bodyField=The next step was assembling a cast with the talent to match the scope of the film. The director and the producers looked to worldwide superstar Jackie Chan. A gifted athlete and physical comedian blessed with warmth and accessibility, Chan plays Passepartout, Fogg's valet, assistant, protector, and, on several occasions, savior. By the end of the film, one might even call them friends.

Producer Hal Lieberman sees the role of Passepartout-who is involved in a key subplot of the film that involves the Chinese valet returning a valuable jade Buddha to his home village of Lanzhou- as an opportunity for Chan to reach out to a new audience.  "We asked Jackie to show sides of himself as an actor and a physical comedian that represent the next level of what he can do," says Lieberman. "I think it's the first time that we asked Jackie to play not just to grown-ups but to kids as well. And he is fantastic at it."

Chan welcomed the acting challenge. "I really like the audience to treat me like an actor, not just an action star," he says. "I'd rather be like a Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman, or Al Pacino - you can act until you're 60, 70, 80.  But an action star� how long can he keep fighting?"

But in one way, Chan says, the role was not such a stretch.  "I play a Chinese man who comes to England, a fish out of water.  That's what I am in real life � it required no research!"

"I'm really happy to be in an adventure movie that spans the globe and a family movie. Everybody knows the story; I'm honored to be involved," says Chan.

One thing Chan had to relearn for a role in which he impersonates a French valet was the French language.  As a child in China, Chan had learned the language and spoke it fluently.  As the years went by, though, he fell out of practice.  With a little guidance, he learned to sing a mean "Fr�re Jacques."

When he wasn't learning something, Chan was educating the cast and crew about martial arts and film combat, as well as designing fight sequences. Inspired by everyone from Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin to Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire, Chan and Coraci put together several of the film's most exciting and dynamic scenes. Chan performed in them, too, often going through 20 of the same costume in one day and dozens of pairs of shoes. "I taught the fighting to so many people," he says. "It was fun.  I can make anyone a great action hero!"

Hong Kong-born Chan is an accomplished instructor. When Chan was younger, he became skilled at the 'southern style' of martial arts, dominated by jumping. Later, he learned 'northern style,' which incorporated more movement. As he completed more movies, he learned everything from boxing, Karate, Hapkido and Judo to skateboarding and motorcycle riding. Today, he calls his style "Chinese chop suey.  Everything!"

Even so, Chan pays his director the ultimate compliment.  "Frank really concentrates on the movie. He's very good. Sometimes even he taught me how to fight!  He's full of energy."  

Chan's own exuberance and professionalism was contagious among the crew, and many recognized that Coraci/Chan was a winning combination.  "Cutting a Jackie Chan fight scene is great, because he really knows action thoroughly," says editor Tom Lewis. "He's a master because he knows storytelling and comedy; his instincts are terrific. It's great working with Frank because he really knows how to construct a scene dynamically; he knows how to weave the action into the story in an organic way. He and Jackie are both thinking three steps ahead of the game." 

"For me, it's always fun making a film," says Chan. "And of course, going around the world is more fun for me because I see so many things. I learn so many things when I travel. I really like to show the audience some Chinese culture."

When it came to the role of Phileas Fogg, Frank Coraci wanted English actor Steve Coogan right from the beginning:  "You had to believe that Phileas was a genius, but he also had to be funny in a non-self conscious way.  That was always my vision for the role.  Once I saw Steve in '24 Hour Party People' I knew I had found Phileas."

Cary Granat at Walden agreed: "Steve Coogan is the Peter Sellers of our generation. He is incredibly talented."

One of Britain's biggest television stars, Coogan's best-known creation is Alan Partridge, a role he has reprised in several series on British television and has won him several awards, including three British Comedy Awards.  His show, "The Man Who Thinks He's It," was nominated for a 1999 Laurence Olivier Theatre Award for Best Entertainment for the 1998 season.

Coogan was drawn to the role for several reasons. "It's an iconic part and a famous name. It's great to play a big character like that," he explains. "It's quite a responsibility to play a famous character, to become someone who people already have ideas about and try and fulfill their expectations.  But that attracted me to the part.

"Early on, I got to know Frank's style as a director," recalls Coogan. "I was really impressed with his intuitive skills in terms of comedy and comic timing and comic beats.  He's a collaborator-he made me feel like he wanted my opinions."

Coogan plunged into the role of Fogg, an old-fashioned English gentleman faced with an outrageous wager courtesy of Lord Kelvin of the Royal Academy of Science. "Kelvin bets him that he can't go around the world in 80 days," says the actor. "If he fails, he has to give up his membership in the Royal Academy of Science. If he wins the bet, he becomes the president of the Royal Academy of Science. A lot is at stake."
Fogg tries to pitch his inventions to the Royal Academy, but according to Coogan, "He's a thorn in their side. None of his inventions really work; they're all half-baked."

Phileas the inventor is also somewhat relationship-challenged. "He relates to machines very well, but not to people," says Coogan. "He's not very impressed with art. He's one of those people who think science is the answer to everything and art is irrelevant."

