Muppet Man Frank Oz Tries Directing

NEW YORK (AP) - In front of Frank Oz was every movie director's greatest longing - and even deeper fear.

There stood Marlon Brando, Robert De Niro and Edward Norton, perhaps the three greatest actors of their generations - representing four Academy Award wins and a dozen other Oscar nominations.

And there stood Oz - a former puppeteer, supplier of funny Muppet voices and maker of frothy comedies - directing his first drama.

Or was he directing history? (Brando and De Niro - the young and old Vito Corleone from The Godfather and The Godfather Part II respectively - are doing scenes together for the first time.)

"It is thrilling," says Oz. "But I can't see it that way. If I did, I'm in the wrong business. I mean, no work's going to get done, nothing's going to come alive.

"Maybe in about five years from now, I'll look and say, 'Holy cow! I directed Marlon Brando and Rob De Niro!' But that's not what you do on the set. What you do is you do your job and try and get that fertile ground."

Oz offers the result with The Score a thriller about three thieves who plot to steal a priceless golden scepter from the fortresslike customs house in Montreal.

Brando plays the debonair, old-school Max who unites De Niro's cool, jazz-loving Nick with Norton's character, an upstart cat burglar named Jackie. The plot reeks of tension, treachery and ego.

"Before we started the movie, Edward and Bob and I and Marlon were totally aware it was not just about these three different thieves and three generations, it was also about three different actors and generations," says Oz.

And three potential headaches.

None have a reputation as blushing violets when it comes to offering advice on everything from scripts to shooting schedules.

"It was not an easy shoot," concedes Oz, 56. "Marlon and I did not particularly get along very well at the end of the day, not because he was difficult, but because it was a difficult situation.

"There are sometimes creative differences. Not with Bob so much, but Marlon certainly, sometimes Edward. And that's OK. That's what rehearsals are for. That's what conflicts are there for - in order to create something on screen."

Oz might seem like the perfect man for the job: He is, after all, a puppeteer trained to completely control his performers, including such favorites as Fozzie Bear, Grover and Miss Piggy.

Oz, though, doesn't like the analogy.

"I've always thought having creative control is an oxymoron. How can you control creativity?" he asks.

For his part, Oz's creativity has steadily increased since he picked up his first puppet. A child with low self-esteem, Oz grew to appreciate the fuzzy toys as a middleman to the outside world.

"As a kid who was self-effacing and shy, it was a good conduit without showing myself. And then eventually I didn't need to do that anymore and became myself," he says.

Working with Jim Henson's troupe for television's Sesame Street and then The Muppet Show, Oz helped make The Muppet Movie co-directed The Dark Crystal with Henson and directed The Muppets Take Manhattan

Besides Muppets, Oz has voiced Yoda in the Star Wars movies and made cameo appearances in John Landis' The Blues Brothers, Trading Places, and An American Werewolf in London

"I think it's very good for a director to once in a while get in front of a camera and know sheer terror," he explains.

Oz directed Little Shop of Horrors - which featured the voracious puppet Audrey II - and then left such playthings behind at the helm of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, What About Bob?, The Indian in the Cupboard, In & Out and Bowfinger.

That's when he found himself asked to direct The Score - basically being asked to tell the stars of such films as On the Waterfront, Raging Bull and Primal Fear what to do.

"I didn't see the nervousness," says co-producer Gary Foster, who often stopped by the set. "I'm sure he to had to be - I would have been - but he handled it very calmly."

Oz says the nervousness came before shooting. "Truth is, when you cast them, you cast them individually. When they get on the set, who knows if it will work out? Maybe the chemistry is terrible. Maybe they don't connect. Maybe they don't like the smell of each other," he says.

"You really don't know. Just because they're incredible actors doesn't mean they will work well together. So fortunately I took a sigh of relief when I saw things seemed to be working."

Oz says once things began clicking, he could sit back and just let things happen. On the first day of shooting, for example, he let Brando experiment on several takes, then gingerly pulled him back to the script.

"I guess my biggest job is to keep my eyes on the prize, which is the story and the characters. So if they veer off - and I want them to improv and ad-lib - I'm the guy that's got to kind of bring them back inside the envelope."

Now comes one last fear - "other people's expectations of it being so extraordinary because you have these actors."

"It's always a problem when you have people together that are thought of so highly," Oz says. "I just pushed those expectations away."

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