Palminteri chats with Michael Kay on the latest episode of 'CenterStage.' (E.H. Wallop/YES Network)
Chazz Palminteri's appearance on "CenterStage" will premiere Thursday, May 30 following Yankees-Red Sox coverage. Here are some highlights from Palminteri's interview with Michael Kay on "CenterStage":
How a nine-year old Palminteri's witnessing a murder led to A Bronx Tale ...
"It's semi-autobiographical, I always say ... most of these events happened to me. It really comes from me sitting on a stoop when I was nine years old and I was just sitting there and I saw these two cars. The one guy was pulling in, the other guy& ... was blocking him from trying to get in. I thought they were fighting over a parking space, to be honest with you. And then one guy got out of the car. The guy in the front got out with a baseball bat and smashed the window of the guy in the back. And the guy got out of the car, his face was covered with blood. And then he went to hit him again, right on top, and his friend came over and just bam, bam (fired a gun) and the guy fell down ... I didn't know if they were gonna ask me, but I knew what to say if they did ask me .... Even at nine years old, I knew. We used to talk about, 'Ah, the guy's a rat. He's a rat,' you know."
On how the "wise guys" were willing to "help" Chazz move from understudy to lead ...
"I sang ... in Vegas with a band ... But I always wanted to be an actor. Then finally it was actually Lee Strasberg (founder of the prestigious Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute) who said, 'Look, if you're really serious, I know you, you're really good, but you got to give up the band. You got to study and work hard. And sooner or later, you know, things'll happen for you. But you can't keep studying, then going on the road with the band.' Then finally I did (quit the band), and in 1982, I got an understudy part on Broadway ... Not the lead, but I understudied the lead on Broadway, and I ran down to my neighborhood and I told all my friends, I said, 'I'm on Broadway. I'm on Broadway.' And everybody's like, 'Oh my God, Chazz is on Broadway,' and everybody was so excited. I told my mother and father, and I walked into the bar and the guys were all excited and ... (a) couple of the wise guys walked over to me, said, 'We want to come and see you.' I said, 'Uh, uh, well you know, you can't.' And they said, 'Why?' I said, 'Well, I, I'm an understudy.' And the guy says, 'What are you talking about? What's an understudy?' ... I said, 'Well, if something happens to the guy, then I go on.' Not realizing what I just said...
"So I turn my head and I walk away, and all of a sudden the guy walks over to me, Carmine, and goes, 'Hey Chazz, can I talk to you?' That's always bad news when a wise guy says, 'Can I talk to you?' 'cause you're already talking to me. So I said, 'Yeah, what's up?' And he looks at me, goes, 'You want to go on?' True story. Swear to God. And I said, 'Why?' And he goes, 'You want to go?' I said, 'Oh no. No, no, no ... you can't do that. No, you can't do that. Please don't do that.' And he went, 'Don't worry, we'll make it look like a mugging. Nobody's gonna know.' Oh my God, I was so nervous, but thank God I talked him out of it."
On being a bouncer at a Beverly Hills club and getting fired after refusing to let in the legendary agent Swifty Lazar ...
"I got a job as a bouncer and I started working different places. Then I got a job at this really incredible place, I mean incredible, it was like a really high-end place in Beverly Hills, and I'm working their door there ... I was there for about two months, and all of a sudden this guy runs over to me and goes 'Hey, let me in.' And I said, 'Oh whoa, take it easy.' He goes, 'Don't you know who I am?' Now when somebody says, 'Don't you know who I am?'...That's the first sign of what you are. You're ... an A-hole. Let's, let's be honest ... you're an asshole. You don't say, 'Don't you know who I am?' I said, Yes, I know who you are. You're the guy who's not getting in tonight.' That's what I said ... And he says, 'You will be fired in 15 minutes.' I said, 'Really? Yeah, sure.' And he looks at me and goes, '15 minutes, you're gone.' And I said, 'Stay there.' And all of a sudden, the owner comes running out.
He must have called him, right, and the owner comes out, he, and I hear the owner go 'Swifty.' And it was Swifty Lazar ... The biggest agent in the world... And I got fired in 15 minutes, just like he said ... I drove home. I sat on the edge of my bed. I looked, I said, 'What am I gonna do?' I looked at the card (that his father had given him as a child) and it said the saddest thing in life is wasted talent. I looked at that card, I said, 'You know what? If they won't give me a great part, I'll write one myself.' I had $200 in the bank. I went to the Thrifty drugstore, got five tabs of yellow paper. And I said, 'I'm gonna write about the killing.' And I started writing, writing. And I would perform 10-15 minutes for my theater workshop, and then finally, after 10 months, I had 90 minutes of this one-man show. And then my friend lent me money. I performed it. And bam."
How director Woody Allen would rush scenes while filming Bullets over Broadway (1994) so he could watch Knicks games ...
"Well, it was a great experience because ... it was so funny...I walked in, they said, 'Woody wants to see you,' and A Bronx Tale didn't come out yet. He just heard about me from the one-man show and stuff. So I walked in ... ,'Woody wants you to read this.' He sat all the way in the back with a little light. Didn't say two words to me. I read. And I heard, 'Thank you.' I walked out. And I called my agent, I said, 'Well, I don't know ... I thought I did alright, but I guess not.' And the next day he (Palminteri's agent) said, 'They want to see you again.' I walked back in. There was Woody again in the back, same thing. I read. Thank you. I left ... By the time I got to the car, the agent called me and said, 'Woody loves you. You got the part.' I was like, 'Wow, this is great.' And then ... I'm doing a movie with Woody Allen ... The funny thing about Woody Allen, he's a diehard sports fan. Big Knick fan. Big. And he never talks to the actors, never.
