Chazz Palminteri: The Original Bronx Tale

0:00He used to walk and his feet were pointed like 10 to 2. And years later, he got shot in the leg and they called him 20 after.

0:18Hey, everybody. Welcome to Literally. Happy to be here. It is me, Rob Lowe. The great Chaz Palminteri is with us today. um i mean he is uh when you i i love one man shows and i love actors who um realize maybe the phone isn't ringing early on and so they take their future into their own hands and they create their own destiny and no one no one has ever done it like chas did when he created bronx tale so uh welcome my buddy chas chas i was gonna wear my dodgers world champion hat today i knew i didn't want to i i didn't want to start us off on on a on an adversarial foot right no that's all right i i don't you know listen you guys are a better team what can i say you know you're a great team man great team you i saw i saw you there at at the new yankee stadium i have so many thoughts let's talk Yankees for a while.

1:23Sure. Yeah. Um, before we get into all the other good stuff. Okay. First of all, I'd never been to the new, it's not new anymore, but I hadn't been to that new Yankee stadium. Right. Um, you're not gonna like hearing this. I don't love it. Yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, I've heard that before, but I love it. I actually love it. But, but people who haven't been there don't like it. But, uh, you know, believe me, I went to the old Yankee stadium. Yeah. Same. And that was archaic, you know? So I love the way it is. I love the going, you know, or see all the pictures. You know, I just love it. That's great.

2:01Oh, listen, that part, I have to say, okay, let me rephrase it. That is amazing. Yeah. I mean, I love it. It's amazing. The way they've done the history, the pictures, the memorabilia. Exactly. That, they definitely crushed that part. Right. For sure. Some people, whatever. Maybe it's not that cup of tea, but whatever. I don't know. I don't, I don't see that. You're going to be even more angry when I tell you this. Um, do you know where else I had never been? And I walked in and loved it. What's that? Is the, the Mets stadium. Yeah. I thought that that now, cause Shea was a shithole. Shea was one of the great awful places on planet earth.

2:41Yeah. And, and this new, uh, what do they call it? What city field? City field. Yeah. Amazing. Amazing. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's a nice stadium. I mean, I prefer the Yankee stadium, but it's a nice stadium. The real question is, and I know this is the one, too, the hits just keep on coming. Do you think Juan Soto is going to enjoy Citi Field more than he did Yankee Stadium? No, no. I think he's going to miss that short porch. I think he's going to miss a judge being behind him. I say right now, and I'll say it to everybody, Ron Soto does not have the year that he had with the Yankees, his first year with the Mets.

3:22That's my opinion. Oh, I would take that bet. I agree with you 100%. Were you in – did you go to every game of the World Series? Yes. Yes. What were you feeling during the now infamous fifth inning? It's like it's a game of inches, and I go, if Judge catches the ball, if he goes to first, if, you know, it's one of those, you just say, how could this happen? And, you know, it's baseball. As they say, it's baseball. You just got to let it go, man. I felt if you wanted me to be a diehard Yankee fan, I thought we should have went back to Dodger Stadium up 3-2. Whoa, 100 % you should have. Yeah, yeah.

4:07Did you, in that famous, for those of you who don't follow baseball as closely as we do, it's a fifth inning collapse, which is historic. I feel it's a little bit like seasickness on a crowded boat. Once somebody starts throwing up, it can easily spread. And when Judge made that error, that literally he makes that catch

4:35500 times in a row. Oh, yeah. He would make that catch. And you could just kind of feel it in the stadium. You could feel it. Right, you could feel it. You cannot, the number one thing, especially in baseball, but the number one thing in the World Series in a playoff game, you cannot give a great team four or five outs. You cannot. You cannot survive that. You can never survive that. And that's what we did. We gave them four or five outs. And you can't do that. Not to a great team like that. No, can't do it. No. I don't understand. I'm a huge Garrett Cole fan. I just don't understand that. That play at first was really the one.

5:15That was, which was the, that was unbelievable. He just won blank. He won blank. I don't know. It's just, look, who knows, Rob, you know, I don't know how that happens, but just wasn't our year. That's all. I mean, we're a great team, but it just wasn't our year. Well, get ready, pal, because I would love to see a rematch, but these are new Dodgers. Holy smokes. Yeah. I mean, you guys got, it's a joke. You guys have so much depth that it's scary. I don't know. It's like the old days of Steinbrenner. I mean, George Steinbrenner would have done exactly the same thing. Probably. But you know what?

