BOAT TRIP

About The Production
Imagine ten glorious days aboard a deluxe ocean liner, waking up every morning in beautiful port towns in Egypt, Turkey or the Greek Isles, soaking up the Mediterranean sun by day and dancing and gambling away every night. It hardly sounds like a typical film production. But in the case of Boat Trip, a hysterical fish-out-of-water odyssey about two guys who find themselves stranded aboard a gay cruise, it was just part of the job description. In making a movie about a cruise, producer Brad Krevoy and director Mort Nathan, in their first collaboration since everyone's favorite comedy Kingpin (starring Woody Harrelson and Bill Murray), decided to bring their production on a cruise. The result was Boat Trip's unconventional floating film production, where, according to all reports, the cast and crew had as much fun making the movie as audiences have had watching it.

"The entire production completely surpassed my expectations," says Cuba Gooding Jr., who stars as Jerry, a heartbroken bachelor who meets the woman of his dreams aboard the cruise. "It was a great time."

"It was like a sleep over. A huge sleep over where no one went home!" says Horatio Sanz, who co-stars as Nick, Jerry's bumbling, over-sexed best friend. "We did all the things you do on a cruise. Gamble. Lie in the sun. Have drinks by the pool."

Boat Trip essentially continues the gleefully crass tradition that the Farrelly brothers and Krevoy began with Dumb and Dumber and Kingpin, which Nathan also wrote. The comedy also seemed like the perfect way for Nathan and Krevoy to further their partnership. Together, they decided that Nathan, who has years of experience in television and won two Emmy's for his writing and producing work on "The Golden Girls," would make Boat Trip his directorial debut.

"Boat Trip follows the fish-out-of-water model of Some Like It Hot," says Nathan. "These two guys are forced to take on new identities, and in the process, they discover new sides of themselves. By the end of the film, Cuba's character is dancing in drag in a floor show and he's loving it. It's about liberation."

The entire production for Boat Trip, along with several dozen extras, boarded a cruise in Athens and traveled throughout the Mediterranean for ten days. Since the cost of renting an entire cruise liner was prohibitive, the production actually shared the ship with vacationing tourists, who became eager witnesses to an American production of a soon-to-be comedy hit.

"We took over about half the boat," says Krevoy. "So the big challenge was not ruining the experience of the other paying passengers. One way was to get them involved in the project by casting them as extras, which was a lot of fun."

"I was definitely nervous about it at first," recalls Nathan. "It could have been a recipe for disaster because there were so many variables. But it actually worked out beautifully. We shot most of our exteriors when the ship was in port and the passengers were out exploring. Everyone was incredibly nice and respectful."

For Gooding, however, being stranded in the middle of the Mediterranean with hundreds of enthusiastic fans and no means of escape initially looked like his worst nightmare. "At first, I was horrified and I just stayed in my state room when I wasn't f