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FunTranscript
00:00It's about a kind of screwed up family that sort of does a lot of screwy stuff, I guess.
00:17It's about weird people that do weird stuff, you know?
00:22It was written by John Plano as a play, you know, and I remember reading it and thinking,
00:27oh, wow, it made me think of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, with a family full of Virginia
00:32wolves.
00:33So I was trying to think of where can I, you know, find these people, you know?
00:37The first was, who is, what's the Ruth Sandy wolves?
00:44And I think I got very lucky with these two.
00:46And then I was looking for, I'm always looking for people that don't exist, you know, William
00:49Holden and people like that.
00:50So luckily, me and Ed had known each other from him being a mentor over at Sundance Labs.
00:55So I wrote him one of my weird emails late at night, and he read it.
00:59So it was just one of those weird things, and, you know, yeah, everyone, look at the
01:04people.
01:05Yeah, it's pretty nice.
01:06Yeah.
01:07Well, I auditioned in 2022, and I really enjoyed, you know, the character DJ.
01:11And so I put a lot into that audition, and, you know, Ditto called me, Zoom called me,
01:16and that doesn't usually happen when a director just calls you after an audition, and he really
01:20worked with me and explained who DJ was and how I could connect more to the character.
01:25And the whole process took about a year, and I found out that I booked it, and I was excited.
01:30Well, DJ is a very intelligent kid.
01:33He's going off to college soon.
01:34It's happening in the movie.
01:35And he's also pretty, you know, a little naive, you know, the world that Vincent and Sandy
01:42build for him, that's like, that's his bubble.
01:44So when Rocco and Marina and Ruth come in, they shake up his entire world.
01:49And, you know, he's also very inquisitive, so he's always asking questions, and, you
01:52know, that, you know, gets his head chopped off eventually.
01:57I was lucky enough that Jennifer came on first.
01:59Again, I was, Elizabeth Taylor, I was thinking, who could pull this scene off?
02:02You know, a lot of these, and so I was very excited when I heard that she responded to
02:07the script, so.
02:08I could relate to her in many ways.
02:11I, you know, I was sort of a big partier in my youth, always trying to hold on to men
02:18that weren't, were no longer interested.
02:23And I know I could, I related to about, you know, like, there were like 12 things on the
02:26list, right?
02:27Just, I felt like I, you know, sometimes I just sort of look at a role, and I'm like,
02:30there's just no way I could do this.
02:32But I felt like there's enough of my own stuff that I could sort of, you know, it would help.
02:40And I just really like, she had, Ruth has great lines, you know, it was, you know, as
02:45you see the big response John Pulano got today at the theater, it's because he really did
02:52write this crazy great script, and it's, everyone wants to be on the thing that's really clever
03:00and cool and hilarious and painful, we all want to be on one of those.
03:07Well, you know, I had met Dito, I don't remember what year it was, but it was a while back,
03:11at the Sundance Film Lab, you know, he was working on A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints,
03:15and so, which I really appreciate, I thought that was a really good, really good film.
03:20And he wanted me to be part of this, I read the script, I thought it was great, Jennifer
03:24was involved, I was, you know, I'd seen Jennifer in the White Lotus thing, and a couple of
03:30those things, and I couldn't help but chuckle, you know, I figured, yeah, this is gonna be
03:35fun.
03:36And it seemed like a fun, you know, as a guy who's trying to live a different life, whose
03:40past catches up to him, and it seemed pretty interesting to me, so I said sure.
03:48We had a lot of conversations, I had a lot of questions, and ultimately I just felt comfortable,
03:52and I was very excited to play a character whose life is very much encased in shame and
03:58a fear of public humiliation, and what happens when life is lifing, and you still have these,
04:05you know, fears and issues.
04:07So my character's name is Marina, and she's pregnant, and I'm pregnant currently, it's
04:13not a prosthetic belly, it's actually a real belly, so I guess I went full method for this
04:18one.
04:19But yeah, she's Italian, like I am, she's got a golden heart, but at the same time she's
04:23got that kind of edginess about her.
04:27And she's obviously in love and head over heels for Rocco, and I really enjoyed working
04:32with Louis, he was incredible, and he's such a great actor.
04:36And yeah, I got involved basically auditioning, that I haven't heard for a while, and then
04:42the famous call, and my manager saying that Dido wanted to meet me, and then the rest
04:51is history.
04:52I read the script, and someone sent me Dido's other movie called A Guide to Understanding
04:59Your Saints, and I said, this guy knows what he's doing, and it happened to be shooting
05:05near my home, and happening next week.
05:09So it was just a convenience thing for me, really.
05:11It was not something, it was 22 days, you know, so it was one of those, yeah, 22 days,
05:18you know.
05:19It was so fast.
05:20Yeah, a lot of madness, and you know, great actors make life a little easier, and you
05:23know.
05:24It always felt to me, when I first read it, like a bunch of decent people, maybe that's
05:28questionable, but in very indecent situations, and that excited me, that they, to see how
05:34these people, how the actors could take these guys, that I, I love all of them, you know,
05:40the characters, you know, so it felt very exciting to see how complex they can get,
05:44you know.
05:45I mean, they do some pretty bad stuff, but you know.
05:47You know, Ray Liotta's one of my good friends, and he once said, he said, why don't you do
05:50anything funny?
05:51I said, nobody thinks I'm funny.
05:52And he says, you are.
05:53And I said, wait, you can't say, I said, funny how?
05:55I got to say that to my friend Ray.
05:57So that was one of my great moments of movie history, so yeah.
06:01And the funny thing is, I was the only person that didn't think it was funny.
06:03I mean, I thought there was funny stuff, you know, but I thought, oh, I felt like, I loved
06:08Ruth, and I thought, oh God, she's like, well, my sister's kind of like, a little like that.
06:12She switches thinking very quickly, so I kind of loved them all, and I was like, I remember
06:17when they said it's a comedy, I was like, why is people saying it's funny?
06:20I want to say, it's not, don't laugh at that, you know.
06:22But it is funny, I guess, yeah.
06:24I hope they like it.
06:26I mean, you know, I like it, so I guess that's a good start for me, you know.
06:29It's entertaining.
06:30I hope they take away that this is a really wacky family, but we show up for each other.
06:36And kill each other, I guess.
06:38And there's a lot of killing, you know, beware.