One of the people who help change Phileas' point of view is a lovely French artist named Monique.  "Just like Phileas, Monique is ahead of her time," says Frank Coraci.  "She is a woman with a passion and the boldness to go for what she believes, yet she still has the ability to be compassionate, loving and fun."  Belgian born C%C3%A9cile de France experienced a combination of honor, pleasure, enthusiasm, and a bit of fear starring in her first big-budget English language film. "This film is a true adventure film like the ones I saw when I was a child," says De France. "This is the kind of movie that made me dream, made me want to be an actress."

When filmmakers started scouting for "Around the World in 80 Days," "We had dancing around in our heads the perfect, ideal woman to play Monique LaRoche, the romantic lead to Phileas Fogg," says Phyllis Alia. "We didn't know who she was yet, but we knew she was a brilliant French actress."

The filmmakers looked at dozens of tapes and took recommendations from casting directors. "No one even came close to C%C3%A9cile. She is miraculous," says Alia, who compares her to Ingrid Bergman and Dorothy Lamour. "She has that throwback quality to older films, to older actresses who had screen presence without saying a word. She illuminates the screen. There aren't many young actresses that are beautiful and charming that have comedic timing. C%C3%A9cile de France has it."

De France describes Monique as "a young French avant-garde painter who is not taken seriously by Paris critics. She learns that Phileas and Passepartout are traveling around the world and decides to join them. She believes that the wonders of the world will lift her painting to new levels. On the outside Monique is an artist, so people think she has her head in the clouds. But in reality she's like a sponge. She wants to learn everything. She's ready to do anything to satisfy her curiosity."

De France sees the romance that blossoms between Phileas and Monique as quite natural because "Phileas wants to push science further, and Monique wants to push art further."

"We ended up with a really charming trio," says producer Bill Badalato of the casting. "They are three very different people, which is exactly what the story is about."

"It was always about casting the best people from the start," says Frank Coraci. "We thought Jackie would be the perfect Passepartout. Steve Coogan is really a genius-funny without being self-conscious. Cecile just lit up the screen. She was strong, but also lovable and sweet and smart. The three leads are all from other countries, which is in the spirit of the movie."

The winner of an Academy Award� in 2002 for his supporting role in "Iris," versatile British character actor Jim Broadbent came on board to play Lord Kelvin, the president of the eccentrics in the Royal Academy of Science who makes the wager with Fogg. "He's an amazing performer," says Badalato.

"Lord Kelvin is essentially the baddie," explains Broadbent.  "He's the nasty character who's trying at every turn to prevent this wonderful journey from happening. He is a thoroughly unpleasant man. He chooses to believe that science and civilization have developed as much as they can, and the status quo suits him fine."

The comedic aspects of the part appealed to Broadbent, who is known primarily for his dramatic performances. "The film benefits from a light touch, I think," he says. "There's a cartoony element to this that I haven't really been part of in film before. It's quite bold and broad in its comedic way, and it's great fun for that."

Director Coraci helped Broadbent make the most of the character's frequent humorous moments. "It's great to work with someone who is a specialist in comedy and knows exactly how comedic timing works on film," says Broadbent of Coraci.

Ewen Bremner, a Scottish actor best known for his hard-edged performances in films like "Trainspotting" and "Black Hawk Down," tackled the crowd-pleasing role of Inspector Fix. "Ewen is nothing less than astonishing," says Bill Badalato. "He's played in very intense contemporary dramas, but here he is in this period piece doing great comedy."

The villainous Fix, hired by Lord Kelvin to follow the Fogg threesome around the world to keep them from winning the wager, is essentially a human punching bag. "Every single time he appears he winds up being pasted to the floor," says Bremner. "He is always out of his depth, but he thinks he's totally in command of the situation.

"I try to apprehend them but I'm foiled at every turn," continues Bremner. "I wind up horribly destroyed every time I poke my head up." When he's not being squashed, burned, beaten, crushed, dragged, trampled, broken or generally wrecked, Fix "has to jump off buildings and fall out of windows. I get kicked out of steaming trains. Every nasty thing that could happen to me happens to me in this film. Jackie uses me as a shield and as a weapon."

Says Coraci, "I always envisioned Fix's character being a human cartoon character.  Ewen is that and an amazing actor as well."

Despite the abuse that Fix endures, Bremner gives kudos to Jackie Chan, who conjured up many of the outrageous hijinks in the scenes. "Jackie Chan choreographed fantastically clever and funny sequences for every scene that I was involved in," says Bremner. "They were really well set up-Jackie put them together so that you don't just fall out of a window or get a knock on the head. It was all set up so that each little second is filled with another comic catastrophe. It was great."

British actor Ian McNeice plays London chief of police Colonel Kitchner. "He's a pathetic idiot, really. A buffoon," says McNeice of his character. "He gets everything wrong and he gets things thrown at him. He has a horrible time� until the end."

Hong Kong born Karen Joy Morris, one of Asia's most popular actresses, will never forget working with Jackie Chan, with whom she engages in a brilliant fight scene in the film. In her first English language film, Morris plays General Fang, whom she describes as "really severe and menacing. Of course she's a female villain, which makes her more interesting. It's always nice to play the baddie, and to be able to fight Jackie in one of his movies is about the coolest thing there is."
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