"If he talks to you, that means you're getting fired. You don't want him talking to you. That means he doesn't like what you're doing. He always used to go, 'Oh, Chazz, oh, do what you do. Go ahead, go, go, go.' So, finally me and John Cusack have this long scene by the bar, and Woody Allen goes, 'Wait, hold it, hold it' ... He comes over to me and he goes, 'Listen'. And we're like, me and John are like, 'Uh oh, what did we do, right?' He goes, 'The Knicks are on tonight. Speed it up.' That's what he said, 'Speed it up.' And we said, 'Okay.' But it was a great direction, 'cause it was a very long scene and we made sure we kept it going."
On showing up in The Bronx and casting actual "wise guys" for A Bronx Tale ...
"Oh my God ... it was hard. Robert De Niro, it was his idea. He didn't want any actors in the movie except me, him, and Joe Pesci. Anybody else ... he didn't want ... So we had to get real street guys to come up and audition, and that was like, unbelievable. Eddie Mush, the real Eddie Mush, is in the movie ... We couldn't cast Eddie Mush for some reason. So De Niro ... says, 'Where's the real Eddie Mush?' I go, 'Bob, I don't know. He's 60-something years old' ... He goes, 'Let's go find him.' We get in the car, we drive up to the Bronx. I said, 'If he's anywhere, he's by the bookmaker.' There he is ... so I walk out, I go, 'Eddie, listen.' I said, 'Robert De Niro is in the car and he wants to meet you.' He goes, 'Get out of here.' I said, 'No, seriously.' He goes, 'I'm not walking over to no car. I owe too many people money.' I said, 'Mush, he's in the car ... you heard about the movie?' He goes, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah.'
"He walks over to the car, he knocks on the window. The window comes down, and there's Bob De Niro. He goes, 'Holy cow, that's Bob De Niro.' He didn't say that, he said something else ... and De Niro says, 'Listen, I want you to come in and read for me on Monday. Come in at 12 o'clock, we want you to read for this role.' ... Mush goes, 'Can I come in at three?' I swear to God. And ... De Niro ... laughs and he goes, 'Fine ... but why, why three? I'm just curious. What do you have to do?' And Mush goes, 'I got to go to 'daily double,' man. I got to make a 'daily double'. I'm going to Aqueduct. Please, let me go.' And he goes, 'Okay', and Bob turns to me, goes, 'Come on. Who's better than this?'... And we put him in the movie.
How and why Robert De Niro spent so much time around his father ...
"... I remember when Robert De Niro said, 'Look, I want to come up and hang out with your father.' And I said, 'What?' He said, 'Well I, if I'm gonna play him in the movie, I want to meet him.' I said, 'okay,' you know, and I said, 'Dad, listen, Robert De Niro, he's coming up to hang out with you.' He goes, 'What?' You know ... we used to watch him in The Godfather, all these great movies, and then he came up, and my father, for a month hung out with him and ... he taught him how to drive a bus ... I'll never forget my father's face. He just said, 'It's Robert De Niro. I'm talking to Robert De Niro.' He couldn't get over it."
How the internet has hurt the development of bonds that used to be so prevalent ...
"When the bad guys did something, they would just move off. We didn't have the Internet. We didn't have any of that stuff. We just had just us. And that's why I think, I hate to say this, I hate to get serious, but ... That's why I think there's no bonds today with kids, 'cause the Internet and, and Facebook and all these other things. It's like ... When you talk to vets, they fought in the war together. It's the same thing with kids from the neighborhood. We fought together. We bled together. We have bonds together. And so that's why 25 of my friends still have dinner every year. We have dinner. I invite them all, because we have a friendship. It's not like posting or something on the Internet, and I think that's what's got to change. I think nobody writes letters anymore. Nobody talks to each other anymore. And I always said it. What the Internet has done, it has brought the people farther away from you closer, but has made the people close to you farther away. And I think that's a thing that we have to think about."
Hit and Run
Favorite New York meal?
"Pasta."
Favorite drink?
"Bailey's on the rocks."
The funniest or most unpredictable actor or director you've worked with?
"I would say Woody Allen."
The plays that inspire you as a writer?
"West Side Story, Raisin' and Guys and Dolls."
Three biggest influences on your career?
"My mother, my father and I would have to say Bob De Niro."
Favorite moment in your career?
"It would have to be ... walking down the red carpet with my mother and father and my wife for the Academy Awards."
Which actor's opinion do you trust the most?
"I would say Bob De Niro's."
If you had a mulligan in life, a do-over, what would you do differently?
"I would graduate college. I didn't graduate."
On being a New Yorker ...
"What makes somebody a New Yorker is when you're walking down the street and somebody just looks at you and goes, 'What time is it?' And they don't say, 'Excuse me,' they don't say nothing. And you turn to them and you tell 'em the time and you keep on walking. That's what a New Yorker is."