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• Q & A with Mr. Tucci
• The Devil Wears Prada
• Mr. Tucci's bio

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Tavis: Stanley Tucci is an Emmy-winning actor whose acclaimed career includes films like "Big Night,' "Deconstructed Harry" and "The Terminal.' Beginning June 30, you can catch him in one of the summer's most talked about films, "The Devil Wears Prada.' The film also stars Meryl Streep. Here now a scene from "The Devil Wears Prada.'

[A film clip is shown]

Tavis: (Laughter) So, Stanley, why does the devil wear Prada? Why Prada?

Stanley Tucci: Well, it's nice stuff (laughter) and he has great taste.

Tavis: He does have great taste. Nice to have you on the program.

Tucci: I'm glad to be here. Thank you.

Tavis: The buzz on - you've been in a lot of great films in your career, but the buzz on this thing is unbelievable.

Tucci: Yeah, I know, I know. I'm very excited about it. It was a great experience and it is a great movie and those two things don't always happen.

Tavis: Yeah, when the experience and the movie are both fun for you.

Tucci: Yes, yes.

Tavis: Is there a reason why it was so fun this time around?

Tucci: Well, it was fun because for a number of reasons. It's a very well-written script. The director is a lovely man named David Frankel who loves actors and he's just a great director. I got to work with Meryl and Annie and Emily Blunt. I knew Meryl, but we had never worked together. And the character was sort of a dream character for an actor.

Tavis: Tell me more. Why key for you?

Tucci: Well, I'd never played a character like this. I mean, he was a wise-cracking -

Tavis: - you been well-dressed before.

Tucci: Yes, yes. I like clothes. That was the easy part (laughter). I came in like three days before I started shooting, so I had little time to prepare.

Tavis: So you didn't get a chance to research and go into all those high-end fashion shows? You missed the fun stuff.

Tucci: There was no research. There was nothing. It was here's the script. Do you like it? Do you want to do it? Yes, I do, and then you walk on the set basically and do it. It was great. You know, it was a wise-cracking, cynical, gay fashionista who we think is really sort of an awful person at the beginning as is evidenced in that clip, but we find out later that he's really a very sweet guy.

Tavis: I don't know you, but I can assume from the roles that I've watched you play over the years and being a fan of yours that you must really like the notion of stretching yourself because your career choices are as disparate, as different, as any career I've ever seen develop.

Tucci: Yeah, I guess they are, and I'm glad of that because that's what you want. I mean, that's what I want as an actor. That was the reason I started doing it. It was to explore as many different personalities as possible and get paid for it, you know, which is something. That's the actor's dream and playing something like this was really great because it's so far removed from the few things I've done in the last few years, so it's exciting.

Tavis: I'm going to put you on the spot, Stanley. Give me an example of a couple of things where you have really, really, for the actor, stretched yourself just so beyond anything in the realm of your own world, that it really required you to dig deep to stretch to make this character believable.

Tucci: Well, I think that there's a few things. Two of them were done for HBO, actually, and one was playing Walter Winchell and the other was -

Tavis: - you got a Golden Globe for that.

Tucci: Yes, and one was playing Adolf Eichmann. That was probably the hardest one of all. With Winchell, there was so much to read, so much to see, and I had a lot of time to prepare for that, so that was great. But also getting Winchell's voice, you know, took me months of every day working on that voice and the pace at which he spoke and to still make him a charming and likable being even though he was not that.

Then Eichmann was probably the greatest challenge because, as we know -

Tavis: - let's hope that's a stretch (laughter). Let us hope seriously that that's a huge stretch.

Tucci: That was a stretch, yeah. You know, we know he's one of the most awful monsters of all time, but he was a human being. So the goal is to figure out how to make that person a human being and someone that we want to watch for an hour and a half or two hours.

Tavis: I read somewhere where, early in your career, there was this - I'm paraphrasing your words - there was this effort, this attempt, to put you in this box of a particular kind of character, given your Italian upbringing. You were playing these kinds of -

Tucci: - yeah. You know, Hollywood loves stereotypes and, you know, Italian-Americans have always been stereotyped as gangsters. You know, when you're starting out, those are the roles that are offered to you and you take them and you try to make the best of it, but they want you to keep doing it and it's boring and it's insulting and it's whatever. Not that there aren't great movies about Mafiosi. I mean, we know what they are and they're incredible. But as a steady diet, for an actor and also for an audience, I think, it leaves a lot to, you know.

Tavis: Let me ask a question that might express a certain bit of naiveté on my part, but I'm curious as to your answer. Why do you think Hollywood does in fact stereotype so much and do you think that Hollywood likes to stereotype any more than society at large?

Tucci: Well, I think Hollywood does because it's easy. You know, it's easy. We look at a lot of movies. I mean, you have the good guy, you have the bad guy, you have the girl who's in distress and we have a happy ending, so that's easy. And you can appeal to a broad range of people, a broad demographic, with those very simple choices.

Once you enter into something that's ambiguous, an ending that's ambiguous or characters that are ambiguous either sexually or morally or whatever, then you're asking your audience to do a little bit of work. It is my experience that, actually, audiences like to work, but I think that Hollywood tries to hit a homerun a lot of the time and cover as many bases as possible.

