Uptown Girls (2003)

The story for Uptown Girls and its party girl heroine, Molly Gunn, originated from a real-life "Molly" muse, producer Allison Jacobs.

Five years ago, Jacobs was an ambitious receptionist at Greenestreet Films, who told partners John Penotti and Fisher Stevens her idea for a story about the vivacious daughter of a rock star. "It sounded wonderful," says Penotti, "but you hear a million great ideas, and only when they're executed do you get a sense of whether they'd work." To further flesh out her idea, Jacobs hired writer Julia Dahl to work with her on a first draft. When a Greenestreet staffer read it, she immediately told the partners that it was something special. "She said, 'Fisher, it's unbelievable,'" Stevens recalls, "so I read it and I loved the characters."

Jacobs' inspiration, she says, was both fantasy and reality. When she read scripts, she felt she never came across anything that resembled her favorite movies. Films like Breakfast at Tiffany's, The Goodbye Girl and Annie Hall appealed to her for the romantic stories they told as well as their idealized New York City setting. "I mean, I had to live on Seventy-first Street when I moved to New York because Audrey Hepburn lived there in Breakfast at Tiffany's," laughs Jacobs. "Growing up in Bethesda, Maryland, I was so happy to watch these films. And then I'd want to come to New York for my birthday."

Her other inspiration was her experience as a babysitter to a precocious little girl. Despite her efforts to be the boss, Jacobs was continually surprised by her young charge. It made her think about how much a child could influence an adult. "I really wanted to make a movie about how kids know the truth," she says. "They see the truth, they speak the truth - if anything, adults are in denial."

Greenestreet was charmed by the story and began developing the project, a process which took about five years. "Movies take a while to develop," says Stevens, "but the script just kept getting better."

John Penotti had produced A Price above Rubies for director Boaz Yakin, and gave him the Uptown Girls script. Yakin was best known at the time for his gritty drama Fresh, so "Boaz is not necessarily the first person you'd think of to direct Uptown Girls," says Penotti. "But it goes to show you that you never know. He read the script initially to give us input as a writer and then just fell in love with this character." In the meantime, Yakin went off to make Remember the Titans, but kept in touch with his friends at Greenestreet. When he became available, he told them he wanted Uptown Girls to be his next film.

"We feel so fortunate that Boaz agreed to direct it," says Penotti, "because he understood the character, and how the comedy could be so elegant and at the same time really accessible. He also understood how to make New York shine and sparkle like it does in the film."

When the project finally moved into active production mode, it seemed the wait had been worth it, because what turned out to be Uptown Girls' ideal cast had just come of age.

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