So happy together, and with their work

Commentary

Carrell, Kinnear and Suhrstedt were close to their Los Angeles homes as the movie roamed the Southern California freeways, and Alan Arkin's son, Adam, was in Los Angeles, too. Dayton and Faris felt that part of what made Little Miss Sunshine such a happy shoot is that so many members of the production, including the directors, had families in Los Angeles, the movie's base. Dayton and Faris are the parents of twin boys, 10, James and Everett, and a girl, Augusta, 13. "It was great to remain a parent through the process," says Faris. "We were having so much fun, I think they could feel we were happy in our work."

Maybe something in the couple's genes also meshed with the material. Faris' grandfather had been an electrician for MGM on The Wizard of Oz and David O. Selznick on Gone With the Wind; her father was a sound editor on MGM's Tom and Jerry cartoon series. Just as intriguing, though, is that her grandmother and great-grandfather and Dayton's grandfather were in vaudeville.

With Little Miss Sunshine, they create a thing of laughter and beauty out of the baggy-pants burlesque of contemporary family life. In vaudeville days, they would have been headliners.

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