5:48It still doesn't mean you can have the best team spend the most money you know if you've done it for years at Dodgers and they haven't won. Yeah, I don't know. You know, now they have. They have. But let's see how it goes. You know, baseball is a funny thing. It's a funny thing, man. So you mentioned that maybe Garrett Cole blacked out and that anybody can do it. Have you ever been on stage and just gone blank? Because I have. Oh, yeah. You just go blank. I mean, on like a play? On stage. A movie? Yeah, like a play. If you were doing your Bronx Tale one-man show or anytime you're on stage, do you ever just have a moment where all of a sudden you go, oh, fuck, where am I?

6:31Yes. Yeah, then you just take a breath and you come back. But I've done that on stage and on Broadway. And yeah, that's how it's like you're really it's really maybe a second and a half until you get it back. But it seems like an hour. Eternity. Eternity. Doesn't it seem like an hour? Oh, my God. Scariest thing in the world. It really is. But the main thing is just take a breath. See, once you get once you start panicking, then forget it. Then you're done. But if you just relax for a second and take a breath. But have I done it with the one-man show? A few times, but I know it so well. I just take a breath and then I follow, then I go back.

7:11That's all. Okay. All right. How about this as devil's advocate? I think knowing it so well can kind of set you up for it because you know what this is like. It gets in your, there's levels of knowing it. That shows in your DNA. Yeah. You've been doing an iteration of a Bronx tale since, what, 1988? 1988. Yes. So it's in your DNA. Right. And you can think about other things while you're doing it. Yes. And you have to be careful of that. That's what I'm saying, right? The only thing that really messed me up once was when I wasn't doing the show. I went on Broadway to do the musical. And when I was doing the musical, I just played Sonny, of course.

7:55I sang Sonny songs and I played Sonny. That's it. As soon as I finished the musical, I went back. on the tour and did the one-man show. And the first night that I went back, Rob, I did Sonny's Line, and I waited for somebody to talk back to me. But not realizing is that I have to talk back. I play Lorenzo. And I just stood there and I went, oh. And then I said, holy shit. Scare the damn hell out of me, you know? Just scare the hell out of me. but I was okay with it. It's kind of fun escaping. Yes. From that. Like I remember the great escapes. I went blank on Saturday Night Live. Right. At the end of a sketch where I had the line that set up the joke.

8:49Right. That ended the sketch and I went blank and now there's no joke and there's no end. There's no end to this sketch. Oh God. And it's live on Saturday Night Live. Right. I ended up ad-libbing and we got out of it. It was Phil Hartman. I looked over at Phil. His eyes were like saucers. But you always remember those and you kind of come away with those moments as an actor going, this is kind of why we do it. It's the tightrope and you fall off the tightrope and you grab it with one hand. You don't fall to your death. And that's the fun of it. Yeah. I mean, that just goes to show you that, look, you've done movies with a lot of great big stars.

9:30Everybody goes up on their line when you do them. Everybody. Nobody just says it straight out. Yeah, we all go up on our lines. The idea is you just, you know, once you know that, you're fine. You know, once you know that, you know. Look, I know I'm good. I'm not going to be bad. If I can't get my lines, I'll get them and then we'll be fine. That's all. I don't know. Yeah. Um, you, De Niro has been a huge, uh, presence in your life. Yes. Um, I mean, he saw the, he saw Bronx Tale off Broadway, right? When, let me ask you, when you say off, when you did Bronx Tale famously in the 80s and you blew up on the scene.

10:08Yeah. How big was that theater? Like how off Broadway was it? If I'm not mistaken, it was, uh, 99 seats. And you play 18 characters. Right. 18 characters. By my, by my counting. Yes. No, that's 18. Yes. And it just, from day one, from day one, I've gotten standing ovations every time I did it. It's a very, it's a feat. No one's ever done it before, you know? I don't brag about anything I do, except for this. It's one of those things, I just had this idea that an actor could do the script that he wrote, do the whole movie on stage by himself. And I did it. I worked on it for a year. And for some reason, if you look at it, I don't know if you ever saw the one-man show, but to see it in person.

