ou don't get a voice any more recognizable and filled with character than Garry Marshall. For those who have listened to the audio commentaries on such films as Raising Helen or Pretty Woman you also know he is a bit sporadic when he talks. The man grew up in The Bronx and his spirit never left, bada-bing, and he is a lot of fun to talk with as his energy just fills the room.

Marshall last directed The Princess Diaries 2 and this time around he is voicing a hefty chicken named Buck Cluck whom he tells me he related to in a couple of ways except Buck is a bit heavier, but Garry is quick to say, "but it's all feathers."

Buck Cluck is Chicken Little's father in this film and he is, at times, a bit hard on his son, which Garry really seemed to draw a connection with when he thinks back to his own parenting, "I wasn't supportive on a number of occasions and I felt bad about it and then, like Buck Cluck, we're not perfect human beings so if you mess it up you just come back and try to fix it. A lot of people mess it up and they're too embarrassed. I messed things up and I came back and I talked to my son and we just kept open communications. My answer to love today is communication."

Opposite Garry Marshall, playing the part of Chicken Little is Zach Braff, someone Garry had met before, "I lectured once, [Zach] was in the audience, and we met and then he did a show called 'Scrubs' that I know the people on and then suddenly he was in this."

He continued, "I was very excited about working with him and we were doing Chicken Little and then we would talk about how he was doing with [Garden State], he had finished shooting and what he was going to do, he was editing. So it became a good relationship."

Considering Garry Marshall has directed such well-loved films as Pretty Woman and Runaway Bride, you have to wonder what kind of conversations the two had, "He would ask this and that. You know, these young directors, the hardest thing is saying I want to do it my way and the guys with money are saying they want to do it their way. Filmmaking is not so hard without the politics, but the politics are a big thing."

As a young filmmaker Garry learned early on that in order to get the studios off your back you have to act... nuts. Apparently, Garry hadn't made his point clear, even in 1999 when he was finishing up Runaway Bride as he tells us the following long, but funny, story.

Garry begins, "We're doing Runaway Bride and I use the music of U2 a lot because it makes you think something important is going to happen. It's a lock. If you shove in U2 they go, 'Whoa! Something's happening here!' [The studio] wanted to open with Dixie Chicks and cartoon music and chuckity boppedy bobby, here comes a silly movie.

"Long story short, they kept sending me these tapes while I'm editing. They said to me, 'What about this? This could be your opening?' I said, 'No, I like U2.' Though it's a double edged sword, U2 costs a dollar. They said, 'Let's do cheap.' I said, 'No, it's better with U2.'

"Anyway, they took the opening of my film and they recut it to fit this other music they wanted me to have, which was not so nice. So at that point I took the CD and I took a hammer and I broke all the plastic, all into pieces. Then I took the CD and I put it in the microwave and we burned it until it turned black and curled up. Then we took the black thing and all the plastic and put it in an envelope and sent it back with a nice note saying, 'Would you please stop sending me songs for this spot. You made me crazy!' That's what happened and we sent it back.

"They never sent again but it became the benchmark. They would send me songs for other spots and they would say, 'How did he like it? Did he put it in the microwave?' It became a new way of communicating without yelling at people. That's the way I work, everybody has to find they're way to get through people."

I am sure Zach Braff wasn't microwaving any CDs; then again I think the Garden State soundtrack was at the top of the iTunes charts for months so someone must have done something right.

Garry Marshall seems to me a man that is never satisfied with the norm and things weren't any different on Chicken Little as he appreciated the director's decision to bring he and Zach together in the recording booths, he tells us, "I think in the middle of this movie they saw that the relationship between Chicken Little and the father was going pretty well, that's what's part of this, let's do it better."

He continued, "So, they let Zach and I work in the same room so we could do the timing thing better and the timing was our own not just cut together with the tape. I need the warmth; I prefer looking in somebody's eyes and patting somebody on the back while I'm acting. It helped me a lot and I thought that Mark [Dindal] and Randy [Fullmer] were very enlightened people to go with what works."

As for Garry's schedule now, he is content doing plays and opera as he just finished up an opera and is set to begin a 'Happy Days' musical with a whole new cast at the Falcon Theatre in Burbank, California. After that he says he will most likely find his way to another movie in the summer of 2006.

But, before leaving there was no way we weren't going to talk Julia Roberts, an actress who claims she is hanging it up once her New York stage play ends. We asked Garry if he had talked to her about this considering in Runaway Bride and her breakout role in Pretty Woman.

"I think she's got the kids now, she's got a life, she was never that comfortable in the limelight and I think the play will be something exciting for her and who knows. She's happy, but you never know. I don't want to retire because I have too much fun."

He continued, "She was just never comfortable with the press and her life being paraded on the TV. I went through that with her when we did Pretty Woman, nobody knew who she was, she had done a movie, but nobody knew her. Then, before Runaway Bride, I would go to lunch with her. One year we did lunch a number of times, every single time we had to go through the kitchen to get in, she can't be alone. On Runaway Bride we were in Maryland and they came from miles around to see. It was so much pressure on her to be Julia Roberts."

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing, Pretty Woman 2? Where would that go? Garry tells us that he, Julia and Richard Gere made a pact that if the movie was to ever be made they would only do it if the three of them did it together. Chances are… not happening, but Garry did leave us with one final message:

"Chicken Little 2 I would do in a minute!"

Check out Garry Marshall as Buck Cluck in Chicken Little in theaters on November 4.