Playboy Interview: Danny Devito

In Hollywood, some have actually begun calling him the new Robert Redford. He doesn't have the height, the golden-boy looks or the track record, but if his breakneck rise from TV actor to big-screen movie star to big-screen director is any measurement, then Danny DeVito can surely stand tall with the Redfords. He is one of an elite group of artists to find success both in front of and behind the camera. A diminutive dynamo (he stands five feet tall) who began his double duty as actor and director only five years ago, DeVito took an important step last month with his most ambitious project to date: "Hoffa," Twentieth Century Fox's $42 million epic starring Jack Nicholson as Jimmy Hoffa, the Teamster boss who disappeared in 1975.

It's not as if DeVito was doing poorly as an actor. After breaking onto the big screen in 1975 in the small but memorable role of Mr. Martini, the lewd mental patient in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," DeVito headed into a five-year stint as Louie DePalma, the lovable louse who managed traffic at a cab company on the hit sitcom "Taxi." Although he won fans and captured an Emmy for his interpretation of the pint-sized palooka, by 1983 he was dispatching his last cab: The series was canceled.

DeVito returned to the movies--and he's been there ever since. After solid supporting performances in James Brooks' "Terms of Endearment" and the Michael Douglas--Kathleen Turner adventure movies "Romancing the Stone" and "Jewel of the Nile," DeVito began to carve a niche for himself in the parts he played. Borrowing elements from his beloved "Taxi" character ("There's a little bit of Louie in everybody," DeVito admits), he combined them with personality quirks unique to each new role. DeVito was perfectly bumbling as Joe Piscopo's sidekick in Brian DePalma's less than successful "Wiseguys"; he was at his smarmy best as the hateful Sam Stone, who plots the murder of his wife (Bette Midler) in 1986's "RuthlessPeople"; he played a convincing aluminum-siding salesman in Sixties Baltimore in Barry Levinson's "Tin Men" (co-starring Richard Dreyfuss); and he even pulled off the role of Arnold Schwarzenegger's long-lost but not-so-identical brother in "Twins."

In 1987 DeVito made his most important career move. Having nurtured for more than three decades the dream of film directing (he started playing with home-movie cameras as a child), DeVito made his feature film debut with the dark comedy "Throw Momma from the Train." He also agreed to act in the film--co-starring with Billy Crystal as a vengeful schlemiel bent on killing his domineering mother. The plot of "Throw Momma" may have made audiences wince, but it also won them over.

DeVito's next directorial effort was another startler: "The War of the Roses," a creepy divorce story that reteamed him--as director and fellow actor--with Douglas and Turner. "Roses" was DeVito's pitch-black comic ode to marital disharmony (he played a divorce lawyer), culminating in a jarring finale that found Douglas and Turner crashing to their deaths atop a falling chandelier. The film's far-from-happy ending helped reaffirm the title bestowed on him by longtime friend Douglas: "the prince of darkness." It's a sobriquet DeVito doesn't exactly reject--but one he doesn't embrace, either. "What do you call dark humor?" he asks. "Anything that's not light?" After "Roses" he concentrated on acting, playing Larry the Liquidator, the loathsome corporate-takeover artist in "Other People's Money."

In keeping with his sinister side, DeVito portrayed the Penguin in last year's "Batman Returns" as a character more in keeping with the original comic-book creature than Burgess Meredith's TV-series villain. And later this year he'll star in a film called "Jack the Bear." "The movie's about a widower who's the host of a late-night TV horror show," he says. "It's also about his two sons, the monsters that you carry inside you and the real ones that exist walking around the street."

But from now on, the yardstick by which DeVito's success will be measured is "Hoffa." Featuring what he calls "a cast of thousands," the film promises to be controversial, with a portrait of Hoffa that goes beyond the cardboard image of wiseguy--a label DeVito argues is too conventionally associated with the union boss. It is a gamble DeVito didn't really have to take. From Joseph Mankiewicz' "Cleopatra" to Spike Lee's "Malcolm X," fans are often less interested in a film's historical accuracy than they are with being entertained. Yet, with "Hoffa," DeVito insists he has satisfied both criteria.

Born in Neptune, New Jersey on November 17, 1944, and raised in nearby Asbury Park, DeVito is the youngest of the three children of Daniel and Julia DeVito. By the time he was 16, he was a streetwise Italian kid who could "run sixty to seventy balls" in a game of straight pool (the local pool hall was owned by his father). Even at that age, DeVito was enamored with moviemaking and shocking people. One night he and some buddies gathered in front of his dad's pool hall. They faked a loud argument that ended with one boy pulling a gun and apparently shooting a second boy. A black Buick that belonged to the father of the third member of the crew then whisked them all away. "We hopped in and burned rubber out of there," DeVito recalls. "And everybody's left standing there with their mouths open." DeVito had directed and filmed the entire phony shootout. He titled it "A Lovely Way to Spend an Evening."

After high school, DeVito started working as a gardener, then as a beautician, styling hair at his sister Angela's salon. Realizing that more money could be made by learning the art of cosmetics, he applied for a makeup course at New York's American Academy of Dramatic Arts. In order to enroll, DeVito had to audition with a monolog, then take acting classes if he was accepted. He was accepted and, in no time, performing had replaced cosmetics.

