Halloween has come and gone, and Thanksgiving is just around the corner. This can only mean one thing: it's time for another star-studded Christmas family dramedy to hit theaters. This year, it's Love the Coopers, starring Diane Keaton, John Goodman, Ed Helms, Olivia Wilde, Amanda Seyfried and Marisa Tomei, to name a few. The holiday film, which hits theaters on Nov. 13, assembled an A-list cast to play four generations of Coopers who come together over the holidays. But there's one celebrity actor in the cast who is never actually featured on screen: the narrator. Who is Love the Coopers' narrator, you ask? Why, it's none other than Steve Martin. Yep, Steve freakin' Martin.
So, to recap, Love the Coopers stars John Goodman and Diane Keaton as the parents everyone wishes they had, a ton of great stars as the siblings, love interests, and friends, and Steve Martin as the narrator?! Whoa. But before we get into just how Martin appears as the narrator in Love the Coopers, let's introduce the titular family. There are Sam (Goodman) and Charlotte (Keaton), the mom and dad of the bunch; Emma, Charlotte's lonely sister (Marisa Tomei) and her new friend/cop who arrests her for shoplifting, Officer Williams (Anthony Mackie); Hank (Helms), Sam and Charlotte's single-father son going through a divorce from Angie (Alex Borstein); Eleanor (Wilde), their daughter who picks up a stranger (Jake Lacy) to be her pretend boyfriend for the trip; and an older generation made up of Alan Arkin as Bucky the grandfather (who befriends Amanda Seyfried's Ruby) and June Squibb as Aunt Fishy. Got all that?
The narrator in Love the Coopers takes the audience throughout the entire ups and downs of the family gathering. But who is it? Is it God? A dead family member? A total stranger? Turns out, Martin actually plays the inner voice of the Cooper family dog. It's a strange way for the comedian to make his return to the big screen; Martin hasn't starred in a film since 2011's indie The Big Year, and it's been six years since the one before that, It's Complicated. What has Martin been up to all this time?
Well although the star may have been absent from movies in recent years, that doesn't mean he has slowed down. A writer and musician as well as an actor, Martin has delighted audiences with a few surprise appearances on Saturday Night Live — most recently he helped celebrate SNL's 40th anniversary — and voiced a character in the animated film, Home (2015). Outside of comedy, Martin released a novel titled An Object of Beauty in 2010 and just last month, received a Distinguished Achievement Award by the International Bluegrass Music Association.
Martin is certainly going to have a busy Christmas season. In addition to Love the Coopers, Martin just celebrated the release of his new bluegrass album with Edie Brickell, So Familiar, and is currently on a comedy tour with Martin Short. Is Steve Martin the new king of Christmas? Only time will tell.
Images: CBS Films
