With Michael Richards (of TV's "Sein-feld"), as the other uncle, there was a natural advertising peg. `But Diane and the producers held out for me. And then my agent got a call from Jeffrey Kat-zen-berg's office. He was still at Disney at the time (Katzenberg has since left Disney and is now in partnership with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen for Dream-works, SKG).

"He wanted me to put myself on tape as the character and send it to him, but I said, `Absolutely not.' I had read and gotten a positive response — why should I subject myself to this? He probably thought it was nervy of me to say no, but I was definitely not going to do that."

The credit for his finally getting the role, Chaykin says, goes entirely to Keaton and the film's producers. "They showed great integrity in not compromising."

The attraction to the character of Arthur was a natural one, he explained. "He was basically a child, someone who had all his defenses down and had the innocence of a child, the playfulness of a child. It's not often that, as adult actors, we get a chance to do that, to let down all of the defenses and societal pressures. After his mother died, he withdrew from society and started to create a world of his own, to collect things — and not only animate objects, but inanimate objects, like dreams and wishes, too."

Chaykin said he enjoyed working with Richards and found him quite unlike his television persona. "We found that we had a lot in common — our style of working, we're both pretty private. There was not a lot of talking, not a lot of intellectualizing, just basically doing. He's a very nice person and a very philosophical person, very quiet, not at all like Kramer, other than some physical mannerisms that he has. But he doesn't have the energy of Kramer. He has a very different energy."

Though he has an extensive background in theater, Chaykin says he's enjoying movie work more these days. "The money is so much better, of course, and I've grown to love the process of film acting. It's something that is very much a part of my life now — and it's really ironic because, starting out as a stage actor, I never expected it.

"I never imagined nor had the ambition to be a movie actor until the opportunity presented itself."