Steve Martin’s favourite voice scene of his career is featured in the Pink Panther.
Martin recalled filming the 2006 comedy ahead of its 20th anniversary on February 10.
“We aimed our movie at a younger audience than the originals, and I’m proud that the movie has the favorite comic scene I’ve ever done: ‘I would like to buy a HAMMBERRRRGAU,'” he mimed.
In the scene, Martin’s Inspector Clouseau is practicing his dialect ahead of a trip to New York. He wants to tame his French accent and sound more American.
The coach tells him to master the sentence, “I would like to buy a hamburger.”
The Only Murders in the Building actor went on to profess that making the film was a “delight.”
“I was shooting in Paris, working with wonderful people on a creative set. There were crew lunches over tablecloths bearing carafes of wine (though I abstained), and I was honored to follow in the footsteps of my hero, Peter Sellers,” Martin said.
Director Shawn Levy chimed in, sharing that fans still ask him about the hamburger scene.
“To this day, 20 years later, people come up to me just to say, ‘I would like to buy a hamburger.’ That scene started with Steve Martin pitching me an idea over lunch one day,” Levy, 57, told the outlet.
“…A 30-second-long scene got significantly longer because the laughs just kept coming. That was a scene that snuck up on us. And to this day is more beloved than I could have ever anticipated. It’s such a simple idea, but brilliantly performed by Steve and our actor playing the dialect coach,” he gushed.
The Stranger Things and Deadpool & Wolverine director called himself the “luckiest young director even” to be “invited aboard by Steve Martin.”