Dan Aykroyd: Idol Chatter
The star of Christmas With the Kranks on John Belushi's death, kisssing Jamie Lee Curtis, and making a career out of pure fun.
PREMIERE: I’m exhausted just thinking about it: Since you became a Saturday Night Live star in 1975, you’ve done 60 films over four decades, including this year’s 50 First Dates and Stephen Fry’s Bright Young Things. Now you’ve got a high-profile reunion with your old Trading Places babe, Jamie Lee Curtis, in Christmas With the Kranks. But, hey, dude, didn’t you say you were gonna retire, like, three years ago?
I’d love to wind it down—and I’m not looking for things to do. [laughs] But when Drew Barrymore calls and says, “Come be my neurologist,” you go. And Jamie Lee, she’s like a sister to me. And to work with Stephen Fry in England in a film about the ’30s, my favorite period of all? I’m the luckiest working actor in the world. But [as for retiring], well, I think I’ve said as much as could be said in any good career, but it’s really more of a physical thing. It’s more about the back, the knees, the neck, the old stunt falls. Luckily, I have no pins or concussions—I’m still insurable. [laughs]
And, apparently, hot as well, as Jamie Lee has deemed you her career-best screen kisser.
Well, that’s because I know how to kiss in a restrained and withdrawn manner that doesn’t disturb. [laughs] So it’s, basically, like kissing Fred Garvin [Aykroyd’s entirely unhot SNL “male prostitute” character].
Eewww. Do you get another Jamie liplock in The Kranks anyway?
No. This time I just get to run beside her in a car and have her close the power window on my fingers. [laughs] So, again, a note to producers and directors out there: Aykroyd is insurable and wants to work with Jamie Lee Curtis again.
I thought you weren’t looking for work, buddy. But speaking of it, when your best friend and collaborator John Belushi O.D.’ed in 1982, you two had been headed toward being the biggest comedy team since Hope and Crosby. Did you worry after his death that you were maybe all washed-up?
I was more grieved by the personal loss, and then disturbed on the business level about the many things we had planned together. [At the time], we had a multiplatinum album, a hit movie, a single, I was 29, he was 33, we had the whole world ahead of us. So it stopped me pretty cold. But then I did Doctor Detroit, which is my most important, if not, perhaps, my best film, because I met my wife, Donna [Dixon, to whom he’s been married for nearly 22 years and with whom he has three children], who saved my life. After that happened, things fell into place beautifully: Trading Places, Ghostbusters, my family.
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Favorite Dan Aykroyd film:
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| The Blues Brothers |
 0% |
| Coneheads |
0% |
| Driving Miss Daisy |
0% |
| Ghostbusters |
67% |
| Great Outdoors |
0% |
| My Girl |
33% |
| Trading Places |
0% |
TOTAL ENTRIES: 3
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