Barry Sonnenfeld: Hollywood Success, Homebody Lifestyle

It was while attending New York University's film school, where he went, he explained, to avoid looking for a job, that Barry Sonnenfeld discovered he was "an idiot savant of lighting."

"I discovered that I knew how to shoot movies. After graduating, I bought a used 16mm camera, because I figured if I owned a camera, I could call myself a cameraman," he said.

From his seat on the floor where his 4-year-old daughter, Chloe, was building a tower out of - what else - videotapes, he beckoned a visitor into his Amagansett house overlooking Gardiner's Bay on a recent Saturday morning.

Coen Collaboration

Chomping his way through a bowl of bran flakes, he sounded a bit surprised as he reviewed the sequence of events that led to his own Los Angeles production company, to collaborating with Steven Spielberg, who is executive producer on his latest project, "Men in Black," and to his long list of Hollywood credits.

"I never worked my way up," he said. "I sort of called myself a cameraman and became a cameraman. Someone wanted me to direct 'The Addams Family,' so I did."

Mr. Sonnenfeld's career training came on the job. He was propelled headfirst into the movie business when he was offered $100 for three days' work by Joel Coen, whom he had met at a party. Mr. Coen and his brother Ethan, whose most recent movie was "Fargo," were raising money to shoot "Blood Simple" and had Mr. Sonnenfeld shoot a before-the-fact trailer to show prospective investors.

Eventually they made "Blood Simple," "Raising Arizona," and "Miller's Crossing" together.

He also worked as cinematographer with the directors Frank Perry, on "Compromising Positions"; Danny DeVito, on "Throw Momma From the Train"; Rob Reiner, on "When Harry Met Sally" and "Misery," and Penny Marshall, on "Big."

Directorial Debut

It was then that Scott Rudin, at the time head of production at Orion Pictures, which had produced "Raising Arizona" and "Big," asked him to direct "The Addams Family."

"We joke about how many people turned it down before me," Mr. Sonnenfeld said.

Midway through production, Orion, in bankruptcy, sold the film to Paramount, whose new chief, pronouncing what he saw of the unfinished film "unreleasable," asked to see the movie in its raw form. Mr. Sonnenfeld refused, telling him, in jest, that it was shaping up to be a "sadder 'Sophie's Choice.' "

Found A Niche

Paramount officials panicked, he said, until he assured them that he was kidding. "I assumed I was never going to direct again," he said. But "The Addams Family," his directorial debut, turned out to be a hit.

Mr. Sonnenfeld is aware of his guileless manner. He's almost "stupidly open," he says. His habit of saying just what he thinks, which his wife calls a form of "verbal Tou-rette's," usually would be problematic, but "I somehow get away with it," he said.

"The Addams Family" turned out to be a perfect vehicle for his quirky brand of humor, and he found his niche.

"The thing about being a director . . . you have to answer about 10,000 questions a day and you have to have an opinion about everything. Actually, directing is very much like being a good parent. What you need to do as a director and as a parent is to be consistently kind, be loving . . . that's what you have to be with actors."

Born April Fool

Born on April 1, 1953, a birth date he says has "marked him for life," Mr. Sonnenfeld is quick to add that, in addition to having a sense of humor, he is a sensitive man who is easily moved.

"I'm a weeper, whiner, and a crier," he said. "You should have seen me at 'An American Tail' [an animated children's movie]. When I wasn't crying, I was calling out, 'Fievel, look below!' "

Mr. Sonnenfeld credits his wife, Susan Ringo (whom he calls Sweetie), and his young daughter with providing his happiest moments.

Homebody At Heart

"Without Sweetie I would be a really pathetic guy . . . sort of living alone eating Chinese food."

He is happy that he no longer gauges his life by what he calls a "bachelor barometer" - a huge bowl brimming with packets of soy and duck sauce collected in the days of constant take-out. It was a detail the constant take-out. It was a detail the director included to show a part of Michael J. Fox's life in "For Love or Money."

At home, Mr. Sonnenfeld practices his parenting skills on Chloe and two stepdaughters, Sasha, 19, and Amy, 16. He and Ms. Ringo were married aboard a New Orleans riverboat during the wrap party for "Miller's Crossing," for which he served as cinematographer.

For a man whose craft is pure Hollywood, Mr. Sonnenfeld is something of a homebody. He said he welcomed the eastward spread of moviedom, which has enabled him to accomplish casting, shooting, and editing near his family.

Coming Next

"I very much hate to leave here," he said, adding that even trips to New York City had lost their appeal. "I really like to nap," he said.

"You can't nap in New York City, because there's so much going on around you." On the South Fork, there are "guilt-free naps," he said.

"I'm hoping I can find some movie I can shoot entirely in East Hampton so I never have to leave."