11:00Oh, now you can see it. Actually, I just filmed it with five cameras. And you can see it on Amazon and Google and Apple. And it just came out. So you can see it live or you can see it there. It's two different experiences. but people have to go see it again and again and again, Rob. Constantly. Really? All the time. 30, 40, 50 times. It's amazing. Wow. It's amazing. It's like the Rocky Horror Show. They just come back, come back, come back, come back.

11:46so when you wrote it you did you write it thinking all things being equal this will be a movie and then it wasn't and then you're like okay what can i do with it fuck it i'll make it as a woman i wrote it knowing i wrote it i've not as i was writing it and i was playing all the parts i said wow this could be a great movie but i see i i really wrote it to get an agent you know i didn't have an agent at the time uh and i wanted to really impress people and i said well i you know I did Hill Street Blues and Madlock and Dallas. But I said, look, I want to show people my range because I started in comedy.

12:22I was with a comedy group. And I said, I want to do my whole range. And I just wrote something for myself. And it just exploded, man. I mean, think about it. I'm the only guy in history ever to write the one-man show starring in it, write the major movie starring in it, write the musical starring in it, Then write a movie of the one-man show and film it, star in it. I was going to ask you, does it feel like it was a shot from God, a shot from the creative heavens? Yeah, absolutely. It clearly was. No question. I still feel it. When I go on stage, when I walk on stage, I feel like there's a lightning.

13:01Lightning is like this light that's coming down, hitting me on top of the head. And when I get on stage, I don't even remember what I'm doing. because I literally morph into the father, the son, the little nine-year-old boy. If you see it, you'll... I'm dying to see this new version, the taped version. Yeah. Did you... I'm curious because I always find that it's very difficult to capture with cameras the experience of the stage. Yes. because because because it's it's a proscenium no matter how you zhuzh it up it's still a proscenium now that you're dealing with i know what you're saying right when you see this it's not well i was going to ask you how did you what did you do to because i my idea was to shoot it like a movie to shoot it exactly i said this is not a comedy special this is not a guy on stage just talking that's why i use five cameras and that's why I did reshoots.

14:07And that's why I did two days. I did a live performance. And then I did two days of no audience because I wanted to shoot it like a movie. Back and forth, headshot, back and forth, wide shot, then cut in. So it's not. It's a movie. And people look at it and go, I don't understand this. How does this work? You know, it's like some, I don't read reviews, but from what some people told me, the producers said they call it like, how does, it's a magic trick. I am definitely, and I can, I can get it on Amazon, Amazon, Google and Apple. Google. When you were first writing it, it's you in the neighborhood and the neighborhood has got, you know gangsters in it and everything else were you ever uh afraid to dramatize that like did how did how did the guys how did the how did the boys feel about it well the only thing that the only pushback i got from the boys was when i first did it and when i did it at um when i was about to come to new york and i was doing it in la and it was really a big hit in la at a small theater like 99, same as the one I was going to.

15:31I got a call from them, from one of them, you know. And he said to me, we heard what you're doing in LA. We hear it's been very successful. And we're happy for you. You're a kid from the neighborhood. All we ask is that you change the names. And I said, absolutely no problem. So I did. That was it. That was it. Did you ever, so initially when you did it, you had the actual names and then you get the call and change them? Had a lot of the real names in it, yes. Amazing. So I had to take, I changed all the names. Except for Eddie Mush, because that was Eddie Mush. And he said, no, no, I want my name in there.

16:18Why are those names so great? Eddie Mush. Why are they so, nobody does names. Yeah, just honest. That world. Just honest, you know. Because everything he touched turned to mush, you know. I mean, he was such a loser. I mean, he lost every bet he ever made, this guy. The joke in the show is he would go to the racetrack and the tele would give him his tickets already ripped up. You know, I mean, that's like, you know, it just, in fact, nobody, you know, the bookmaker stopped taking his bet because everybody would wait to see who he bet and then they go the other way. And everybody was winning. So the bookmaker said, Eddie Mush, I can't take your bets anymore.

17:02And that was, you know, imagine that? He truly was the Mush, the original Mush. The original Mush. People have used that name now in the vernacular of us. Oh, they do for sure. I thought it was in the, I thought that, so he, there was no like, oh, he's the Mush. Like I know that's a part of betting. Everybody knows the Mush is the idiot. Yeah. No, they know that's related to him. Wow. I've been mushed. That's from him. Yeah. You know, I mean, oh, my God. Wow. They go, ah, he's an Eddie mush. Eddie mush, when he died, Rob, and it is hard to say this because people go, Chaz, you're exaggerating.

