The 1984 movie Steve Martin will always regret never making: “I just couldn’t do it”
It’s been a long time since Steve Martin has been considered a movie star, which is to be expected when it’s been a decade since he appeared in a feature, and most of the ones before that weren’t very good.
The actor and comic’s last big-screen outing was in Ang Lee’s Billy Lynn’s Halftime Walk, which critics and audiences shunned, while his two Pink Panther retreads, The Big Year, and Baby Mama hardly set the world on fire. Not that he’s receded from the spotlight, though; far from it.
There’s an entire generation of audiences who know Martin best as the guy from Only Murders in the Building, which is understandable, when the streaming series has become one of the most popular TV shows in recent years, introducing his schtick and chemistry with Martin Short to a new audience.
It’s earned him eight Primetime Emmy nominations and five Golden Globe nods so far, leading to a surge in mainstream popularity that he arguably hasn’t experienced since the 1980s, when he initially burst onto the scene, swapped the stand-up circuit for the silver screen, and became one of the biggest and most bankable comedy stars in the business.
In his first starring role, which he also co-wrote, The Jerk introduced Martin to the masses, and they couldn’t get enough. The classic caper about the oblivious Navin R Johnson, who was “born a poor Black child,” has become regarded as one of American cinema’s finest comedies, clearing $100million at the box office to get its leading man’s film career off to the best possible start.
The Jerk was so popular that it found a fan in Stanley Kubrick, who loved the picture so much that he brought it up when he hunted down Martin to pitch him Eyes Wide Shut. There were more hits to come, but despite everyone around him insisting it was the worthwhile thing to do, not making a sequel is a regret that’s stuck with him ever since.
Instead, he took a left turn and signed on for Herbert Ross’ musical romance, Pennies from Heaven, his first feature-length outing in two years. Martin admitted that it was “audience-jarring” for viewers to see him return in such an unexpected capacity, and with the benefit of hindsight, he wishes he’d made another Jerk instead.
“But, by then, I was tired of my own persona. I just couldn’t do it,” he explained. “And Pennies from Heaven gave me a great gift of having my time completely occupied, learning to dance. Class every day, hours and hours and hours, and there was no time to overthink.”
There was eventually another Jerk, but he had little to do with it, other than a ceremonial executive-producing credit. In 1984, The Jerk, Too premiered on television, with Mark Blankfield inheriting the role of Johnson. Hardly anyone remembers it even existed, mostly because it was terrible, and reprising the part himself was something Martin will always rue never doing.
