Frank Oz is an icon of popular culture, but chances are you probably wouldn't recognize him if he walked past you on the street.
(And if he walked past you on the street, you'd probably think Oz, who is tall, distinguished-looking and wears elegant eyeglasses, was an architect, or perhaps a gallery owner.)
Not being recognized is fine by him. Oz, 63, is happy to keep a low profile. He's been a film director for 25 years and an actor for more than 40. And then there's that other career of his: Master puppeteer. Oz worked with the late Jim Henson for many years, and is perhaps best known as the man who brought to life and voiced Grover, Cookie Monster, Miss Piggy and Fozzie Bear.
This is not news to those who live in the Star Wars universe, of course, because Oz is also Yoda.
(Oz it was who Yoda's odd speech pattern created.)
The British-born Oz has directed such film as Little Shop of Horrors, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, In &Out, Bowfinger, The Score and The Stepford Wives. He latest film is the British farce Death At a Funeral, a comedy of manners (bad manners, as it happens) that will make you laugh out loud. The film has a terrific ensemble cast that mixes American and U.K. actors, and includes Matthew Macfadyen, Alan Tudyk, Rupert Graves, Peter Dinklage and Daisy Donovan. It opens today.
Over the phone from New York, Oz talks about Death at a Funeral and the hard work that goes into the pacing and rhythm of such a comedy. He actually sits in screenings with a stopwatch. "And I record every preview I do, and attach audience reaction to the visuals, as I edit. It's just a lot of work, which I love, but it's not casual."
And it's not like clockwork, either. "Because you never know how an audience will react. But you can set a rhythm. And sometimes we get lucky, sometimes not. And this time I think we got lucky."
Oz is the son of puppeteers, so despite studying journalism at university and later hoping to be a theatre director, there was a certain inevitability to life on Sesame Street. "I didn't want to be a puppeteer, I had no intention of being a puppeteer, but by happenstance I got good at it," he understates.
For all his huge success on so many fronts, Oz has carefully kept himself out of the spotlight. He says, "I'm a private guy. I don't have a publicist. If I had a publicist I'd probably pay the publicist to keep me out of the papers. I like working, but the whole fame thing is empty to me. It doesn't interest me at all."
For the obvious reasons -- to keep his family and children out of the limelight, to avoid the downside of celebrity -- Oz tries to guard his time and his private life carefully. It doesn't always work.
"The muppets and Yoda aspect make it intense wherever I go. Part of that is because I don't ever do any conventions of any kind. And because I always say no, the intensity of getting an autograph is more." He laughs, sounding a bit chagrined.
As for what comes next in his varied career, Oz says he's not much of a planner. "I just do what I believe is best and what excites me. And the career just kind of somehow happens. I don't plan it... I'm not a workaholic. I read scripts and try to get the next thing," he says. "I'm a firm believer in: 'Man makes plans and God laughs,' you know? I've been fortunate."
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