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Ashton Kutcher, Terence Stamp and Tara Reid in a romantic comedy about the ultimate office taboo - falling in love with the boss’s daughter...

My Boss’s Daughter

The only thing worse than working for the boss from hell is falling in love with the boss from hell’s irresistible daughter.

Young executive Tom Stansfield (Ashton Kutcher) has one eye focused on a promotion from the outrageously volatile Jack Taylor (Terence Stamp). Unfortunately, the other eye has been captivated by the alluring Lisa (Tara Ried), who just happens to be Mr. Taylor’s pride and joy.

Offered a rare chance to housesit for Mr. Taylor, Tom is ready to impress his un-impressible boss while simultaneously making his move. Or so he thinks. The evening of his house-sitting job begins with an ominous doorbell ring and turns into a hilarious series of one lunatic disaster after another. Suddenly, Tom is faced with a house full of havoc, and the possibility that he might lose not only his mind and his job, but also the girl.

My Boss’s Daughter merges the comic talents of director David Zucker (Airplane! and Naked Gun) with a script from rising writer David Dorfman (Anger Management). Together they have created a non-stop comedy of snowballing errors, zany antics and absurd situations. For no matter how hard he tries to bend over backwards to please his boss and romance his boss’s daughter, everything that can possibly go wrong in Tom Stansfield’s world does go wrong – to the extreme.

To David Zucker, this series of monumental mishaps is key to the unabashed fun of My Boss’s Daughter – and presented a chance for him to do something different from the playful pop culture satire for which he’s so well known. “This is a script that made me laugh out loud,” Zucker says. “It’s not so much a spoof as it is a real story that could actually happen to someone – at least to someone very unlucky. It’s a modern screwball story of misunderstandings that get multiplied, magnified and blown out of proportion.”

The Crush: An Employee’s Worst Mistake?

At the comic heart of My Boss’s Daughter is the lovelorn heart of Tom Stansfield, which has unfortunately been captured by the one person he really can’t afford to fall in love with: his dangerously deranged boss’s daughter. Tom’s boss, Jack Taylor, is a neat freak, an egomaniacal tantrum-thrower and an anal perfectionist with a hair-trigger temper, not to mention a pretty scary guy when he’s mad. But, driven by ambition and love, Tom optimistically believes he can somehow win over Mr. Taylor and at the same time win Mr. Taylor’s daughter – a belief that has him heading straight for disaster.

To play Tom, the filmmakers chose Ashton Kutcher, best known for his popular role as the gorgeous but intellectually challenged Michael Kelso on television’s That 70s Show. Kutcher is quickly becoming one of Hollywood’s most sought-after young stars in many different genres, but with this film, he remains true to his roots by taking on the role of a funny and charming leading man.

"Ashton makes for the perfect young innocent," says David Zucker. "You really see him come of age as Tom in this one crazy night. Here, he also gets a chance to use his very keen sense of comic timing, which has been honed from playing in front of live audiences week in and week out for years."

Modern Screwball

Ashton Kutcher describes Tom as “a very put-upon guy.” He continues: “He’s really your average American guy who’s just out of college, trying to make his way in the world, but he hasn’t quite found the strength of his voice yet -- so everyone he meets takes advantage of him.”

Tom reminded Kutcher of a hero from the screwball comedies of the 30s and 40s: a kind and charming, everyday sort of man caught up in outrageous circumstances beyond his control. For further inspiration, Kutcher held his own Cary Grant Film Festival. “I was interested to see how Cary Grant carried himself in these situations in films like Bringing Up Baby where he’s a totally innocent bystander who gets drawn into a complete nightmare,” Kutcher explains.

Indeed, it was the film’s mix of wild mishaps, romantic comedy and light-hearted surprises that drew Kutcher to join the production not only as the star but also a producer. “I think after seeing so many shocker comedies lately, it gets harder and harder to make audiences laugh and David Zucker just knows how to make stuff funny,” he says. “This film is a style of comedy that hasn’t been seen for awhile – a comedy with a real story and a real heart to it. It was fun to be part of every aspect of it from the beginning.”