Tavis: I think a lot of us who go to be entertained, we don't mind doing just a little work, but sometimes what is so formulaic becomes so boring and burdensome to watch.

Tucci: I mean, that was what we found with "Big Night" which we did ten years ago. You know, it took us a long time to get the money for the movie and the movie has a very ambiguous ending. In fact, it's a five and a half minute master shot of, you know, three guys in a room and there's one word spoken. But the audiences loved this movie. To this day, they love this movie. I remember sending the script to some production company and they sent back a message saying, "This is a very nice script, very nice, but you neglected to send us the ending." (Laughter)

Tavis: (Laughter) I would love to know what studio that was. I won't out them that way. That's a funny story, though. "You didn't send us the ending." Let me ask why it is that you have chosen - and I assume it is that you've chosen this as a style and as a strategy that works for you - but is it just my imagination, or do you like specifically look for character parts and parts that aren't always the lead? You're looking for something that you can actually work with, but it's not always the guy out front, even though you've done that.

Tucci: Yeah, but for the most part, I've only done that in my own movies, played the lead in my own movies. I cast myself as the lead -

Tavis: - why not? (Laughter)

Tucci: But I audition myself first. It's grueling (laughter). It goes on for months. I call myself back. I could go on forever with this, couldn't I? (Laughter) I'll tell you honestly, it is not an intentional choice.

Tavis: It's not?

Tucci: No, no. I mean, wouldn't I love to be the leading guy?

Tavis: I thought it was intentional because you pick such great parts, you make them believable, and you stand out in those parts even though they're not the lead. I mean, you go see Stanley Tucci, you know you like this guy.

Tucci: Well, thank you. No, I'm happy about that, but a lot of these - sometimes they are choices and a lot of times they're not choices. They're just here's this and you say, well, I'd like to play that other thing and they say, no, I don't think so. So then you look at this and you look at your other options and you say, okay, I think I can do this, but I have to figure out a way to make it really substantial. If you, say, ask for a rewrite or you end up changing things on the set.

You know, sometimes you'll play a sort of hard-boiled cop or whatever, let's say, and then you'll do one in a movie and it comes down, then you'll get like a few of those offers in a row after that. They're not really rich, full characters, so you sort of go through these fallow periods that are very frustrating, to this day.

Tavis: Let me circle back to "The Devil Wears Prada.' The fashion industry is so central to the New York that we know and you are a New Yorker, but I assume that you must have learned something that exposed you to a whole new world even though you live in the city and this thing is connected to the city. Unless you've been in this, I'm sure your eyes had to be open to like a lot of interesting and crazy stuff about this industry.

Tucci: Yeah, it's fascinating. The power of that industry, the impact of that industry, is pretty staggering. I mean, it is as impactful as Hollywood is and they share a lot of similarities, certainly in their fickleness and, you know (laughter). You know, the speed and the pace at which they change. It's really pretty incredible.

As I said, I didn't have a lot of time to prepare, but I have friends who are in the industry and I'd been to fashion shows before. To me, the fashion show is one of the most interesting events that I've ever been to because the whole thing lasts, you know, ten minutes. You have everybody packed into this room. All I can say is, it's this fire trap.

All I can think is, I hope there's not a fire because you're all sitting like this and these gorgeous, incredibly tall people walk down this thing in front of you with this loud music and these flashing lights and it's over like that. I mean, it's like the perfect - what's the word I want - metaphor for the business itself is that fashion show. It's like that. That fast.

Tavis: Let me close with a completely mindless question just because I'm curious. You like clothes, I love clothes.

Tucci: Yeah.

Tavis: The one movie that you have done where, if you could have, not that you did, taken the wardrobe home with you. You loved the clothes in this movie so much that you would have taken the wardrobe home with you. I'm sure it wasn't "Prada,' but -

Tucci: - no, it wasn't "Prada,' no. I did take a couple of pieces.

Tavis: (Laughter) Smart guy.

Tucci: I can't say "conspiracy" because it was a Nazi uniform, though it was beautifully made. I think there were a few things I have to say in "Big Night.' Even though it was a low budget, it had a great costume designer and she found some beautiful stuff, stuff in there that was quite beautiful. I did keep one suit for years.

Tavis: I got to go back and look at "Big Night" again and see what you were wearing.

Tucci: Yeah, there was some nice stuff, yeah.

Tavis: This isn't bad either. Like the socks especially.

Tucci: Thank you, yeah.

Tavis: Love the socks.

Tucci: Yeah, a little splash of color, yeah.

Tavis: Nice to have you on.

Tucci: It's so nice to be on. Thanks, Tavis.

Tavis: Glad to have you. "The Devil Wears Prada" starring Stanley Tucci, Meryl Streep and a wonderful cast. I don't need to tell you to check it out. The buzz is everywhere. I'm sure you'll do just that.

That's our show for tonight. You can catch me on the weekends on PRI, Public Radio International. Check your local listings. I'll see you back here next time, though, on PBS. Until then, good night from Los Angeles. Thanks for watching and, as always, keep the faith.