Billy Crystal

The idea for My Giant grew out of a real friendship of Billy Crystal's. Kevin Maher writes that the film came out of his friendship with his fellow actor Andre Roussimoff, who died in 1993. By Maher, Crystal is everywhere in it, from the first frame to the closing credits, self-aware and carefully cloying; the film itself resembles an uninterrupted run of his famous Oscar Night movie parodies. The writer also finds something missing: deprived of his barbed one-liners, Crystal goes oddly quiet in the part of a Hollywood agent. Charles Taylor counts him a good silent partner against De Niro in Analyze This, winning by underplaying.