Kutcher’s portrait of Tom is that of the classic guy caught in the wrong place at the wrong time . . . every time. Tom is mild-mannered by nature, but when Jack Taylor comes between Tom and his heart’s one true desire, the sparks fly. Enter Terence Stamp, who plays the fire-spitting Taylor with venomous glee. “Terence can be a really scary guy on film,” notes David Zucker. “So much so that I was terrified of him the first time I met him, but he turned out to be quite nice, and also extremely funny.” Adds Ashton Kutcher: “The amazing thing about Terence is the subtlety that he brings – it might just be the twitch of an eye, but it always works.”

Tara Reid

Stamp was drawn to his role’s entirely off-the-wall nature. “The script broke me up,” he explains. “It’s impossible to talk about Jack Taylor in any sort of sane framework because he’s a lunatic, really. He’s a captain of industry, but he’s also a manic-obsessive, a clean-freak and the kind of guy who keeps bear traps in his garden to stop the neighbor’s kids from trespassing.”

Meeting with Zucker sealed the deal for Stamp. “David’s very smart and charming but I soon discovered there’s also a very funny chap inside there,” says Stamp. “He’s always thinking about what makes humor happen, what makes things funny, and he has a kind of genuine glee when you as an actor bring his ideas to life.”

Stamp added even more humor to the madcap role of Jack Taylor by making the decision early on to play Taylor dead serious. “I’ve always liked it in comedies when actors seem to take their roles with a lot of seriousness in contrast to the wildly silly things they are doing,” he says. “So I decided to I would play Jack Taylor like I was playing Hamlet!”

If Jack Taylor is fanatically fastidious about his office, house and pet owl O.J, he is even more so about his only daughter, Lisa. Lisa is played by Tara Reid, who first came to the fore in the runaway hit comedy American Pie. Since then, Reid has been sent every type of comedy script imaginable, but My Boss’s Daughter stood out to her. “It was different from all the others,” she says. “It was really funny but without trying so hard. It was more about all these funny characters put together in one place on one night where everything you can imagine goes wrong.”

Reid’s role in My Boss’s Daughter is that of the straight-woman – the singular normal, easygoing person in a house of eccentrics, oddballs and outright psychos. “I tried to play Lisa in a very real way,” says Reid, “so that she comes off as this really cool girl who’s open and understanding while all this hilarious stuff is happening around her. With Tom, I think she just doesn’t really notice him much at first, but then something clicks and she realizes that wow, this guy not only is a lot of fun but it feels really right to be with him.”

One scene that proved hard to play straight was pulling off Lisa’s eye-opening kiss with Tom. “Ashton Kutcher’s actually a good friend of mine, so when we started kissing I was giggling so hard that he kept saying ‘What’s so funny?’ and he was getting a little insecure,” she recalls. “It just struck me as really hilarious that I was kissing my buddy. Once we got past that, we ended up having a great time working together. Even with all the misunderstandings and mishaps, Tom and Lisa have a lovely romance that unfolds.”

The Houseguests Arrive: Mayhem Ensues

Tom’s house-sitting nightmare gets under way almost the minute his boss leaves the premises. The bell rings, and Tom finds standing at the door his former fellow employee Audrey, who was fired earlier that same day by Mr. Taylor. Audrey, played by Saturday Night Live alum Molly Shannon, arrives with an ax to grind, a grumbling boyfriend in the car and a whole slew of friends following just behind her supposedly to help Tom in his hour of need.

Shannon was drawn to the script’s joke-a-second pace and complex character interplay. “I like how intricate the storytelling is in this comedy,” she says. “There’s a lot happening and it happens very quickly. I also immediately liked Audrey because she’s a definite character, this white trash girl in a blue jeans pantsuit. She’s a spitfire, she’s feisty and she puts up with no nonsense!”

Carmen Electra

Among Audrey’s house-crashing friends are also the tattooed Tina played by Carmen Electra; the conspiracy theorist Speed played by David Koechner; and Ron Selmour as Daryl, who’s not the brightest bulb on the tree. Carmen Electra describes her character as “just one of many people working to destroy the house Tom is supposed to be watching while giving him a hard time.” Electra had a blast embodying the saucy fun of Tina. “Since I have a really silly sense of humor, I enjoy getting to express that in this kind of role,” she says.

And then there’s the one guest who has a restraining order against him: Mr. Taylor’s seemingly good-for-nothing, on-the-lam-from-drug-dealer’s son Red, portrayed by Andy Richter, best known for his former role as Conan O’Brien’s sidekick. “I get to play the loud-mouth lascivious creep,” observes Richter. “He’s the kind of guy who’s always just a little too familiar with people, who says whatever comes into his mind, which is often dirty. But the great thing about Red is that he sort of ends up redeeming himself.”

