There is such “deep lineage” of Judaism in Hollywood, as movie producer Matt Baer puts it, that the whole town shuts down on Jewish holidays because everyone goes to synagogue, he told JNS last week in Los Angeles.
That’s true of Yom Kippur, too, although some appear to miss the point, Baer, a member at the Reform congregation Wilshire Boulevard Temple, told JNS during an hour-long conversation over coffee at a Starbucks.
“You have this idea of repenting for what it is that you have done wrong. ‘I’m sorry for doing this, and I’m sorry for doing this,’” he told JNS. “My favorite one is about ‘sorry for spreading gossip.’”
“In Hollywood, one moment you’re in temple talking about how you’re ashamed for gossiping, and then the minute you get in the car, you’re on the phone gossiping,” he said.
The son of writer Richard Baer—of “Bewitched,” “The Munsters” and “Leave It to Beaver” fame—the 61-year-old told JNS about his new holiday film “Merv,” which is about a depressed dog whose owners take him on a pick-me-up vacation to a whimsical dog beach.
The script came to him via a manager. “I just thought it was an original idea,” he told JNS. “Kindness. The connection that people feel with their dog.” (Baer doesn’t have a dog but said he has learned from trained movie dogs that they “have to be smart.”)
The film’s Christmas backdrop was a later development, he said. “The movie was fundamentally built around being in winter, because the main agenda is to get the dog out of the cold,” he told JNS.
The film’s central “dog beach” location was loosely inspired by a dog beach in San Diego. “Maybe it will inspire people to have their own kind of dog beach,” Baer said.
The dog’s owners are played by Charlie Cox and Jewish actress Zooey Deschanel. Baer told JNS that Deschanel “dances and sings in real life,” but that Cox had to put effort into mastering the choreography for an elaborate dance sequence at a senior living community.
“He went for it,” Baer said of Cox, who was “ready to do something different.”
‘Familial connection’
With a famous dad, the producer admits that nepotism can land a first job or arrange a first interview, but one needs to prove oneself, he said.
“You’ve been given the shot. Then it becomes about,” he said. “Do you have the talent to make it or not?”
He also dismisses the notion that Jews control the town.
“If you hired somebody just because they were Jewish and then they were the worst assistant known to mankind, they’re not going to keep their job,” he said.
He was drawn to films rather than television as a kid when he saw “Jaws” in 1975.
“The movie had a real impact on me,” he told JNS. “I thought, OK, I want to go into the movie business.”
“My father went to work in the morning, wrote an episode of television, it was done by Friday,” he said. “I understand intimately how writers think and behave and feel.”
Baer lights up when JNS asks about his family. His wife, Amy, “a successful studio executive for many years,” runs Artists Equity, an artist-led studio founded by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck.
They have two sons, Ethan and Ryan. “My sons have turned out to be great people,” he told JNS. “My parents were great parents, and I was very close to my father, so I needed to be able to replicate the kind of familial connection that I had.”
Baer also credits “Judaism’s connection to family.”
“My commitment to my family has paid off in a big way when it comes to knowing that my sons are really good people, who are going to continue in the lineage of my father and my grandfather,” he said.
“That’s the aspect of my life that I feel most satisfied about,” Baer told JNS, “in addition to being able to sustain a career that I care about and continue to be able to tell stories that I feel good about telling.”
“Merv,” which was released on Dec. 10 on Prime Video, is one of those stories. “I think ‘Merv’ is putting out good vibes into the world,” he said.
