HOLLYWOOD -- As a little boy growing up in the resort community of Long Beach, N.Y., Billy Crystal worried about the monsters he knew were living under the bed and in the closet.
"I was the kid who had the light bulb in the hallway and the door (ajar) to just give me enough light so, if the demon was coming, I would be able to see it," he says now with a delicious grin.
Crystal, 54, was the youngest of three brothers in a conservative yet unconventional family that claimed famed jazz singer Billie Holiday on its list of available babysitters.
Ever the comedian, Crystal can't resist a punch line to his anecdote: "The thing I was most scared of was relatives leaving something in my closet. And they were pretty scary. We used to call them the herring-breath monsters."
Crystal's dad ran the Commodore record store in Manhattan. His uncle, jazz and rock record producer Milt Gabler, founded Commodore Records and later Decca, where he supervised Bill Haley's Rock Around The Clock sessions.
Today, Crystal's monster-in-the-closet fear is relevant, thanks to the new Pixar Animation Studios and Walt Disney Pictures flick Monsters, Inc., expected to be one of the big hits of the holiday season. It opens Friday.
In Monsters, Inc., Crystal and John Goodman are the voices of two scary monsters who are best buddies and co-workers at a company called Monsters, Inc., which is the biggest energy source for the town of Monstropolis. The energy comes from the bottled screams of little human children who are visited each night by the best of the highly trained monsters.
The twist in the movie is that these monsters are actually more afraid of the children than vice versa. They believe human kids to be toxic and even a stray clothing item brought back from a child's bedroom inspires panic in Monstropolis.
When an adorable little girl named Boo crosses over from the dark side, Goodman's giant blue-green monster Sully and Crystal's little one-eyed lime-green monster Mike are obliged to rethink their prejudices and reorganize their lives. Meanwhile, a villainous monster tries to hunt Boo down to steal her screams.
"The movie is a towering achievement," Crystal says with wide-eyed enthusiasm. The actor -- who has been married for three decades to his high-school sweetheart Janice Goldfinger and is father to two daughters, Lindsay and Jennifer -- was already a big mushy fan of Pixar's two Toy Story flicks.
"They're staggering," Crystal says. "I voted for Toy Story as best picture and I was the stupid guy who said, 'I don't want to be Buzz Lightyear!' way back then."
Pixar co-founder and Toy Story director John Lasseter had offered the voice role to Crystal before hiring Tim Allen. Crystal said no because Pixar was aligned with Disney and his good friend Robin Williams was involved in a nasty money dispute with The Mouse House over Aladdin.
When Lasseter called again three years ago for Monsters, Inc., Williams had settled with Disney and Crystal was ready to agree before he even knew what his role would be. He remembers joking with Lasseter: "Whatever it is -- unless it's a fundraiser to help animated kids -- yes!"
He always knew, he says, "that the quality of the vision and the work would be great and it would be great to be involved in something that I would describe as 'a forever!' and that's an important thing."
Crystal is now all sentimental about Disney, too. "Just the other day, I saw (Monsters, Inc.) fully finished and had a couple of really strong reactions. The first thing that hit me, the first thing that really grabbed me, was 'Walt Disney Presents ...' I got this very emotional, gut-thrilling feeling. Forgetting the company and what it is now, Walt Disney meant a great deal to me and my kids and my mother as a kid ... To be part of his body of work, long after he's gone, but it still feels that he's there, well ..."
Jeez, Crystal is getting all choked just thinking about it and doesn't complete the thought. He doesn't need to.
Monsters, Inc. is everything and far more than he expected, he says. "The concept is so mature and so profound in so many ways, and that's hard to say about a movie. I throw these words around -- but it is. "
"The technical achievement is astounding," he continues, noting how this film's giant step ahead of the Toy Story movies rests in the detailed animation of fur, of realistic and expressive eyes and of the movement of clothes on the child's body.
"The reality of the characters is mesmerizing," Crystal continues, "and, more so than in any animated movie that I've ever seen, the acting is honoured by the work of these computer artists. It's amazing. Forgetting my little guy, John Goodman's performance is so stunning!"
For his character, the pugnacious, wise-cracking yet good-hearted monster Mike Wazowski, Crystal turned to the voice of the masochist Willie, whom he refined on Saturday Night Live. Willie was famous for saying "I hate when that happens."
Says Crystal: "It was that guy. That was the voice, basically, and I just amped him up and gave him some espresso. He should be just like Burgess Meredith (the crusty trainer) in Rocky or Jiminy Cricket after a lot of coffee -- annoyed, frustrated. He's runty. He's not the big scary guy."
Would he work for Pixar again?
"In a second!" says Crystal, adding he's already psyched to do a Monsters sequel. "It's so unique an experience because you're working in the dark and you just trust. But you're in the hands of the best people to do this -- so that's a great thing. It's so astounding what you can accomplish, the good that you can do!"
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