For Richter, the large ensemble cast was filled with familiar faces. "Almost everyone in the cast has been on Conan’s show," he admits. "We had lots of tremendously funny people – so much so that director often had to call ‘cut’ because he’d ruined the shot by laughing too hard."
Chasing Andy Richter’s Red is the stone cold drug dealer T.J. played by Michael Madsen (who once played a similar thug in the far more serious Reservoir Dogs.)

"T.J. struck me as one of the most interesting characters in the script," Madsen says. "He’s a misguided drug procurer who also has some physical gifts that can only be God-given! But when he arrives at the house, his very serious mission turns into a farce, and he has to try to use the crazy situation to his advantage. He runs right into a cornucopia of madness."

Adds Madsen: "For me it was a lot of fun to do something lighter with so many great comic actors. I think there are some scenes in this film that have to be seen to be believed!"

Another unexpected meeting for Tom Stansfield comes when he heads to the next-door neighbor’s house looking for the escaped OJ. There, he runs into Julie, a hapless accident victim waiting for her blind date. Julie is played by Ever Carradine, wrapped in a perpetually oozing head bandage. "I kind of liked the bandage," she notes. "I used it as an ear-warmer when it got chilly on the set." Carradine also liked the idea of getting to do a little outright slapstick, a rarity in today’s comedy scene. "This was a great opportunity for me to try physical comedy," she says.

Starring, as Julie’s father, is Emmy winner Jeffrey Tambor, who describes his character as head of "one of the most dysfunctional households in America." The irreverent comedic spirit of the film drew Tambor to My Boss’s Daughter. "I like how almost everything that happens in this movie triggers something else funny to happen," he describes. "There’s always someone coming through a door or crashing into someone else. And holding it all together is David Zucker’s antic sense of play, funny gags and understanding of good fun."

Owls, Accidents And Human Pyramids

The making of My Boss’s Daughter – with its plethora of massive upheavals and major disasters – had the potential to be as frenzied as Tom Stansfield’s night in his boss’s mansion. For David Zucker, though, just having the right people on the set allowed it to all come together. "For me, it is all about casting," he says. "On the set, I’ll direct where I want things to go in a scene, but a good part of it is just standing back and letting the actors do what they do best: be funny."

The actors appreciated that kind of trust, and the freedom that comes with a director who encourages comic improvisation. Says Molly Shannon: "David’s really good about being open to any and all ideas. Surprisingly, a lot of comedians are very serious because comedy can be an incredibly technical thing. But David’s style is that he loves comedy so much that everybody was always laughing on the set."

Renee Zelwegger

Zucker also worked closely with production designer Andrew Laws and costume designer Daniel Orlandi (the design team who recently created the glossy, candy-colored 60s world of Renee Zelwegger in Down With Love) to give the film a visual zing. The duo worked to keep the emphasis on realism pushed just over the edge into hilarity. Shooting on a set in Vancouver, Andrew Laws designed Jack Taylor’s house with maximum potential for chaos in mind. Meanwhile, Daniel Orlandi collaborated with the prodigious cast to make sure each and every character had the details that matched their quirky personalities – from Carmen’s Electra’s tattoos to Michael Madsen’s pinky ring.

With a production involving car crashes, out-of-control owls and a human pyramid that tumbles into a fountain, the actors found themselves, unlike Tom Stansfield, looking forward to every new calamity and the ensuing comedy. Sums up Tara Reid: "When I read this script, I kept thinking to myself ‘how are they going to shoot this stuff’ because some of it seemed pretty insane, but on the set it became very real, very fresh and we were always excited to do the next scene just to see what might happen next."

Catapulted to star status in the smash hit American Pie, Tara Reid has been identified as one of America’s most promising young film stars. Most recently she starred as the sweetly optimistic drummer, Melody Valentine in the movie version of seventies kids cartoon Josie and the Pussycats, reprised the role of Vicky Lathum in the blockbuster hit American Pie 2 and joined the party in National Lampoon’s Van Wilder (screened in the UK as Van Wilder: Party Liaison. She’ll next be seen in the thriller Heaven’s Pond and the comedy Knots.

My Boss’s Daughter is out now on DVD.

More information available in DVD / Home Video, Humour