Though he voiced the beleaguered clownfish father of “Finding Nemo” and the new “Finding Dory,” Albert Brooks says he prefers dry land: “I never liked going in the ocean,” he tells The Post.
Speaking from Los Angeles, the 68-year-old Brooks sounds, at times, as cranky as his character, Marlin. This time, Nemo’s devoted-if-exasperated father is out looking for the family of his son’s forgetful best friend. “Marlin, in this movie, would just as soon stay home and [lie] on the couch,” Brooks explains. “But his attitude to his son is that [if Dory] means that much to you, let’s [help] her.”
Happily, says this father of two, he’s never had to deal with a runaway child. “Thank God I didn’t,” he says. “On the other hand, I’d kill to not know where some people are. It gets harder and harder with GPS.” Even so, he found himself chasing after his own son, Jacob, then 4, at a 2003 screening of “Nemo.”
Soon after Marlin’s nervous-nelly dad shouted for his wandering son to return — “You are in big trouble, young man!” — little Jacob jumped up and ran out of the theater.
“He heard my voice and thought he was Nemo,” Brooks says, and laughs. “The director and producer immediately panicked. They said, ‘What’s the matter? Is the movie too long?’”
The screening for “Finding Dory” was less eventful, Brooks says: “[Jacob’s] almost 18 and did not run out of the theater this time.”
Like his children, Brooks grew up in an affluent part of Los Angeles. His father, radio-announcer/actor/comedian Harry Einstein — showbiz moniker: Parkyakarkus — died when Albert was 11. Even at that age, Brooks knew what he wanted to do. Show business was “the family profession,” and the boy who was born Albert Einstein decided to make it his own early on.
At Beverly Hills High School, he buddied up with classmate Rob Reiner and found an early audience in Reiner’s dad, Carl. Brooks remembers coaxing laughs from the great comic — and it paid off. “On an old Johnny Carson show, he said that the funniest person he knows is a 16-year-old kid named Albert Einstein,” Brooks says, recalling that the audience thought Reiner was joking and gave him a big laugh. “He was a surrogate father. I still see Rob all the time.”
No doubt they talk about their successes. Married since 1997 to Kimberly Shlain, Brooks began as a stand-up comic and morphed into a screenwriter/director/actor. He’s best known for the self-absorbed neurotics he played in the films “Lost in America,” “Defending Your Life” and “Broadcast News,” for which he received an Oscar nomination.
Being saddled with the name Albert Einstein was pretty much the nightmare you’d expect, he says. “Kids made fun of me, and I tried to hide from it — but I didn’t like [being called] Al,” says Brooks, who changed his name in his teens. “I never got a straight answer about my name,” he says, adding dryly, “I was always told to ask my mother. I think they were proud and didn’t think it through.”
As Father’s Day looms, Brooks has a suggestion for dads-to-be: “If your last name is Christ, don’t name your son Jesus.”