FRIDAY
E-mail a friendChazz Palminteri
original airdate August 19, 2008
Chazz Palminteri's Bronx upbringing has had considerable influence on his work as a writer-actor. His film credits include The Usual Suspects and Bullets Over Broadway, for which he earned an Oscar nod. Palminteri got his acting start on the stage, while paying his dues as a nightclub bouncer, among other jobs. He's currently starring in A Bronx Tale—a one-man play he wrote and first performed in '89—portraying 18 characters that lead audiences through a depiction of his rough childhood in the Bronx.
Actor describes the horrifying event that he survived when he was nine years old. (2:26)
Full Interview. (11:59)
Chazz Palminteri
Tavis: Pleased to welcome Chazz Palminteri to this program. The Oscar-nominated actor has starred in so many notable films, including, of course, "A Bronx Tale," "Bullets Over Broadway," and "Mulholland Falls." He's currently starring in the revival of his one-man play, "A Bronx Tale," which begins a run here at the Wadsworth Theater in L.A. on September 9th. Here now, a scene from "A Bronx Tale."
[Clip]
Tavis: Eighteen characters - that's a lot to work with, Chazz.
Chazz Palminteri: It was, but I knew I had to do something at the time that was really special for me to get noticed. So when I wrote it, I wanted it to be something really good.
Tavis: Explain to me, for those who have not seen it - the play, the movie. When you say you wrote it, you knew you had to - take me back to that time when you were writing it.
Palminteri: Well, I was writing it - this is 1989, I was working as a doorman. I was acting, and then I ran out of money. I was guest-starring on "Hill Street Blues" and all those other shows, and then I ran out of money. So I got a job as a doorman and I was working there for about a couple of months. And all of a sudden there was this one guy who wanted to get in and I didn't let him in, and he gave me a hard time.
And I said, "No, you're not getting in." He goes, "It's my party." I said, "I don't care, you're not getting in." And that person was Swifty Lazar, who was a big agent - the biggest in the world at the time. And he said, "You're going to be fired." I said, "Yeah, sure." And I was fired. (Laughter) And he got me fired. So I went home and I was really depressed, but I remember my father always telling me "You're going to make it" and my mom always telling me.
And he always said, "The saddest thing in life is wasted talent - don't ever waste your talent." And he wrote it on a little index card, and I had that in this place where I was living, this kind of dump in North Hollywood. And then finally I said, "You know what? If they won't give me a great part, I'll write one myself."
I got five tabs of yellow paper and I said, "I'm going to turn my life around." And I started writing "A Bronx Tale," the play. I said, "I'm going to do a one-man show; this way, they have to notice me." And I wrote it, and then my friend gave me the money to produce it, and my life changed, Tavis, like that - bam, boom. It just exploded. It was incredible.
Tavis: And then - I'm just fast-forwarding the story right quick - then as fate would have it, studios started making offers on the project, and you, who had been broke just months prior, years prior, started turning everybody down, until -
Palminteri: They thought I was crazy.
Tavis: Yeah, so did I. (Laughs)
Palminteri: Everybody. They said, "Oh, this guy's crazy." I got offered $250,000 the first two weeks it was open, then $500,000, and then $1 million.
Tavis: And you said no to all of it.
Palminteri: I said no. I had an offer, $1 million, and I had $200 in the bank at the time. But I said, "No, I'm playing Sonny and I write the screenplay." And then Robert De Niro saw it, and Bob said, "You'd be great as that." And you know Bob's all about the truth and honesty, and he said, "You should play Sonny, and you should write it, because it's about you." And so he backed me and the rest was history, as they say.
Tavis: Not bad to have De Niro come through for you.
Palminteri: Not bad, no. He was the one who gave me my break, absolutely.
Tavis: I'm going to go back to the earlier part of your story. How does one process, even if one isn't a household name as a star, how do you process guest-starring on major TV shows like "Hill Street Blues," etc., and then ending up even after that as a doorman?
Palminteri: Yeah.
Tavis: I'm not casting aspersion on doormen; I want to get in, too. So I cast no aspersion -
Palminteri: There you are, guest-starring in roles, and all of a sudden you run out of money and you got to do something. My parents - I have the greatest parents in the world, but they weren't wealthy. And I got to that point where I borrowed enough from my friends, I couldn't even ask anybody anymore. But as any actor, you go through those times.
Tavis: How does your ego take that, though? That's why I respect actors so much - my ego couldn't take that.
Palminteri: My ego was always like I'm going to make it, and I know I am. It's just a matter of time. It wasn't about if I made it, it was I knew when I was going to - I just knew I was going to make it. I just knew it. I think it was my mother and father blessed me with incredible confidence, and I just said it's a matter of just time - that's all it is. And that's what happened.
Tavis: Tell me about the play itself, though - the one-man play itself, these 18 characters.
Palminteri: Yeah, well, it started really - I wrote the first thing was when I was nine years old I saw this man kill a man right in front of me. I was born in the Bronx, and I was sitting on a stoop in front of my house and these two guys were fighting over a parking space, which I thought was a parking space.
And one guy got out of the car with a baseball bat and smashed the window, and the other guy got out and he was bleeding, and he went to hit him again and this other man came over, boom, boom, and killed him. He was his friend, who the guy hit with the baseball bat.
Tavis: And you're nine years old, watching this.
Palminteri: I was nine years old, just sitting there like this, watching them. And then all of a sudden the guy stared at me and I stared at him, and he kind of looked at me. And I remember his face - he looked at me like - oh, man - I could be wrong, but what I remember was he felt bad that I had to see this. And he just stared at me, then kind of just walked back into the bar, and I just followed him all the way.
