Susan Sarandon, Robin Williams, Robert De Niro are pictured in a scene from "The Big Wedding", in a handout photo. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO, eOne

TORONTO - When Oscar winner Susan Sarandon began filming the star-packed ensemble comedy "The Big Wedding," she found herself charting the same path as her character.

"She was catering the wedding and my daughter was getting married, actually, in real life a few months after we finished the film and I was helping her plan it," she said in a telephone interview.

"So I could look at that as something that meant something to me."

The newly released film stars Sarandon as new-agey Bebe, who runs an organic-food catering business and lives with longtime boyfriend Don (Robert De Niro) in the same house he shared with his ex-wife, Ellie (Diane Keaton).

The three are cordial before the wedding of Don and Ellie's adopted son, Alejandro (Ben Barnes), to Missy (Amanda Seyfried).

But things get muddy when Alejandro's conservative biological mother, Madonna (Patricia Rae), flies in from Colombia and Don and Ellie pretend they're still married to appease her religious beliefs.

The cast also includes Robin Williams as the wedding priest, Topher Grace as Ellie and Don's virgin son, and Katherine Heigl as their heartbroken daughter.

So, did the nuptials of Sarandon's daughter, actress Eva Amurri Martino, to ESPN commentator Kyle Martino in Charleston, S.C., have the same level of hijinks depicted in the film?

"I'm very pleased to say no," said the five-time Oscar nominee, who clinched the golden statuette for her leading role in 1995's "Dead Man Walking."

"It was just a delight. It was the most fun I've ever had at a wedding, which was a surprise to me, because I thought since we were giving it, it might be more tense."

The wedding was smaller and "felt like a real gathering of their tribe," added Sarandon.

"I have eight siblings, so we had to cut down on the cousins because he wouldn't have been able to invite anyone, because there are 22 cousins and seven great-grandchildren."

Justin Zackham wrote, directed and produced "The Big Wedding," which was shot in his hometown of Greenwich, Conn.

Sarandon knew Keaton and De Niro prior to filming but had never worked with the fellow Oscar winners.

"Diane and I are exactly the same age. She's very smart and really present and very experienced and that's always fun, to run with somebody that's like that," said Sarandon, 66.

"And she has a great sense of humour, obviously, and irony, and I would look forward to working with her again if it were possible."

Sarandon said she related to Bebe's free-spirited side: "I think that I have always been a little outside of convention."

She also shared her character's love of dogs.

Sarandon's two pooches, cream-coloured Maltese-Pomeranian mixes named Penny Lane and Rigby, tag along with her to promotional events and even have their own Twitter accounts.

She said Penny, who has some 3,500 Twitter followers, is "very chill" and often travels with her.

"My dog started tweeting because she started watching (the film) 'Melancholia' and she just felt she had to reach out," Sarandon said matter-of-factly.

The younger Rigby "is somewhat problematic sometimes" and doesn't get to travel as much because she "has a bit of an addiction problem."

"She breaks into people's purses and takes cigarettes and matches and drugs and all kinds of things," Sarandon said from New York. "I'm sorry, I'm talking in front of her — she's sitting right here — but it's true.

"So I tend to not bring her because it's dangerous. They know her in the emergency room down the street."

Zackham is also known for writing the 2007 film "The Bucket List," about two men who try to live out their wish lists of things to do before they "kick the bucket."

Sarandon said her bucket list is rather small.

"I don't have any huge, huge unfulfilled needs at all," said Sarandon.

"I'd love to take more trips with my kids that are so busy now that I don't get a chance to do too much with them unless I really hammer it out. I'd love to be a grandmother, but I don't have much control over that — but I have a feeling that'll happen.

"So I don't have many bucket list things. I don't care if I jump out of an airplane. Giving birth three times was plenty excitement for me."

News from © The Canadian Press, 2013