![]() And it was mainly heroin then, there wasn't crack or anything when I was a kid. "Though you could be tempted with heroin, I wasn't. "What we were doing in those days were stolen pharmaceuticals," says DeVito. Some people I went to school with, you could tell they were dirt poor." Drugs were all around. "My parents worked their tails off, but we weren't the poorest people in town. In a tough neighbourhood in New Jersey, his father ran various businesses, including a sweetshop and a drycleaning firm. I've always been working on two or three things at a time whether it was in the early days, or whatever, I was always working on something."īorn into a family of second-generation Italian-Americans, DeVito loved movies but never dreamed that he would end up working in them. ![]() It was like, when friends of mine said, 'You're going to make a movie called what – Erin Brockovich? What the fuck is that? Nobody is going to see that movie!' I said, 'It's the woman's name, what are you going to do – change it?'"ĭeVito is starting to strike me as a personality who needs to have lots of things going on – is he someone who gets bored easily? He looks surprised. I hadn't even seen Reservoir Dogs when I bought his next project, which wasn't even written. Producing-wise, DeVito proved he had good instincts when he bought Quentin Tarantino's script for Pulp Fiction sight unseen. "He's a Republican and he's a governor – who needed that? " It cost me a lot of money in more ways than one, believe me. I was depressed when Arnie became governor for all those years. This time, Eddie Murphy is down to play their unlikely long-lost sibling. Now there is the prospect of Twins 2, which DeVito confirms they are discussing with the former governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger. He's also directed films such as Throw Momma From the Train, The War of the Roses, and Hoffa, while being a hugely successful producer, through his company, Jersey Films, of the likes of Pulp Fiction, Erin Brockovich, Matilda, Garden State and Get Shorty. Since leaving the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York in 1966, DeVito has played scores of film and TV roles, from his career-forging turn in Taxi to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, LA Confidential and Twins. He certainly cannot be doing it for the money. Photograph: Everett Collection / Rex Feature Saying that, he admits that taking on the role was daunting – his main theatre work was at the start of his career, before he moved to Los Angeles: "So, it was like, yeah, I loved the project, I loved the people involved, but I did think to myself, 'Are you out of your mind?'"ĭeVito with Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. "I just went to revisit and it's so beautiful, a wonderful stage. But no, it's a gorgeous theatre."ĭeVito says he was at the Savoy almost three decades ago to see a production of Michael Frayn's Noises Off with his wife, Rhea Perlman (who played Carla in Cheers). ![]() People would say to me, 'Why don't you do Broadway?' and my big joke was, nah, the dressing rooms are too small." He laughs: "Which certainly goes for the Savoy. ![]() "It's something that I always thought about doing. It's also DeVito's first time in a West End production. The timing for The Sunshine Boys chimed perfectly with the filming breaks for DeVito's TV show, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. He and Richard Griffiths play a vaudevillian double act reluctantly reuniting for a television special. In response to a question about younger actors, he muses: "Someone coming up who reminds me of me – you mean like Ashton Kutcher and Brad Pitt?"ĭeVito is in London, rehearsing for the Neil Simon play The Sunshine Boys at the Savoy theatre, directed by Thea Sharrock. He's fast-talking, bright and, as might be expected, imbued with natural comic delivery. During our conversation, there are points where you can see flashes of characters he's played: the theatrically belligerent Louie De Palma in his early hit sitcom, Taxi the tragicomic Penguin in Batman Returns the bumptious menace of Mr Wormwood in Matilda. ![]()
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