USA: Actresses Sarah Jessica Parker, Diane Keaton and cast of "The Family Stone" celebrate the love of kin at the film's Los Angeles premiere

Actress Sarah Jessica Parker and co-star Diane Keaton were all hugs on the red carpet on Tuesday (December 6), making the Los Angeles premiere of their film "The Family Stone" look more like a family reunion than a Hollywood premiere. The former "Sex and the City" star plays Meredith Morton, actor Dermot Mulroney's uptight girlfriend, a complicated person who his eccentric family immediately recognize as someone who would be a nightmare in-law. "She is not at all someone I relate to except that I like her very much. But you know you do not have to relate to someone to play them. What I loved about her is that I did not know her, I did not know anyone like her, and I never played anyone like her. I loved where she was in the story and and I love the people that Tom created around her," Parker told Reuters at the premiere. The comedy with a dash of tragedy sees sublime Parker, who dares to be unlikable, in a totally different direction from New Yorker Carrie Bradshaw, the role that made her an international star. The film also stars Diane Keaton, Craig T. Nelson, Claire Danes, Rachel McAdams and Luke Wilson. Mom Sybil Stone (Keaton) is not too impressed with the uptight careerist fiancee (Parker) whom her son Everett Stone (Mulroney) brings home to meet his family on Christmas. Keaton blends humour and heartbreak in the film that honours the the mad-dog anarchy of family during the holidays. "I think that the movie is saying 'family!'. It is all about family. The love of family and the fact that it is Christmas and you know all those values that we all have,' Keaton said after having a hug- est with her fellow actors on the red carpet. "Well Diane Keaton first of all is just one of the greatest actresses we have. She has this wonderful kind of frantic energy it is always under the surface like about to explode. She is beautiful. I look at her and I want to be like her she is so intelligent. I am so excited to see the the two of the them on screen together her and Sarah Jessica isn't that a great combination?," said actress Virginia Madsen, who was nominated for an Academy Award for her supporting role in "Sideways". "The Family Stone" producer Michael London worked on such films as "Sideways", "House of Sand and Fog" starring Jennifer Connelly and Ben Kingsley, and "Thirteen" starring Holly Hunter. Tyrone Giordano, a hearing impaired actor who plays a gay man in the family, said that he was surprised that his co-star Parker is so petite. "She is so cute. You see people on screen you think they are huge and then you meet them and they are short. But her spirit is so big," Giordano said. "The Family Stone" opens in the United States on December

ITN Source | December 8, 2005

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