To that end, Mr. Sonnenfeld has John Guare, the playwright and screenwriter noted for "Six Degrees of Separation" and "Atlantic City," working on a script, another "black comedy."

And Mr. Sonnenfeld's own company, the Right Coast, has purchased the rights to "Swordfish," a true story written by David McClintock, about a Drug Enforcement Agency informant who was left, Mr. Sonnenfeld says, "to twist slowly in the wind."

Home Office

The director's home office, with its dark wood furniture, fireplace, leather couches, and a glass door with his name painted in gold, evokes that of a 1920s private detective. It is a look, in fact, evident in the Coen brothers' "Miller's Crossing," his personal favorite "in terms of how it looks."

His first East Hampton house was a modest New Sunshine design in Springs. When that house was sold, he used the proceeds, and then some, to buy two acres of waterfront land and build another, which Mr. Sonnenfeld considers a retreat.

"We're not part of the summer scene," Mr. Sonnenfeld said.

The ability to edit his movies in East Hampton is written into Mr. Sonnenfeld's contracts. Two of his films, "Get Shorty," an Elmore Leonard novel which he read and discussed with Danny DeVito, who purchased the rights, and "For Love or Money," were edited here, and, this winter he is completing post-production work on "Men In Black" here, too.

High-Tech Process

A science fiction/action adventure/black comedy starring Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones, the movie is about people claiming to have sighted U.F.O.s. They are visited by G-men (men in black) who convince them that they were mistaken.The story, which has long circulated as what Mr. Sonnenfeld calls an "urban legend," was first written as a comic book by Lowell Cunningham. The story was then made into a screenplay by Ed Solomon, who wrote "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure."

Mr. Sonnenfeld receives the dailies by Federal Express from California and watches them in a screening room in the basement of his house. He uses an office on Pantigo Road for twice-weekly video conference calls.

Cameo Appearances

In a high-tech feat using a NYNEX T-3 line, George Lucas's Industrial Light and Magic company, which is doing the special effects for the film, beams them to Mr. Sonnenfeld, who is able to see his California colleagues and to use a cursor to point to on-screen effects under discussion.

"This movie is so laden with special effects," he said, "even though I'm in post-production, I'm still directing the movie."

The movie's final mix, adding sound and music, will be done in New York City in April, and the film is scheduled for release in early July.

Like Alfred Hitchcock, Mr. Sonnenfeld includes cameo appearances of himself, and sometimes of family members, in most of his movies, though he said, "I'm so bad it's hard to find tiny little roles for me that won't ruin the movie."

His sense of humor shows in the roles he selects for himself: In "Get Shorty" he was a hotel doorman dressed in a red, foppish, regal costume; in "The Addams Family," he was a face at the window of Gomez Addams's train, and in "Men in Black," he will be a mug shot on a wall in the G-men's headquarters of aliens disguised as humans, along with Chloe, Newt Gingrich, and Steven Spielberg, among others.

Personal Touches

Other personal touches to be found in his movies include a child's painting signed "Susan Ringo" on a school wall behind Morticia Addams, and the appearance, as extras in "Throw Momma From the Train," of his wife, stepdaughters, and in-laws.

Ms. Ringo also had a speaking part in "For Love or Money," which was filmed in Southampton. "Sweetie's really a good actress," he said.

In part, he said, his sense of humor developed in "self-defense" while growing up as an "only child of overprotective Jewish parents" in the Washington Heights section of New York City.

For Real?

He swears that once, in 1970, at 2 a.m. at an Earth Day concert in Madison Square Garden "with 19,600 people and Jimi Hendrix warming up," he heard his name announced over the public address system:

"Barry Sonnenfeld, call your mother."

Fearing the worst, he did. "I just wanted to know when you'd be home," she said.

"Most people in the arts are both self-effacing and sure of themselves at the same time," he believes. "I'm very happy, very fulfilled, and I'm very nervous. I sort of admire myself and can't stand myself at the same time."

As a student at Manhattan's High School of Music and Art, he played the French horn. He then chose political science as his N.Y.U. major because "I had no interest in anything, and that was an easy one."

Belief In Education

He said the first three years of college were "the worst three years of my life, except for junior high school." He transferred to Hampshire College for his senior year.

Mr. Sonnenfeld now takes education very seriously. "The purpose of education is to help you figure out how to think, rather than train you for something," he said. "My dad told me, "Just figure out what you want to do, and you'll figure out how to make a living at it." He and his wife are among those who recently helped found the Hayground School.

Soon he will begin serving as a mentor to students at N.Y.U., and he expects to work with Dreamworks, the new Spielberg-Geffen-Katzenberg studio, to create animated features.

"I'm excited about doing something that would interest Chloe," he said.