17:41I'm saying when he died, we all were there. He died of colon cancer years later after the movie. we were over there when they brought the coffin out with everybody holding it the hearse had a flat tire you have to be kidding no, had a flat tire so they couldn't so thank god the funeral parlor was very close by so they just sent for another hearse and everybody was looking up at the sky going Eddie, we know, yeah they are Eddie and so they actually had to change the And on his tombstone at St. Raymond Cemetery says, Eddie Mush Montanaro. It says the year he died. And it says the original Bronx Tale.

18:31Oh, that's amazing. So that was sweet. Do you have an all-time favorite nickname from the neighborhood? I mean, I'm sure you put them all in the show. But do you have one that's your all-time favorite nickname? The all-time favorite was Jimmy Tentatou. And I couldn't put him in because Bob thought it was just too much. Jimmy 10 to 2 was the all-time favorite because he used to walk and his feet were pointed like 10 to 2. And he was like muscle-bound. And years later, he got shot in the leg and they called him 20 after. I mean, this is... You know, these are characters, man. they really are they're they're what are you attributed to why what it's as part of that culture as anything else that kind of well because everybody had similar names jimmy frankie tony oh right veto so that's right if veto was the veto veto veto eggs he was an egg salesman right sally fish sally fish he was that you know and that came from that and then it came from if If you had, see, back then there was no shaming.

19:48If you were fat, we called him Fat Ricky. If you had a big nose, you'd go, Joey Big Nose. His son was Joey Little Nose. You know, that was it. You know, if you had any kind of incident that happened to you, there was Joey Mile Away. They called him Joey Mile Away because somebody broke into a second floor, and the second floor and the cops put all of us there and he said, and Joey was a known thief and he said, Joey, get over here. And he goes, no, no, no, not me. I was a mile away. I was a mile away. And he kept saying, I was a mile away. I was never here. And we never and we were kids and we kept laughing.

20:27And that's why he got the name Joey Mile Away. You know, I mean, crazy.

20:46what is your bronx tale um aside what is your favorite movie about the world because i will tell you my two favorite movies in of all of all time both are mob movies yeah and i'm sure you know what they are. But what are your favorites? My favorite movie of all time is On the Waterfront with Marlon Brando. Oh, wow. Yeah. Just saw a clip of that today. Just saw a clip today. Yeah, one of the greatest movies of all time. In fact, I know it's Marty Scorsese's favorite movie and a lot of people's favorite movie. That's perfectly shot, directed, acted in, you know, great movie. I need to see it again.

21:30Mine is Goodfellas. Oh, great movie. Great movie. It's my favorite movie of all time. And Godfather's one and two. Yeah. So it's like my three favorite movies, I feel bad because my three favorite movies are in that one genre. But it is what it is. Those are the three best. I'm sorry. To me, yeah. Godfather one and two is, I like Shawshank Redemption. To me, that's up there too. I mean, great movies, man. Great movies. You pick great movies. You're in another great one, Usual Suspects. Yeah. That's one of my favorite Usual Suspects and Bullets Over Broadway. Oh, man. Yeah. What's it like to work with Woody?

22:12What kind of direction does he give? He doesn't give direction. In fact, if he talks to you too much, that's not a good sign. You hope that he doesn't speak to you because if he starts speaking to you a lot, you could be replaced by the next day. You're going to be replaced soon. You're going to get whacked by Woody. Yeah, I learned that right away that you really don't talk to him. you really don't talk to him because if you do, if you do, that's not a good sign. So he picks people that are the part. He just knew I was a writer and I knew that world and he just thought I would be perfect for it.

22:51And he was right. That's a great one. And a guide to recognizing his saints, that's another one of my favorites. With Ditto, with Sean Penn, and Meg Ryan and Kevin Spacey. To me, God, that was, no, I'm sorry, that was Hurley Burley. And then God to Recognizing the Saints, that was with Robert Downey Jr. and Diane Weiss. So, yeah, so I just, I've been very fortunate. I've been in a lot of great movies, you know? Did you do Hurley Burley on stage? No, I didn't do it on stage. I did the movie. Did the movie. Yeah, I was too young to do it on stage, but I ended up doing the movie, which was great.

