Actress Doris Roberts talks with Kid Reporters Nia Mariso and Ethan White about her experience filming Keeping Up With the Steins. (Photo: Jen Boggs)

Tuesday, May 2—Keeping up with the red carpet premieres at this year's Tribeca Film Festival kept the Scholastic Kids Press Corps busy for two weeks. Based in New York City, the festival opened with several feature films, including Keeping Up With the Steins, a comedy about the battle of the biggest bar mitzvahs.

Doris Roberts, who plays bar mitzvah boy Benjamin Fiedler's grandmother, Rose Fiedler, was one of the first to stop and talk to Scholastic. Roberts is best known for her role as the mother of Raymond Barone on the TV sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond.

Q: What was it like working on the movie?
Roberts: Fun. Great fun. And it's a family movie and you'll laugh a lot. A few times you'll get a little tear maybe. But it's totally entertaining, no special effects, just us. And you leave feeling good. I haven't gone to a movie lately where I left feeling good, so this is a great one.

Q: How was this role similar to your role in Everybody Loves Raymond?
Roberts: Totally different. This woman is very nice. This woman is very caring and loving. She's a great grandma. She keeps her mouth shut.

Daryl Sabara plays the 13-year-old boy who is at the center of the story. His other work includes his role as the hero boy in The Polar Express. Daryl has a twin brother, Evan.

Q: How did this film prepare you for your own upcoming bar mitzvah?
Sabara: This movie definitely convinced me not to have a huge party, even though I didn't want one anyway. The movie taught me that it's about responsibility and family.

Actress Sandra Taylor talks with Kid Reporters Nia Mariso and Ethan White. (Photo: Jen Boggs)

Q: How does it feel to have one of your movies at the Tribeca Film Festival?
Sabara: It's a great feeling. It's a new feeling since this is the first film that I've had in the Tribeca Film Festival, but it's my first premiere in New York, so it's really exciting.

Sandra Taylor, who played the obnoxious reporter in The Princess Diaries, plays Raylene Stein, Benjamin Stein's aunt.

Q: Have you ever been to a bar mitzvah?
Taylor: No, this was my very first one, because I grew up Catholic, so I didn't know anything about bar mitzvahs until this. I play a shiksa, which means I'm not Jewish. I marry into a Jewish family.

Q: Do you think other bar mitzvahs are like the one in the movie?
Taylor: If they're lucky. These are really extravagant bar mitzvahs . . . people I do know who have had bar mitzvahs really identify with this because the families do try to outdo one another. It's like a wedding. They really put so much into it and it becomes expensive.

Scott and Garry Marshall are father and son. Garry Marshall, who played the grandfather in this movie, is usually the one behind the camera directing. This time, his son was the boss.

Q: How was it directing this movie with your dad as an actor?
Scott: It was fun. It was a lot of hard work and it was nice having my dad around, because I felt comfortable the whole time. I wasn't too nervous having him around. It was really a great experience. We've always gotten along. We've always played baseball together and worked on projects together. He wasn't any trouble, I didn't really have to yell at him.

Garry: Not just because I was his father. Most directors make very good actors because you know what the director's going through, so we behave very well.

Scott Marshall, director of Keeping Up With the Steins, and his father, director and actor Garry Marshall, take a moment to talk with Kid Reporters Nia Mariso and Ethan White. (Photo: Jen Boggs)

Scott: It really worked out great. It was fun. A kid should get to direct his dad at least once in his life.

Garry: He had to direct a lot of kids in this movie, and you know kids aren't always the easiest to direct.

Scott: Yeah, there was a huge party we had to film with about 30 little kids, but it was fun. They all paid attention and it was good.

Q: I understand you have a basketball net on the set of every movie you're involved in. Why?
Garry: Yes, I always do. I don't want to shock you young people, but there's a little bit of stress going on and the best thing for stress is, you take a basketball, and you put it in a hoop. There's even a basketball scene in this movie where I made my own shots.

Scott: He really made his shots. He kept missing and I said, let's move on, and he said, no, no, let's keep shooting until I get it, and he finally hit a couple of shots. Swish!

Q: Does this movie bring out your personalities in some way?
Scott: I really related with the 12-year-old boy being kind of lost in this craziness of throwing a big birthday and not wanting to be the center of attention and wanting to be left alone. I kind of felt like that when I was 12 . . . and not wanting to talk to girls, but wanting to invite them, but not knowing how to talk to them, and being nervous.

Finally, the star of the movie, Jeremy Piven, who plays the father, showed up.

Q: How does it feel to be the star of this movie?
Piven: It feels good. I think I've been about number 47 on the call sheet most of my adult life, So to be number one on the call sheet is exciting

Q: Was your bar mitzvah similar to the one in the movie?
Piven: No, my bar mitzvah was completely, completely different. I grew up in a theater family we didn't have a lot of money. My bar mitzvah was in my basement.

Q: How was it working with both Garry and Scott Marshall?
Piven: I have to say they were very lucky to work with me, let's be honest. (Piven laughs.) See that's irony and irony doesn't print. Let me explain something to you. Irony doesn't print but it works well in this medium. [He points at the Scholastic cameras.] So, I'm winning here [points at the cameras again] and losing here [he points at a print reporter scribbling on his notepad]. Winning [he points]. Losing [he points again].

Q: When did you know that acting was what you wanted to do?
Piven: It's interesting, because I've been acting since I was 8 years old with my family and I always did it and I think I took it for granted because I had no perspective. I thought every kid has a family that puts them on the stage. It wasn't until my first semester of college and I wasn't allowed to be on stage and it was the first time that I hadn't been on stage since I was 8 and I really missed it. I realized that I love it and that I wanted to do it my whole life.

Producer A.D. Oppenheim also made an appearance on the red carpet.

Q: How did you find this film?
Oppenheim: I came up with a small idea to do a movie and I went to a friend of mind and said, hey, do you want to write this movie, because I can't pay you yet, I can only give you this germ of an idea. So he wrote it and did a great job. Then we raised some money and from there we made a great movie.

Q: Was it hard to produce?
Oppenheim: It was a lot of work. A lot of people don't understand how much work it takes to make a movie, but we're always fortunate to do it, too. It's a lot of fun.

Q: Have you been to a bar mitzvah?
Oppenheim: I've been to a lot of bar mitzvahs. I'm going to one next month. All my friends have kids at about that age now, so I'm on the bar mitzvah circuit.