The 22 Stars Of Marley And Me!

By now most of you have seen or heard about Marley and Me, the colorful comedy, based on the true story of a journalist and his unruly but incredibly lovable dog Marley.

While the movie features some of Hollywood's biggest stars, the true star is of course Marley - or should we say Marley(s) - for it took 22 Labradors of various sizes and talents to get all the aspects of the original Marley right!

However, John Madrid, one of the eight animal trainers responsible for the dog casting, said it was definitely easier getting the dogs to (mis)behave in the movie than it was to train the crows for Charlotte's Web or the myriad of animals in Enchanted.

He said that anytime when one of them did something like slobbering on the stars or chewing up one of the telephones on the set, instead of discouraging them, they would all clap and cheer loudly at the good job!

Ray Beal, another trainer revealed some of the tricks they used to get the dog(s) to do what they wanted for the movie. While the dogs were always ready to slobber over the stars, when they wanted them to be really really affectionate, they pasted Jennifer Aniston's and Owen Wilson's faces with baby food - and boy did the dogs show affection!

And then there were occasions when the dogs did some impromptu scenes that were not supposed to be in the movie at all. One of them was when Clyde, a four-year old 75lb biscuit colored Labrador, pushed Jennifer down flat on her face. The scene was so good that it was written into the movie script.

In fact, Clyde who had the biggest role as Marley, was so good that he aced the scenes in the first try. The human stars on the other hand, were not as good - they therefore rehearsed their scenes with a stuffed dog before bringing Clyde in for the final shot.

Needless to say, for the 22 dogs, this movie was definitely a dream come true - imagine getting toys and treats for destroying things! Now if only they could make something similar starring kids!

Source: Dallasnews.com freep.com