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July 26, 1998
BY TERRY LAWSON
Free Press Movie Writer
LOS ANGELES -- Dennis Quaid and Natasha Richardson are not the first actors you might think of casting as the divorced parents in a Walt Disney Pictures remake of the family comedy "The Parent Trap," which opens Wednesday. He's a reformed Hollywood bad boy whose diverse -- some would say perverse -- role selection has kept him off the acting A-list for which he once seemed destined.
She's the third-generation torchbearer for one the most famous theatrical family dynasties in history, who recently donned fishnets and a bowler to play decadent Sally Bowles in a Broadway revival of "Cabaret."
But both actors were eager to take the roles played by Brian Keith and Maureen O'Hara in the 1961 "Parent Trap" -- Quaid because he found the script fresh and romantic, Richardson for the opportunity to work with Quaid and to do "a long comedy drunk scene, which is about the hardest thing you can ask an actor to do." But "The Parent Trap" also afforded these younger actors something most films do not: the opportunity to play parents, which both actors are.
Quaid and his wife, actress Meg Ryan, have a son, Jack, who is 6. Richardson and her husband, actor Liam Neeson, have two sons: Michael, 3, and Daniel, 2.
Richardson and Quaid had never met before making "The Parent Trap," so when we asked them to sit down together for the first time since shooting wrapped to talk not about acting but parenting, they took to the idea. "This shouldn't be too painful," said Quaid. "Not unless we agree on everything," said Richardson. "Not likely," said Quaid.
FREE PRESS: Let's start with something easy. What's the one thing a parent should never, ever, say to a child?
QUAID: " 'You're bad.' It's the whole self-esteem thing. It's letting them know the behavior is bad, not them as a person."
RICHARDSON: "It's almost equally bad to say 'You're really good,' I think, because then a child feels compelled to live up to that. Better to say, 'You did good.' "
QUAID: "I still think the self-esteem issue is the most important one we face as parents."
FREE PRESS: OK, then what's the one thing a parent should say to a child every day?
RICHARDSON: " 'I love you.' And something about how marvelous they are."
QUAID: "Yeah, 'I love you' does it. And I try to make Jack laugh once a day, too."
FREE PRESS: What's the best advice you've ever been given about parenting?
RICHARDSON: "Something my mom (Vanessa Redgrave) always told me -- and applied it, too -- was to treat children as individual people in their own right. The danger is in treating kids as 'kids' with no mind of their own because then they feel no sense of personal responsibility. I'm going to go off on a thing now, but in this country, you treat them like kids, and then when they become teens, they're raiding the liquor cabinet with no consequence. If you treat them as responsible people, instead of saying 'Well, that's kids for you,' they tend to behave responsibly."
QUAID: "My mother always said that kids were not an extension of (their parents). They're always themselves."
FREE PRESS: Do you read and rely on child-rearing books?
QUAID: "Sure. 'Your Child's Self Esteem.' I read a little of (Benjamin) Spock to see how people used to do it. 'Father's First Year' was helpful."
RICHARDSON: " 'Your Baby and Child' by Penelope Leach."
QUAID: "Now I'm reading 'Raising Boys.' "
RICHARDSON: "Oh, yeah, Liam liked that."
FREE PRESS: What is a parent's worst fear?
QUAID: "You know what they fear the most? All parents' worst nightmare is that their child will die before they do. I saw it in my grandmother's face when my dad died 10 years ago, even though my dad was 60 and she was in her 90s."
RICHARDSON: "The other would be to not be there when they really need us. That would be horrible to know."
FREE PRESS: Do you have a role model as a parent?
QUAID: "My own parents. I could find a lot of fault with them, but I have so much more respect for my parents now. I realize now we all just do the best we know how to do."
RICHARDSON: "My father (the late director Tony Richardson) used to say that the awful thing about having children is that you look at them and suddenly see your own worst qualities looking back at you. (Laughs.)"
FREE PRESS: What qualities would you hope you someday do see looking back at you, then?
QUAID: "I hope he has a sense of humor. Meg's got a really good sense of humor, and I have a fairly good one. So if he does, too, we'll always be able to share a laugh together."
RICHARDSON: "Nothing! (Laughs.) I hope they're the opposite of me. Actually, a sense of caring, I hope. Caring about others."
FREE PRESS: What's a more important quality to instill in a child -- safety or responsibility?
QUAID: "Safety, definitely."
RICHARDSON: "I add freedom to that. When you hold a child too rigidly, that's when they want to kick out."
FREE PRESS: Are you a disciplinarian?
QUAID: (Laughs.) "Sometimes. My problem is that I like being a kid, too."
RICHARDSON: "I find it hard to say no. I really do. I'm more like, 'Oh go on, have the other cookie.' "
FREE PRESS: What's the worst mistake you've made as a parent?
QUAID: "I don't know if it's the worst, but I took him on the Ferris wheel before he was ready. For a couple of years there, he had a fear of rides. Generally, we make mistakes when we transfer our adult point of view to them."
RICHARDSON: "We live around the corner from the Disney Store (in New York), and our nanny takes the kids in, and there's one of these big screens on the wall, and its showing a trailer for 'The Parent Trap.' And Michael sees it and goes: 'Huh! There's Mama. I NO WANT HER HUGGING THAT MAN!' Later, he asks me: 'Who is that man? Is his name Dada, too?' "
QUAID: "Great. (Laughs.) Now I'll never meet your kids."
FREE PRESS: What's the one thing your parents did to you that you've promised yourself to never do to your children?
RICHARDSON: "Well, I know that, but I don't want to answer it. I will say that there was a moment in my mother's life when she was involved in other aspects of life that made us (the children) come in second. And I feel her regret and remorse for that now. I never want my sons to feel that, and I never want to feel that."
QUAID: "I haven't got there yet, but I'm sure I'll come to it. And I'm sure I'll do the one thing I swore I would never do. (Laughs). I already hear my parents' words coming out of my mouth when I talk to Jack."
FREE PRESS: As wealthy, successful people, do you worry about the effect of materialism on your children?
RICHARDSON: "Buy, buy, buy."
QUAID: "People think that's a leisure activity. If you haven't bought something, you haven't done anything. You cultivate the desire; you fulfill it. Then you go on to the next thing. Jack doesn't get everything he wants. We live our lives in a normal way. He doesn't know we're rich. He went over to a friend's house recently and he came back and said, 'They're rich!' And I said, 'Why?' And he said: 'They've got this, they've got that, they're rich.' "
RICHARDSON: "You have to make them aware. You can't pretend ...well, apart from Dennis and Meg, who apparently pretend to be poor. (Laughs.) But you have to make them aware we are incredibly privileged people, and with that comes responsibility."
QUAID: "You have to instill respect for other people, that everyone's job is important."
FREE PRESS: What mistakes have you made that you're intent on sparing your child?
QUAID: "I was involved with drugs and alcohol, but that's what I had to go through. There was no getting around it, I guess. It runs in my family, and I've been sober for eight years. So I feel like hopefully I've broken a chain of that. There's no way to save anybody, but I can be as open as possible with (Jack) about it, so that maybe he can get by that and not have to go through what I went through. Maybe."
RICHARDSON: "I rather hope that they don't decide to be actors, and if they do, hope they would have the self-esteem to ...well, again, that's just something I've been through that's rotten, and I don't wish that on anyone."
FREE PRESS: What is the most gratifying thing about being a parent?
RICHARDSON: "Holding them in your arms, I would think. The whole enchilada."
QUAID: "I love having him as a friend. He's the greatest, just so much fun to be around. The
intimacy you have with another person."
RICHARDSON: "It's like being permanently in love. Without the complications of sex."
