Staff Writer

ONEONTA —How does a groom react when a cell phone rings during his wedding?

If he's Jonathan Dokuchitz, just how the director told him to.

The Oneonta High School graduate has a part in "Two Weeks Notice," a romantic comedy with Sandra Bullock and Hugh Grant that opened this month.

Bullock's character, Lucy Kelson, is a lawyer for real-estate developer George Wade (Grant). Her boss relies on her counsel for everything from picking mattresses to ties, and — fed up with constantly being on call — she quits.

Dokuchitz, 36, plays Tom, who marries Lucy's best friend Meryl (Heather Burns).

"We're like the normal couple in her life," Dokuchitz said when describing his character.

The script changed a lot during filming, he said, with many scenes being switched around and three different endings filmed. Dokuchitz and Burns were given additional scenes during re-shoots this fall, but some of their material didn't make the final product.

"Our characters kind of grew and then we shrunk again," he said, explaining that the filmmakers wanted to focus on the two leads.

But that's part of making a movie, Dokuchitz said.

"Considering how much they cut of the movie, I was happy to make it in as much as I did, " he said.

Dokuchitz, who performed in several high school musicals, has been in theater professionally since 1987, he said. A tenor, he was Captain Walker in the 1993 revival of The Who's rock opera "Tommy" and played one of the Antipholuses in this summer's production of "The Boys from Syracuse" on Broadway. He also appeared in television shows such as "Sex and the City" and "The Street." But this is his first appearance in a film.

"I've done a lot of animated films but this is the first time with my face on the big screen," said Dokuchitz, who sang for John Cusack in "Anastasia."

Dokuchitz got the part in "Two Weeks Notice" after auditioning before director Marc Lawrence, who also wrote the script.

"He was the right person to audition for because he really appreciates theater actors, because they're so up on their craft," Dokuchitz said.

The movie took 17 weeks of filming, of which Dokuchitz worked seven. The film was shot in New York City, where he lives.

The experience was different from his previous acting work, he said.

"When you do a day on a television series, they're usually very rushed. There's a high intensity and you want to get it right," he said, adding that the regular players are much more relaxed. "So if you come in for a day and you just do a one-page scene or a two-page scene, it's very nerve wracking sometimes."

Working on the film, he said, was similar to being a regular on the team instead of a "pinch hitter."

"There's a lot more time taken with each scene and each actor because it's a big budget movie with two big stars, and also because you were part of the team now and starting from scratch," he said.

Movie-making is also a case of 'hurry up and wait," Dokuchitz said.

"It's totally different from theater, 'cause you sit around a lot of time in your trailer or by the food table waiting for them to set up a camera shot," he said. "Theater is just more immediate. The only difference is you keep doing it over and over."

Dokuchitz doesn't plan to abandon the stage for film, however.

"I want to do more of that, more TV and movies, but I want to stay in New York," he said. "I've gone out to Los Angeles and California for a bit, but it's nice to know you can come back to New York and do theater and have a life."

In his next project, Dokuchitz will be one of the lead singers in "The Look of Love," a review of the music of Burt Bacharach and Hal David that opens on Broadway this spring.

"He wrote the soundtrack of my life," Dokuchitz said of Bacharach, who he was able to meet. "It was kind of like meeting one of your idols."