Gabrielle Union & Zach Braff on Rebooting ‘Cheaper by the Dozen’ for the Modern Family (VIDEO)
There are family movies and then there are family movies. Cheaper by the Dozen is the latter, times 12. Plus dogs and exes and everyone else that goes into the whole “it takes a village” thing. The place is riddled with kin up in here.
Arriving today exclusively on Disney+, this lively reboot of the 2003 Steve Martin-Bonnie Hunt classic (which itself was a remake of the 1950 Myrna Loy original) stars Gabrielle Union and Zach Braff as Zoey and Paul Baker, parents to a massive blended family facing the modern issues that have emerged since the last time this tale was told. Let’s face it: Things have changed a lot in the last 19 years and as Union says, “it’s about time people saw” how it really is.
“It looked like my family,” the author and social advocate says of the film’s impressively inclusive cast. “Not just my immediate family, but my extended family…and it’s all beautiful.”
Not to mention busy! With a call sheet that included more child actors than most grade-school productions, Cheaper often feels like a perpetual-motion machine powered by the antics of Zoey and Paul’s myriad offspring.
“They were sweethearts [so] it was a lot of fun,” adds Braff, heaping praise on director Gail Lerner for putting together the Bakers’ dozen so well. “She spent a year looking for these kids and she just found the most talented, funny sweet [ones].” Of course, there were some instances of kids being kids. Especially with the little ones.
“Gabby and I sometimes had to be like real parents and be like ‘Hey, we’re shooting…can you…no, put that down…no…,'” laughs the Scrubs favorite. “We did a little good cop-bad c0p.” Which is probably cheaper than hiring a sitter these days.
Cheaper by the Dozen, Now Streaming, Disney+
