In the upcoming movie Tower Heist, featuring a standout comic cast led by Ben Stiller and Eddie Murphy, humor will naturally punctuate a storyline complemented by action.

For many of the main actors, the film gave longtime friends an opportunity to work together once again. Ben Stiller, Alan Alda and Téa Leoni reunited for the first time since co-starring in David O’Russell’s critically acclaimed 1996 indie Flirting With Disaster. Leoni had previously collaborated with director Brett Ratner on The Family Man, and Stiller directed Matthew Broderick in 1996’s dark comedy The Cable Guy.

International financier Arthur Shaw, played by veteran Alda, is the quintessential champagne villain whose polished veneer belies a shrewd con man. For many years Shaw demanded a quiet respect from Stiller’s character Josh, who feels a kinship with one of the high rise’s most beloved residents. Josh aspires to live in this world and has been hopeful that his fellow chess player would shepherd him there.

When faced with an unimaginable betrayal, however, Josh makes it his personal mission to reclaim his crew’s money from Shaw. Stiller explains: “Josh and Shaw have a good rapport. Josh is very good at understanding what Shaw needs, but he misinterprets the relationship early on by thinking that Shaw would never do anything to intentionally hurt the people who work in the building.”

In Alan Alda, Ratner and the producers found an actor who could sell a likeable billionaire whom we learn is more comfortable stealing from blue-collar workers than from his elite clients. But Alda clears up a misconception about Shaw. “Shaw is sometimes described as a Bernie Madoff-like character. I’m not sure. I don’t think anyone has ever operated on the scale that Madoff did. And I don’t know if what Shaw did technically qualifies as a Ponzi scheme.

But in that Shaw was willing to steal money from people who really needed it — who really couldn’t afford to lose it — and willing to take everything they had…yes, he’s in Bernie territory, with both feet.” It’s Special Agent Claire Denham who clues in Josh about Shaw’s fraudulent history and does so with swift efficiency.

Leoni, whose FBI Special Agent Claire Denham knows the truth about Shaw, is the one who has to explain the cold, hard reality of the situation to Josh after he thwarts what he believes is an attempted kidnapping of The Tower’s favorite resident. Téa Leoni credits her interaction with FBI technical advisor Anne C. Beagan with putting the distinctive touches on her tough-as-nails agent who has to convince Josh that Shaw is a bad guy.

The actress laughs: “Agent Denham is your standard-issue, ball-breaking FBI agent. She’s certainly a very tough lady, and it’s not my first waltz with this type of character. However, I was able to spend some time with Anne, a great technical advisor we had on set. She’s got this steely gaze that is terrifying, but what’s underneath that is a very interesting lady. Beyond the technical aspects of the job, she provided so much more for me to use.”

The actress was equally impressed by her cohorts. “We had a table read in Los Angeles and as I was sitting around with this cast and listening to these strong actors who, with a minimal amount of effort, brought such a distinguished flavor to their characters, I thought, ‘We could have just shot the table read.’”

Stiller returns the compliment to his leading lady: “Téa is very believable as an FBI agent because she’s smart and aggressive and has a great sense of humor. But she’s also very much a New Yorker, and a lot of what this movie is about is New Yorkers and their attitudes toward life. She was a great choice for the role, and it was fun to work with her again because it had been a long time since we’d done so.”

Tower Heist is in cinemas on November 4.

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Tower Heist, starring Ben Stiller, Eddie Murphy and Tea Leoni, lifts the curtain on the inner workings of a luxury high-rise and what it takes to keep hundreds of New York City’s wealthiest denizens satisfied. The residence managers for several high-profile hotels provided the filmmakers and the writers with insider tips about their experiences in overseeing top-drawer residences.

Screenwriter Jeff Nathanson recalls: “It was informative, to say the least, to speak with the people who work in these buildings. I interviewed everyone from doormen to housekeepers to building managers.  There’s a whole underworld to the New York building scene that exists in the basements that most people are unaware of. They make it all possible, and you just never see it. It’s fascinating.”

Almost every aspect of establishing Manhattan as the backdrop for Tower Heist’s action hinged on the filmmakers’ ability to execute some of the bigger set pieces conceived in the script. From the über-exclusive wealthy enclaves of Park Avenue to the working class neighborhoods in Queens, the crew needed to evoke the distinctive personalities of the city in a creative way.

Production designer Kristi Zea, who previously collaborated with the movie’s director Brett Ratner on The Family Man and Red Dragon — and most recently designed the luxuriously singular look for Oliver Stone’s Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps — was the hands-on choice to visualize the diverse and complex production design.

Her extensive experience, particularly when it came to creating something as opulent as the character of Shaw’s penthouse apartment, was helpful in satisfying a multitude of requirements of Mark Russell’s visual effects department and Steve Kirshoff’s special effects team.

A tour of some of Manhattan’s most upscale hotels and high-rise residences helped to determine the scope of the fictitious building where the majority of the film was set. For the grand interior set of The Tower lobby, Zea ended up using an amalgam of what she observed on the tour, elevating the look and scale to create a sumptuously sophisticated design.

Ultimately, a sprawling top-floor apartment in the Trump International Hotel & Tower — located at Central Park West in bustling Columbus Circle — served as the model for the set of Shaw’s opulent penthouse. Zea recalls: “The inspiration was an empty apartment that was half a floor and had a staggering 180-degree view of Manhattan.