Then my father ran downstairs and grabbed me and brought me upstairs. And the cops came, and I just said I didn't see anything. In the movie I went down, but in reality I never went down. As a writer, you embellish certain things, of course. And that guy would always see me after that, and he'd look at me and I'd look at him, and we came - it was like this - he knows this kid, he knows it was me, and he didn't say anything.
And he then - I went to the club; I would make cappuccino for the guys. He invited me in, and I started hanging out with these guys. And this one guy, who - Sonny, and that wasn't his real name, but I changed some of the names - he just was - they were just great guys. I thought they were great guys. But even though Sonny wanted me not to do that, I just couldn't help being influenced by who he was.
And my father would always say, "It's the working man who's the tough guy. Don't admire those guys - I'm the tough guy. I get up for a living and do something for my family." He goes, "You want to be a tough guy? Do that." And it was always - I thought that was always interesting. So I put the mafia on one side, my father on the other, through the eyes of a boy.
But the great thing about the story is it's not about black and white, it's not about good and evil, it's about gray and gray. My father, as great as he was, had some faults. Sonny, as bad as he was, had some good things about him. So I kind of took the best of both men and became a man.
Tavis: And Dr. King used to always say there's some good in the best of us, and some evil in the worst - some evil in the best of us and some good in the worst of us.
Palminteri: Absolutely, without a doubt. And that's what made this story resonate, I think. And it talks about issues, about universal themes, about being the best, don't the best. And that's why I talk to a lot of especially minorities, and I tell them what my father told me - the saddest thing in life is wasted talent. I said, "You don't have to make it, you already made it. You just can't blow it. You already have the gift inside of you if you're willing to work."
And I wrote about that in "Bronx Tale." I talked about racism, because I fell in love with a Black girl when I was 17, and I wanted to show how racism is bred down from one generation to the next. No one is born a racist. You're not born a racist, you are taught to be a racist. So in my neighborhood, as great as it was, there was racism there.
And I wanted to show that hey, if you teach your children that there's nothing wrong, everybody's the same, they'll grow up like that. But if you're a racist, your children will be a racist. So "Bronx Tale" dealt with a lot of issues, and I think that's why it resonates with a lot of people.
Tavis: How does a kid - I'm fascinated hearing your story about your own childhood. How does a 9-year-odl navigate seeing that? It's a strange question, because nowadays in inner cities kids see this stuff all the time. They're almost anesthetized to it.
Palminteri: Exactly.
Tavis: But back in your day -
Palminteri: No. It's funny, a lot of people ask that exact question that you just did, and I always go "It never bothered me." I never had nightmares over it, I never thought about it, because to me it was a badge of honor not to rat. I always knew - I grew up with you rat, that's the worst thing in the world. So I never ratted, but as I got older I realized obviously it did bother me a way because I wrote about it.
It definitely stayed in my mind. And what I said to my father, "I did a good thing, Daddy, right?" When I was that age, I said, "I didn't rat, Daddy. That was good, right, Daddy?" Wanting approval. And my father was conflicted too, and he said, "Well, you did a good thing for a bad man." And I didn't understand that. I remember him saying that to me, and I didn't understand that.
Tavis: How did your parents process knowing - because I assume they did, obviously -
Palminteri: Yes.
Tavis: - that their kid knew the true story. He's an eyewitness - a 9-year-old eyewitness. I hear how you processed it; how did your parents process that?
Palminteri: Well, they just didn't want me to hang around at the bar. They always kept me away from the bar - "Don't hang at the bar." And I would say, "All right, I'm not." But I would sneak away there because it was great to be around those guys. They were exciting and they had the money and they had the girls, they had the cars, they had the shiny suits.
And especially if the boss liked you, which he liked me, I was untouchable. I was like hey, be nice to him because he's nice to him. So it gets those negative - everything that's negative, it builds it up, which is not good.
Tavis: What did you take way from this experience earlier in your career of being offered money - good money - when you were broke, and turning it down, and what did you learn from deciding that when you didn't have other roles that were being offered, you'd write your own for yourself. What do you take from those experiences?
Palminteri: I take that sometimes you have to take your life in your hands. I really do believe that talent is maybe 25 percent of success. I think 75 percent is your social skills and your discipline and your perseverance. There's many talented people who never make it, and there's many people who are not that talented who do very well because they have great social skills. (Laughter)
And they have just enough talent, but their social skills are so good and the discipline is so good, and the way they persevere is so good that it makes them actually - people want to be around them. And my father and mother always taught me that you've got to work harder than everybody - you could do this. And I didn't have people in the business; I come from the Bronx and a five-floor walk-up.
Tavis: What'd you learn from telling Swifty he couldn't get in?
Palminteri: Well, that sometimes - (laughter) something that looks like a disaster can actually be a blessing. Sometimes God puts his hand down there and helps you. Sometimes people who are just - they can't quit their job, but sometimes God says, "Look, you've got to quit this job - you've got to get fired." So he gets you fired.
So what that does is it perpetuates you in forward motion. Now you have two ways to go - you could take drugs and start drinking and be depressed, or you could say, "Okay, I got fired. Now what am I going to do with the situation here?" That's what I did. I was at that crossroad. Right at that pinnacle in the moment of my life where you look back and you go your life could have went either way.
I said, "No, I am not going to go down. No, I am going to write my own play. I'm an actor, I'm a writer - I'm going to do this. And you'll see, this is going to work." And that's what I did.
Tavis: Chazz is in town and going to be here at the Wadsworth with "A Bronx Tale" on stage, so check out the Wadsworth for all the information of when you can go check out the one-man play, "A Bronx Tale," with these wonderful 18 characters that I will be going to check out.
Palminteri: I hope so.
Tavis: So I'll see you in the audience. Well, I'll be in the audience; he'll be on stage.
Palminteri: I hope so.
Tavis: Where I belong. (Laughs) In the audience.
Back to August 19, 2008