23:32It's funny. I wonder if it's still this way with actors. Cause when I was coming up there, you know, I was an LA actor. I lived in LA. I would go to New York, but I wasn't in New York. I wasn't a New York actor. I wasn't, I'd never had the opportunity to do theater, but you were always aware of what was going on. And there were just these legendary, legendary productions that you would hear about as an actor on the West coast. And Hurley Burley was certainly one of them. Yeah. Yeah, I started in doing theater, and that's all I did for years, and I loved it. And to me, it's a great training ground, and I still go back.

24:06Obviously, I'm still doing the show in theater. I do it in all these big theaters all over the United States, and I love doing it. I love being on stage. How many dates a year do you do on the tour, and how often do you tour it? I would say 35, 40. Wow, amazing. Yeah, and I do that, and I do that. Well, when I'm doing the TV series, Godfather of Harlem, then I space out weeks there and I don't do the show, which is nice. Is it the kind of thing where you get your Godfather of Harlem schedule and you go, oh, I'm light in this episode. Yeah. Let's see if I can. Can I do a show up in Seattle? Well, I tell them in advance that these days are rough for me and they work it out.

24:54They work it out somehow. So it's great. You know, I'm not carrying the series. Forrest Whitaker is. So, but they work it out with me. It's amazing. And you're still in New York. Yeah. You're upstate New York, aren't you? Yeah, I live in Westchester County. Yes, upstate. Yeah. You live in Santa Barbara, right? I do. I love it here. Yeah. Westchester is very similar. It's very similar. Santa Barbara is, I mean, if you're going to live somewhere in California, Santa Barbara is the place to live. That's what I say. If I ever move out of Santa Barbara, I'm moving out of California. And if I do that, I'm coming to like the Hudson River Valley or somewhere up like.

25:35I mean, yeah. I mean, I heard this. You got to tell me if this is true. This has been a myth, a legendary story. Okay. That Rob Lowe bought a house in Santa Barbara many years ago. and his wife is such a great decorator that she direct decorated this house that they bought for not a lot of money which whatever i don't know and now it's worth 50 million dollars i go i go i gotta tell you that's a hell of an investment man true story that's and we've done and we've done it one two we've done it twice we've broken real estate records wow up here so we're not it's absolutely true, but they're not, but we're not house flippers.

26:17Like we're not doing it. We just build a dream house and then for whatever reason, like the kids go to college and it's too big or whatever. And, and, and, and, and it's funny you say that because as we speak, my wife is picking out trees for the yard of the one we're building now. So I'm at that stressful inflection point, You know what I mean? Where you're like, oh God, what have I done? I always say that. I hate building. No, I hate it. My wife loves it. I hate it. You know, because it's always 40, 50 % more than you thought. Always. Always. Always. And you always say that same expression, might as well, might as well.

27:02This one is unbelievable. This is a property that was one of the original farms in Montecito. And it was settled in 1877. And my favorite, this is why I bought it, when there's a huge stone pine with a split at the top where lightning hit it in 1911. Wow. And I was like, that kind of history you don't really get in California so much. No, not in California. Right? Wow. Oh, that's great. Yeah, down there. It's true. I heard that story for years. And I went, man, Rob Lowe's wife must be some decorator, man. I can tell you that. She's got great taste. And she's done it for other folks as well. I wish she'd do it professionally.

27:50She has a jewelry business, Cheryl Lowe Designs, which is amazing. But I'm like, honey, what about just doing houses? And she's been, you know, she's like, I like jewelry. She's the best. Yeah, you gotta let them do what they want. Yeah, yeah. Chaz, this was great. I love talking to you, man. Yeah, save you, man. I'll save you. Let's just mark on the calendar World Series. Let's mark it. And then. Yes. And if I come out to Montecito, I'll definitely get in touch with you. I like to say hi, take you to lunch or something, dinner, whatever. I would love it. It's been way too long. Always a pleasure.

28:21Good luck. Bronx Tale, one-man show. Everybody go out, check it out. Check out the master doing his thing. It's a clinic. I'll be out in LA. I'm going to be out to California doing a show. So when I do, I'll let you, I'd love for you to come and see it. Oh, fantastic. I love it. It's a date. Thanks, brother. Thanks, brother. God bless.