We were able to match up the walls of the building, but then what we did on the inside was all up to us. We had a blast with it.” With the cooperation of Donald Trump, who allowed the production access to several of his high-end properties, the filmmakers were able to incorporate true luxury locales in the film.

The Trump International Hotel & Tower in New York City was used to film exteriors, including portions of the re-creation of Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and a sprawling foot and car chase sequence that had the main- and second-unit teams winding along Central Park West and Columbus Avenue.

Ratner explains about lensing here: “That’s what’s so great about shooting in New York City. Every direction you put the camera, you have something special, whether it is an interesting face or a building or a landscape. When you point the camera in any direction, you have amazing visuals.”

Tea Leoni sums the cast’s thoughts on the scale of the production: “I can’t believe the city of New York gave us Columbus Circle for this scene. We had cars speeding and crashing through the streets. It’s a crazy scene with so much going on.”

Trump even offered up the rare opportunity to lens in the spacious underground parking garage and service center of the lavish Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue. The real-estate mogul made a point of visiting the set during a break from taping his television series, The Celebrity Apprentice, several floors up to see how Ratner and the cast were faring.

A key element to envisioning the sophisticated penthouse apartment was assembling a status-affirming art collection. Ratner, himself an avowed art lover, had specific artists and pieces in mind for the film. Zea knew of Ratner’s dabbling in this world, so she elevated the design aesthetic to reflect his passion for it.

Occasionally, Ratner would place a call or send an e-mail to cut through mountains of red tape required to include reproductions of pedigreed world-class artwork. To evoke the tastes of a savvy art collector, Zea went with a modern-classic design approach, punctuated with important multimedia art.

She explains: “These days, it seems wealthy people want to have wall power. They want to have art on their walls that means something and shows people, just like a car, that ‘I’m rich, I’m smart and I know what I’m doing.’” Reproduction works from masters, including Pablo Picasso, Francesco Clemente, Richard Prince, Francis Bacon, Ed Ruscha, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Cy Twombly, Roy Lichtenstein, Alberto Giacometti and Andy Warhol, fill Shaw’s penthouse set.

Says Grazer of the final art choices they amassed for filming: “It’s a shame that someone as dishonorable as Arthur Shaw is allowed to be surrounded by this much beauty.”

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Ben Stiller and Eddie Murphy lead an all-star cast in Tower Heist, an action-comedy about a staff of blue-collar workers who seek revenge on the Wall Street swindler who stiffed them. After the crew at the luxury Central Park condominium The Tower discover the penthouse billionaire has stolen their retirement, they plot the ultimate revenge: a heist to reclaim what he took from them.

Queens native Josh Kovaks (Stiller) has managed one of the most luxurious and well-secured residences in New York City for more than a decade. Under his watchful eye, nothing goes undetected. In the swankiest unit atop Josh’s building, Wall Street titan Arthur Shaw (Alan Alda) is under house arrest after being caught stealing $2 billion from his investors. The hardest hit among those he defrauded? The Tower staffers whose pensions he was entrusted to manage.

With only days until Shaw gets away with the perfect crime, Josh’s crew turns to petty crook Slide (Murphy) to plan the nearly impossible: steal the $20 million they are sure is hidden in the heavily guarded condo where Shaw is being held by an FBI team led by Special Agent Claire Denham (Tea Leoni, Fun With Dick and Jane).

The burglary takes place in the midst of one of New York City’s most iconic events: the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Integrating the decades-old tradition into the story line was a daunting task that had the cast and crew re-creating the parade one week after the original. But to ensure that they fully captured the one-of-a-kind magic that only the real parade could provide, dozens of crew members gave up their Thanksgiving weekend to film portions of the actual parade on Columbus Circle.

Native New Yorkers Stiller, Alda, Leoni, Broderick and Sidibe had their own memories of attending the parade, while other members of the crew vividly recall watching the parade on television.  However, the production’s ambitious re-creation was awe-inspiring for the team.

“When I was a kid, my family would go to see the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, and it was hard to get close,” says Leoni. “To be able to have front-row seats, so to speak, for even a portion of the parade, where I could take a look at all the balloons, was amazing.  It was much cooler than it was when I was a kid.”

Ratner agrees with his film’s hard-nosed agent: “I knew that the building that is the center of Tower Heist is a main character in the film, and I wanted all the action around this centerpiece. The shots of the Thanksgiving Day Parade that we captured were just incredible.

Though amateurs, these rookie thieves — including high-strung concierge Charlie (Casey Affleck, Ocean’s Eleven trilogy), broke ex-Wall Streeter Mr. Fitzhugh (Matthew Broderick, The Producers), rookie bellhop Dev’Reaux (Michael Peña, Battle: Los Angeles) and feisty maid Odessa (Gabourey Sidibe, Precious) — know the building better than anyone. It turns out they’ve been casing the place for years…they just didn’t know it.

Director Brett Ratner (Rush Hour series, X-Men: The Last Stand, Red Dragon) joins Academy Award^®-winning producer Brian Grazer (8 Mile, A Beautiful Mind, American Gangster) to lead a talented behind-the-scenes crew for Tower Heist. Grazer is joined in production duties on the action-comedy by Eddie Murphy and Kim Roth (Inside Man, Insomnia).

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