Guide at the Museum of Natural History
Rebecca Hutman was a docent and guide at the Museum of Natural History. She is a friend of and serves as a love interest to Larry Daley and is one of the few who knows the secret of the museum. She is the tertiary tritagonist of Night at the Museum.
Appearances[]
Night at the Museum[]
In the movie, Rebecca is first seen sitting down at the main desk in the lobby before Larry goes up to her, in which they exchange ‘hi’s. As Larry says that he has a job interview with Cecil Fredericks, Rebecca tells him that he should still be in his office. Then, she offers him a hand and introduces herself to him, stating that she’s the museum's docent. Then, she gets out of her chair to point Larry in the direction that he’s supposed to go towards, which he follows.
Once they start walking, Larry brings up Teddy Roosevelt as they walk past the wax figure, which Rebecca calls Teddy a- ‘great visionary’, to which Larry agrees. When he asks if Teddy was the 4th president, Rebecca corrects him, stating he was the 26th one. They are interrupted by Dr. McPhee, who comes in and tells Rebecca that he can’t tolerate the chaos of kids touching the exhibits. As McPhee goes on a small rant about what the museum is, he tells Rebecca to work it out, which she says she will do before telling Larry who McPhee is.
The next time we see Rebecca is when she is being the tour guide for a group of kids, explaining facts about history to them while showing off the exhibits. She is heard saying how the museum was dedicated to Theodore Roosevelt and how Teddy loved history and how if you know more about the past, you’ll be better prepared for the future. So as Rebecca is doing her job and talking to a group of children about the exhibits, Larry is seen following them.
As Rebecca tells the kids what her favorite animal exhibit in the whole museum is, Larry speaks out, causing Rebecca to stare at him before telling the kids to follow her to a different exhibit. Once we see Rebecca a few moments later, she is in front of Sacagawea’s exhibit, telling the kids how Sacagawea was one of the most famous trackers in the world and how she led Lewis and Clark on their expedition to find the Pacific Ocean. As she begins to say how the kids have probably heard the phrase- ‘Actions speak louder than words’, Larry asks her if Sacagawea was deaf. As Rebecca states that Sac was not deaf, Larry states that Sac is unresponsive to sound- in which Rebecca says its due to the fact that Sacagawea is a statue.
Due to this, Rebecca asks the kids to give her a moment and to learn more about Sacagawea since she was cool, she goes up to Larry and asks what he’s doing. Larry explains that since he will be guarding the exhibits, he wants to know more about their history before asking if he can ask Rebecca these questions when she goes on break and buy her a coffee. Rebecca asks what he means by ‘a cup of coffee’, to which he explains that just buying her one in a colleague to colleague kind of way. This leads her to look at her watch before telling him that she’ll finish in 20 minutes and to meet her outside. This is where Larry thanks her and she tells him ‘your welcome’ before going back to the kids.
We then cut to a new scene of the pair, Rebecca and Larry, outside and walking with cups of coffee. Rebecca is talking about Sacagawea and how amazing she is, stating that Sac had led a group of men through rivers and up mountains with her newborn baby on her back. As Larry says how Rebecca is a Sacagawea expert, Rebecca corrects him on the way he pronounced her name and says she should be due to how she has been writing her dissertation on her for 4 years. As Larry states that working on a paper for 4 years would drive him crazy, Rebecca says how it's more of a 900-page book.
Rebecca then asks Larry what his story is, asking if he always wanted to be a security guard before trying to say how she didn’t mean to be rude. Larry says no a few times before stating how he’s divorced and has a 10 year old son and how he just needed a more steady situation. After that, Rebecca asks him what he wants to know about the museum, which Larry then asks about Attila. She states how Attila was considered the only genuine threat to the Roman Empire. This is where the scene cuts out though.
We then don’t see Rebecca until she is caught by Larry after hours, looking at Sacagawea’s exhibit and told to evacuate the museum. Rebecca chuckles and says hi before saying how the museum is a good place to think, which Larry agrees with her. Then, Larry asks if she has any plans, to which she denies and says how she isn’t a really big plans person- saying how she prefers to hang out with people who have been dead for 200 years and how it’s the live ones that throw her. Larry then says how she does have to leave though, in which she asks if he’s being serious, which Larry states he is due to Museum rules.
Then, Rebecca states how seriously he is taking this job, which Larry says he is- which Rebecca says she gets. Larry then asks about her dissertation, in which she replies on how she’s hit a dead end because research can only get so far since she will never really know who Sacagawea actually was. Rebecca then states how it’s time to move onto another subject and will let Larry get back to work. After they say their goodbyes, Larry goes back to Rebecca and tells her how she shouldn’t give up on her paper- which she asks why.
This leads Larry to say how crazy this sounds- to which she says she can handle it, before he says how this museum’s history does actually come to life. Rebecca asks what he’s talking about before he states how everything in the museum comes to life at night before bringing up the Tablet of Ahkmenrah and how it brings the exhibits to life. Larry explains that he knows this because Teddy Roosevelt told him, how Dexter both pissed on and bit him on the nose and how Sacagawea comes to life in her glass case and has to listen to Lewis and Clark argue before saying she can hook Rebecca up with talking to Sacagawea. Rebecca takes this as Larry making fun of her and leaves the museum.
The next time we see Rebecca is near the end of the movie, where she is in a taxi on her way, assuming, home. The driver stops at the red light, to where she sees a bunch of the exhibits from the museum crossing the road, clearly alive. She smiles and shakes her head, clearly in a positive form of disbelief and shock, even covering her mouth with her hand.
She is then seen walking into the museum, saying Larry’s name to get his attention- to where he says how he wasn’t making fun of her. She states how she knows before Sacagawea comes into the scene, in which Rebecca is clearly in shock. Larry asks if she wants to meet Sac, to which she nods her head and says yeah. Larry then introduces Rebecca to Teddy then Sacagawea, (which Rebecca corrects him on his pronunciation of Sac’s name) before she states how Sacagawea rocks and how she is such a big fan. Sac then asks Rebecca what she would like to know, in which she doesn’t know where to start but walks to her and asks away.
Then, we see Rebecca, Nick and Larry all in the aftermath of the chaos that happened in the museum as the sun rises. Rebecca is last seen when the museum is opened, smiling at Larry as she is at the front desk in the lobby.
Trivia[]
- Rebecca is similar to Padame Amidala from Star Wars Episodes 1-3:
- Both are love interests to the protagonists (Anakin and Larry Daley)
- Both were sweet and kind
- Both are best friends with the protagonists' mentors (Obi-Wan Kenobi and Theodore Roosevelt)
- It's unknown as to what happened to Rebecca as she wasn't in any of the sequels.
- Though, in the script for the second movie, Rebecca is stated to have left by Larry.
- Rebecca's favorite animal exhibit is the 'Capuchin Monkey'.
- In the Junior Novelization of the first movie, Rebecca appears due to the fact that Ahkmenrah can't read. In this, Rebecca is awoken by Attila, who broke her window, and sees that Larry wasn't lying. She teaches Ahkmenrah how to pronounce a phrase on the tablet to send everyone back home.
- In the Junior Novelization, we see Rebecca and Sacagawea talk to one another about her questions, in which she asks about if Sac had yelled at Lewis and Clark since they denied her the right to see the Pacific Ocean, to which Sac says is true before the pair high-five.
- In the deleted scenes for the first movie, Rebecca appears to help Ahkmenrah read the tablet. She is sleeping in her house and her buzzer to her door broke, leading to Attila shooting an arrow through her window. With this, she helps Ahkmenrah out with reading the tablet (which is a puzzle in this scene).[1]
Gallery[]
