Mr. Ramis’ lastest directorial effort is “Analyze That” the sequel to the 1999 hit “Analyze This.” “That” reunites Robert DeNiro with Billy Crystal as a mob boss and his shrink. Mr. Ramis spoke with me by telephone on April 16, 2003.

EI: Why you think DeNiro is so damn funny? Is it because we’re scared of him?

Harold Ramis: Probably because he’s -- yeah, that’s one reason. And he’s not trying to be is the other thing. You know, he’s -- we’re so used to comedians working so hard to make us laugh, and here’s a guy who, literally, just plays this comedy character like he plays everything else. He doesn’t tell jokes, I don’t know if he could tell a joke to save his life. He just plays it straight, and the bigger he plays it, the funnier it gets.

It was great to see Cathy Moriarti as the boss. Obviously, a re-teaming of her and DeNiro a la “Raging Bull,” but to have her as the boss, that must have been a treat for everyone.

She’s a great girl. Just a lot of fun, really pleasant, real generous. She was so good with Bob. They fell into this rapport that they had on “Raging Bull” -- she knew just how to treat him, how to work with him. She’s a generous actor, and a real good one, too. Every take she would try a different energy, would start improvising dialogue. She could totally bring him back to earth.

They were comfortable and she really towered over him, was able to really project a little power, which made it even funnier.

She’s actually quite tall, and he’s king of slight.

And, Lisa Kudrow, she was -- she’s so perfect as a deadpan. I guess you really wanted to use her more, but there was just so much going on, and it’s a comedy, and you didn’t want to make it so long. I mean, her comment -- “This guy eating off my dishes - eew” That’s perfect her. Did you want to use her more?

There was a good scene I had to cut that wasn’t getting much response from test audiences. I thought it was really good, really well played. She actually confronts him, he’s lying in the guest room. This was where he voluntarily leaves Billy’s house. She goes into the room with him. She asks him to leave for the sake of her sanity. It’s a really funny scene.

Certainly, when he comes down and, that is DeNiro, and he flashes everybody -- that’s a high point!

That was pretty funny!

Whose decision was it to do “West Side Story” as DeNiro’s crazy whatever? [In “Analyze That,” DeNiro, playing mob boss Paul Vitti, performs the songs from “West Side Story” while in prison in an effort to gain release based on insanity.]

Well, I was finishing the movie “Bedazzled” and we got another writer started on the project. The scene I had assigned him was that DeNiro flips out in prison. Someone’s trying to kill him, and his way of dealing with it is to feign madness and get a psychiatric release. That was the assignment, but I didn’t know how the writer was going to -- what kind of mad scene he was going to write. I had always pitched it to people as, you know, the mad scene from Hamlet...

Yes.

In fact, that’s one way I spoke to Bob on the idea of doing, of that particular plot element, was I said -- imagine, Hamlet. That’s all I gave the writer was “a mad scene.” That’s what the writer, Peter Steinfeld, that’s what he chose to -- how he chose to characterize it.

Did everyone have a singalong on the set to West Side Story?

Well, as soon as we read that, we were all dying to hear Bob sing. Oddly enough, he wouldn’t sing for us, any rehearsals, not even in public, I’m told, until the day we actually shot it. So, I never knew what he was going to sound like.

Did he work with anyone, or did he just do it sort of off the cuff?

He worked with a Broadway voice coach and a Broadway choreographer.

Wow. And the high point in the film, quite honestly, it’s a tough act to follow, after the prison scenes. Very, very hard to top that, but DeNiro in the cafeteria was a high point. You guys knew that, I guess.

When he starts singing?

Yes.

Yeah, that was. You should have seen the way the prisoners reacted, the guys from -- they had no idea what was coming, because they don’t get to read the script. The toughest guys, you can imagine.

So these were real prisoners?

No!

Oh, OK!

They’re guys who, you know, whenever you put out an extras call for convicts, these are the guys that turn up. The really tough looking guys, and they are very tough guys. Some have actually been inside Riker’s Island as guests of the State before, you know! They didn’t know what to do. But they loved DeNiro.

Of course!

They were extras, so...when he started singing, these guys fell out of their chairs. They just thought it was the funniest thing they’d ever seen.

Now, you worked with Kenneth Lonergan the first time. [Lonergan has a screenwriting credit for the first film.]

Never met him.

Never met him?

Never even met him! He did the script...by the time I came on, it had been written and re-written, and there had been four writers.

I was going to ask you if you’d caught “You Can Count On Me.” I absolutely loved that film.

Oh, it was great!

Yeah. You know, I don’t have a whole lot of time, but I did want to ask you this...I recently interviewed the Director of “Secretary,” if you caught that wickedly dark film. Did you catch it?

I loved it!

When I was talking with Steven Shainberg, who directed it, I asked him about “Death to Smoochy,” which was, in my opinion, a failure on so many levels. It could have been better, but there was this thing that was wrong with it...and I call it this “high saccharine” content. Your film had the opposite. It had a high saccharine content, but it was because these two men, DeNiro and Crystal, really had, I mean -- they had a genuine relationship, which gave the film a heart that was certainly missing from “Death to Smoochy.” How would you achieve that when you’re making a film?

I could almost guarantee that the heart in “Death to Smoochy” was a last-minute add. I know a little bit of the history of that project.

Yes, sir.

It was offered to me by the agency representative and it was a really -- it was just a black comedy. Really, really dark. And studios are really afraid of black comedy. So my guess is that, at some point in that process, I never really read the original script. My guess is that at some point the studio said, “You know, it needs heart, let’s add some heart.” And I don’t think heart is something you can just tack onto a film at the end, because it’ll always stand out as, “OK, here comes the obligatory scene where these characters share an emotion.” It’ll always feel forced and not genuine.

And Catherine Keener doesn’t have a heart, does she? [Nobody can play heartless better than Keener, I thought. Don’t we just love her.]

I think she could -- she’s a beautiful lady, did you see “Lovely and Amazing.”

Not, yet, one of our writers interviewed that wonderful Director -- Nicole Holofcener.

Catherine Keener’s wonderful in it, and very lovely. It’s a great movie, I thought.

I’ve, of course, seen “Walking and Talking.”

That one I didn’t see. [In “Analyze That,”] I think the heart is built in to the relationship of Billy and Bob in the movie, and it’s in those guys. Whatever emotion there is in our film, I think was come by honestly, it’s part and parcel of what we were doing and why we were making the movie in the first place.

No doubt. I guess being a Director is kind of like being a mob boss?

I wish! I feel like I’m the, I just the Democratic head of a large and complex organization of really talented people. I’m more like the conductor of an orchestra, I don’t actually play.

Well, take it away maestro! “Analyze That” will be available on DVD on May 13, 2003.

Jonathan W. Hickman