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It was also a live-action reunion ofThe Simpsons cast.
No fewer than threeSimpsonsmain cast members appear.
I certainly saw them forThe Simpsons, because this was still when we all recorded together.
We compared notes with each other, but only I was really inGodzillafor the long haul.
Harry and Nancy only did, like, a few days.
So they didnt get the full-blownGodzillaride that I got.
That ride was a bit of a rough one.
And that, at the end of all that, critics and audiences would absolutely pan the movie.
What Azaria hoped might propel him to a blockbuster leading-man role ended up being a kaiju-size failure.
(Azaria callsBrockmirehis favorite thing I ever did.)
Just like Animal, Azaria wasnt crushed byGodzilla, though it did leave a massive footprint.
You get cast in stuff.
I think that they may have had Cuba Gooding Jr. in mind first, and he almost did it.
And then they went to me with it, and I was like, Sure.
I didnt realize what I was getting myself into.
Animal is a sort of Ayyy, Im from da Big Apple!
He really cared about getting the shot, and it just seemed fun to play that.
Id sort of played a version of that inQuiz Show, a very different film.
Ive since done it a couple other times.
I grew up worshiping those performances from, you know, De Niro and Pacino and Keitel.
Those were the voices that I grew up with and how I spoke growing up in Queens.
This was in the fairly early days of CGI.
What was that like to shoot?
Was it weird?It was, on the one hand, easier than youd think.
When they CGI stuff around you, theyll just justify whatever it is you do.
On the other hand, there was a lot more painstaking setting up.
But all the lighting and setup back then were really tedious.
So I was sort of more qualified for that maybe than some others.
Now, I really dont like when actors whine about how hard it was to shoot something.
Like, boo hoo hoo, cry me a river.
What I came to learn is that Hollywood rain is not justrain.
It has to be very thick.
Its like buckets of water being dumped on your head, or else the camera wont see it.
So the rain is heavy.
At the time I was living with Helen Hunt, who became my first wife.
That was one of the problems of early CGI.
And I said, Like five months?
And she said, And youre telling me every exterior, every single one, is in the rain?
Oh, God, thats terrible.
Im like, Why is it terrible?
Its just Hollywood rain.
Shes like, Oh, Hank, youre gonna find out.
And boy, was she right.
There is nothing worse than being cold.
If youre soaked, it doesnt matter what the temperature is, youre cold.
There were takes that were unusable because I just was shaking.
We all got sick multiple times.
I got some kind of fungal infection from being wet.
It was like, really no joke.
I had a new respect forMichael Douglas and Kathleen Turner.
Were there any fun parts about shooting in the city?I do love shooting in New York.
And a waterspout formed over the river I mean, a tornado.
Its right in front of me, no one else was looking.
It wasnt even that windy, just this waterspout came out of the heavens and slowly crept toward Manhattan.
Im watching this thing thinking,Im making a disaster movie.
I looked it up afterward.
Animal says, NowIm pissed when he discovers that Godzilla busted up Madison Square Garden.
As a native New Yorker, did you share any of that sentiment?
It was bleak, but not quite so bleak.
I might have even ad-libbed that line.
I certainly felt protective over the Garden.
It was a big thing.
It was a big whiff.
A really big Hollywood whiff.
Godzillawas a critical failure and fans widely consider it to be a failure as aGodzillamovie, specifically.
Almost right from the get-go.
Roland and Dean had just come offIndependence Day.
If anything, it really was a career impediment.
Something to overcome afterward.
I was inMystery MenandMystery, Alaskaright around the same time.
That was very disappointing for a while.
Youre gonna have to reinvent yourself again and again and again and again.
You get comfortable with your place in the world.
I love being a character actor and a supporting actor.
At heart, Im a character actor.
Oh my God, we spent so much time together.
The shoot went on so long, it never seemed to end.
We got to a point where we all ran out of anything to say to each other.
We spent the last three weeks shooting the car sequence where we were being chased by Godzilla.
Even in that stupid car, we were getting wet.
I remember Reno going, Yeah, ziss thing better be good.
Ziss thing better work.
I was like, It will, man.
William Goldman, right?
No one knows anything.
