Well, excuuuuuuse me, but has anyone seen the real Steve Martin? On screen, he's gone from The Jerk to a freshly squeezed Jack Lemmon, playing exasperated, put-upon clods in run-of-the-mill remakes such as Father of the Bride and The Out- of-Towners.

At 53, Martin seems to reserve his most inventive, if not quite wild-and-crazy side, for his writing. His heady humor pieces for Vanity Fair are both playful and mature. And his play Picasso at the Lapin Agile, which pitted the famous painter against Albert Einstein in an imaginary battle of wits, has made him a darling of the critics.
So it is with high hopes that he both writes and stars in his latest feature, Bowfinger, teaming for the first time since Saturday Night Live with Eddie Murphy. Martin plays the title character, a down-on-his-luck director who seizes a script penned by his accountant as his ticket out of Palookaville.

The trouble is, Bobby Bowfinger desperately wants Hollywood hot shot Kit Ramsey (Murphy) to headline the opus. But when Ramsey passes on the project, Bowfinger decides to forge ahead with the movie anyway. He quickly assembles a motley crew of Mexican illegals and a cast of wannabe actors, including an over-the-hill diva (Cybill's Christine Baranski) and an overly ambitious ingenue (Austin Powers' Heather Graham). Together with his assistant-turned-cinematographer (Scream 2's Jamie Kennedy) and an eager nerd (also played by Murphy), Bowfinger stalks and surrounds Ramsey, forcing actors in his face and shooting scenes right under the nose of the unsuspecting
superstar.

Graham says that while her character "seems really sweet," she's really ruthlessly calculating, sleeping her way to the top. After her groovy star turn in The Spy Who Shagged Me, the 29-year-old actress is delighted to be in another comedy. As she told one reporter: "There was a time all I ever got sent were scripts Drew Barrymore turned down."

The script for Bowfinger grew out of Martin's recent playwriting success. "When I wrote [Picasso]," he told a reporter, "I thought, 'Why can't I write a screenplay in the same spirit, where I don't really care and I don't think anybody will actually see it? So, I gave it that shot with Bowfinger."

It's no accident that Martin's best film work, including Roxanne and L.A. Story, has been in his own screenplays. The duel process seems to re-invigorate the actor, something he candidly admits.

"Bowfinger gave me the feeling of what it means to be connected again to something, and the inspiration to invest more in the acting."