20 years after the release of Wedding Crashers, Jane Seymour still thanks co-star Owen Wilson for her funniest line in the film. Fathom Entertainment is re-releasing the comedy, which screens in theaters Thursday and Dec. 11.
Seymour plays Kathleen, the wife of politician William Cleary (Christopher Walken). Kathleen tries to seduce John after he and Jeremy tag along to the weekend-long wedding of her daughter, Claire (Rachel McAdams). While the film is rated R for language and nudity, Seymour did not bare all for her scene with Wilson.
"It was a closed set, so there was nobody, almost nobody visible when we were doing it," Seymour said. "I was never actually ever naked. That's another disappointment for many people because they keep looking to see. 'I must be able to see something there.'"
Wilson keeps his hands over Seymour's breasts, but he gave Seymour the biggest punchline of the scene where Kat blames John after she leaves unsatisfied.
"When we did it and he got over the embarrassment, and me too, of having his hands on my breasts, he said to me, he whispered to me, 'When we finish the scene and I leave, just say, "pervert,'" she said. "That was 100% Owen. It was not scripted. The director didn't know we were going to do it. Nobody knew. It was brilliant. It was just the icing on the cake of a great scene."The rewards from Wedding Crashers continue 20 years on as Seymour says Kat is still one of the roles she is frequently recognized for in public. She can easily distinguish them from fans of her shows Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, Harry Wild or others because they quote Kat's lines.
"If they're guys and they're, like, 35, definitely it's Wedding Crashers," Seymour said. "It's very flattering actually, but these really hot young guys come running up to me and they go, 'Kitty Kat. Do Kitty Kat.'"
"I will be in an elevator or going somewhere, and suddenly a middle-aged woman, or a woman almost my age, will jump into the elevator and say, 'Are you Kitty Kat? Are you, are you? My son says you're Kitty Kat,'" Seymour said.
Seymour was a distinguished addition to the Wedding Crashers cast in 2005, and remembers stiff competition for the role.
"Every actress my age and apparently even slightly older tried out for it," Seymour said. "I know because I met some of them who kind of would look at me askance."
Director David Dobkin was a fan of Seymour from the 1973 James Bond movie Live and Let Die, in which she played Solitaire, the psychic who loses her powers after she sleeps with James Bond (Roger Moore). Seymour said Dobkin didn't even fully appreciate the value of casting Dr. Quinn as a seductress.
"The thing that was funny for me was that they did not realize that to have iconic Dr. Quinn person play Kitty Kat would be humorous in itself before I even did anything," Seymour said. "They had no idea."
In her Acorn TV series Harry Wild, Seymour plays Harry herself, who has her fair share of suitors while she solves mysteries.
"I am having a career right now of playing older women who somehow find love or relationships later on in life, which is not something that we normally watch," Seymour said.
Acorn TV has not decided on a Season 6 for Harry Wild yet. So the show is prepared for either a season finale or series finale at the end of Season 5.
"They did shoot two endings," she said. "If we never see it again, there would not be like a grand ending. It just would be the end of an episode. But we also shot something that could tease to something else happening."
Though busy filming, Seymour hopes to find time to attend a showing of Wedding Crashers in a theater on Dec. 4 or 11. She said she would have to sneak in to avoid causing a scene, but would like to enjoy the film with an audience.
"I think it's one of those things where people have seen it so many times, they know what's going to come next and they're laughing ahead of time," she said. "Especially, there'll be some people who've never seen it as well. That'll be exciting."
