. I've been very fortunate not only to get these other opportunities but to have developed the skills over the years so that I can execute some of the things they've asked me to do.
"But I never feel as right as I do when I'm on stage in a night club, performing. I always have a feeling inside that feels like 'This is what I am supposed to do'. I love doing the other things but I never have that same gut, 'rightness', that I feel when I'm standing there on stage in the spotlight."
- AFP/yb
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