Wednesday, 4/16/97 ‘Eight Heads in a Duffel Bag’ brings comic
side of Pesci into view Oscar-winning actor plays it ‘straight
ahead’ in Tom Schulman’s comedy
By John Nein Daily Bruin Contributor When Martin Scorcese and
Robert De Niro went looking for somebody to play Jake La Motta’s
brother in "Raging Bull," their search led them to a restaurant in
the Bronx where they had tracked down an actor whose energized
debut performance in the obscure film "The Deathcollector" had
caught their attention. The actor was Joe Pesci, and he got the
part. More than that, as Joey La Motta, Pesci drew out a very early
sketch of what has become an enduring, evolving persona in mob
films of every ilk. Seventeen years later, with a handful of
awards, including an Oscar, to his credit, Pesci’s variations on
the archetypal Italian American and the Mafioso figures have ranged
from dramatic depictions in "Goodfellas," "Once Upon A Time in
America" and "Casino" to the more humorous incarnations in "My
Cousin Vinny," "Jimmy Hollywood," the "Lethal Weapon" sequels and
the upcoming comedy "Eight Heads in a Duffel Bag." Pesci was born
in Newark, N.J., and started acting at age 5. After years of work
in theater and television and a brief stint as a musician and
stand-up comic, he turned to film and got his break with "Raging
Bull." In the string of films that followed, the budget-sized,
fast-talking, volatile tough guy we’ve come to know runs
dangerously close to being construed as a trademark, but Pesci
doesn’t worry about being pigeonholed. "Well, I tried to spread it
out as much as I could, you know," he says. "It’s not easy, but I
don’t think I’m typecast. It depends on who’s making the movie and
what character they’re looking for." No director has allowed him to
find more directions within that gangster persona than longtime
collaborator Scorcese. For his role as the wildly ill-tempered,
chillingly unpredictable Tommy De Vito in "Goodfellas," Pesci
received the Academy Award for best supporting actor (which his
mother keeps). It’s also the role that solidified his monopoly on
the wiseguy front. "All the wiseguys are nuts," he says. "In
‘Goodfellas,’ I think Tommy is hysterical." Nuts is a mild word.
This is a guy who sits at his mother’s dinner table talking a mile
a minute, heaping down mouthfuls of pasta and keeping a straight
face while asking her if he can borrow a steak knife. A few minutes
later, the steak knife is at work stabbing some poor gumba who’s in
Tommy’s trunk. Flamboyant doesn’t even approach how he plays these
characters, but Pesci claims, "It’s never really enough for me." "I
always think I could have poured it on more sometimes in certain
ways," he says. In "Goodfellas," he wanted to establish immediately
how Tommy’s unstable temper could make him turn on anybody. In his
research, Pesci had read about an incident which he recounted to
Scorcese, who liked the idea. It became the "What do you mean I’m
funny?" scene, which Pesci wrote and directed himself. "In the end,
it’s Marty’s call, you know," he says. "All I can do is describe
what I want to play, what I want to say and how I want to do it.
And usually he loves everything. He’s a great artist. I love
working with Marty. "You feel like you have such a big part in
making it." Not every film experience can be as satisfying. In
"JFK," Pesci found himself at odds with director Oliver Stone’s
methods. "That was tough. He’s too demanding. The fun is out of it,
you know. You can’t collaborate with someone who’s trying to
dominate all the time. He should put on puppet shows or something
because it’s not all one man." In "Eight Heads and a Duffel Bag,"
which comes out Friday, Pesci’s Tommy Spinelli falls firmly onto
the comedy side of the spectrum – a self-aware, farcical but
thoroughly unpandering portrayal of a hit man with a big problem.
Pesci loses a travel bag containing eight heads from a recent "hit"
when he’s forced to check his luggage at the airport. (Just in case
it’s an issue, the casual packaging of eight human heads does
exceed the space allotted in standard overhead bins.) But where the
film flies into mayhem, Pesci remains the straight man. "I had to
play it straight ahead because it’s such a nonsensical crazy
farce," Pesci concluded. And that’s just what he told director Tom
Schulman from the outset. "Things that make me laugh are more
honest and straight ahead, and that’s the way I want to play the
character. I wish you could direct the rest of the movie that way
but you’re going to find it impossible (because) it’s so crazy."
It’s the requisite balance between comedy and credibility that gave
Pesci misgivings about the script the first time he read it. "I
mean I really thought Tom was on LSD when he wrote it," recalls
Pesci. But he recognized that the success of the role rested on his
credibility as a professional hit man, not a clown. Even when he’s
towel-whipping two medical students into divulging information,
there’s not a twinge of hamming – proof once again that the heart
of satire is sincerity. What comes next? Pesci will star with his
good friend Danny Glover in the Disney summer release "Gone
Fishin’." Scorcese has encouraged Pesci to direct, but that
proposal meets with hesitation. "Only in my dreams," he says. "It’s
just too much work. And I think you have to have a burning desire
for that kind of thing. There’s more to directing than just telling
the actors where to go and things like that, I mean, you have to be
a filmmaker, you know. Scorcese’s a filmmaker, Francis (Coppola),
and they know what to do." Pesci may not consider himself a
filmmaker, but he’s on regular diet of classics. There’s an
undeniable touch of James Cagney and John Garfield in him that
relays his love of films. "I like ‘Hombre,’ Paul Newman. Whenever I
see it, I cannot turn it off. I have to watch the whole movie. If I
see James Cagney, (if) ‘The Roaring Twenties’ comes on, I cannot
turn it off. If ‘The Godfather’ comes on, I can’t turn it off.
There’s certain movies that I can’t turn off. Mine I can turn off."
It’s the authenticity of those films that finds its way to his own
work: "I’m a big fan of reality. My favorite movies these days are
documentaries. There’s no bad acting, they’re filmed great."
Moreover, they don’t draw distinctions between comedy and drama,
which both rest on one critical underpinning: "reality." "I like to
play something straight ahead and let the laughs fall where they
may," he says. "Play it for real. And there’s comedy and tragedy in
all of it. It comes naturally." Orion Pictures Joe Pesci on set of
"8 Heads in a Duffel Bag" with writer/director Tom Schulman. 8
Heads–Official Studio Site