In 1970 DeVito landed the role of Martini--a "greedy, lustful sicko," he says--in the stage revival of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." (He was a shoo-in for the role in the subsequent film.) While performing in another off-Broadway show called "The Shrinking Bride," DeVito met actress Rhea Perlman, who had been in the audience one night. Within two weeks, DeVito and Perlman were living together; they were married 11 years later. By then, both had become television stars--DeVito on "Taxi" and Perlman on "Cheers." Today they have three children: Lucy (age nine), Gracie (seven) and Jake (five).

To interview the often elusive DeVito, Playboy sent Lawrence Linderman to meet with the actor-director on the Sony Picture lot in Culver City, California. Linderman's most recent "Playboy Interview" assignment was last July, when he interviewed DeVito's "Batman Returns" nemesis, Michael Keaton. Here is Linderman's report:

"When we met, DeVito was hard at work editing 'Hoffa.' He hoped to shoehorn our interview sessions in daily fifty-minute bursts--from 1:00 P.M. to 1:50 P.M.--over lunches in the Sony commissary. I got there early the first day andnoticed that, as DeVito strolled in, diners throughout the room suddenly became silent, casting respectful, furtive glances at him as he trudged along.

"When he sat down and we shook hands--and after he ordered his customary first course, a bowl of matzoh-ball soup--I expected to be talking with a guy who had a lot in common with Louie DePalma of 'Taxi,' Sam Stoneof 'Ruthless People' or even Gavin D'Amato of 'The War of the Roses.' I was dead wrong. DeVito was nothing at all like themean and manic characters he'd made famous. During our first session, in fact, he was reserved to the point of being almost emotionally incapable of talking about himself

"But once I was able to get DeVito to an outdoor picnic table--and especially to editing room 39 in what is known on the Sony lot as 'Cutter's Alley'--he had a much easier time opening up. But make no mistake, he's still very diffident, except when he' s working. It's my guess that as soon as he truly decides that interviewing can be interpreted as a worthwhile adjunct of filmmaking, he'll mow down journalists any which way he wants. Just as Louie would."

[Q] Playboy: You just finished acting in and directing Hoffa, a film that lionizes a labor leader who most people believe was corrupt. When this interview is published, the reviews will already be in. Do you think you'll be accused of doing a whitewash?

[A] Devito: No, because the movie isn't a whitewash. It's Jimmy Hoffa, warts and all, and it doesn't go easy on anything. Certain things are known about Hoffa. He was incredibly dedicated to his friends; he was extremely loyal to his wife and his family. In my opinion, from what I've learned about him, Hoffa would have made a great president--not of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters but of the United States.

[Q] Playboy: That's quite a reach, isn't it?

[A] Devito: Well, Hoffa was there on every issue, on every deal. He was clear a clear could be on every single thing about his union. I think he was an honest guy. He just looked you in the eye and dealt with you the way you dealt with him.

Before I started this movie, I had the same impression of Jimmy Hoffa a lot of people have--that he was the head of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, that he had ties to the Mob and that he disappeared from the face of the earth. What I didn't have any idea about was the kind of twenty-four-hours-a-day guy he was. Hoffa cared more about working men and women than he did about anything else. He was an incredible leader who was there all the time for anybody who needed him and who selflessly gave himself over to the Teamsters. He did all of this in a heroic way.

[Q] Playboy: Did you research Hoffa's life extensively?

[A] Devito: I did, yeah. After becoming interested in the screenplay by David Mamet, I got more interested in Hoffa himself. So I read everybody's opinion of him.

[Q] Playboy: What did the research tell you?

[A] Devito: It seemed as if everybody knew him, everybody was his best friend and everybody killed him. Everyone was there when he died and everyone knew exactly where he was buried. It got to be fascinating. But I ended up feeling that Hoffa did what he had to do, which was to take care of the people in the union. And as far as I could see, he really didn't do anything illegal.

[Q] Playboy: A number of Las Vegas casinos were financed by Teamster pension funds. That may or may not have been illegal, but it certainly was questionable.

[A] Devito: Right. But under Hoffa, the Teamsters built a lot of things, including hospitals in the U.S. and orphanages in Israel. Still, we focus on the casinos. What's wrong with the casinos?

[Q] Playboy: In theory, nothing, except that some of the people who owned them were mobsters.

[A] Devito: Before those casinos could be built, there were hearings in Nevada. Those hearings included people such as the governor of Nevada, who was pretty high up in the Republican Party.

[Q] Playboy: Didn't you go into this project with the conventional notion that Hoffa was, at least, shady?

[A] Devito: Absolutely--that he was a hood, that he was a gangster on the take. In fact, he lived a simple life. Listen, until he became president of the International, he lived in the same house in which he and [Hoffa's wife] Josephine raised their children. She was in the labor movement as well. They met on a picket line. People have always believed he was a thug, a guy who was sticking money into his pocket. People say Teamster money built the casinos in Las Vegas, and that every time someone gambled there, Hoffa was making money. That isn't true. The Teamster loans Hoffa made were legal loans, whether he was loaning money to a man or a group of people or an organization. And the returns to the people in the unions were enormous.

[Q] Playboy: Most people would respond to that by saying, "Look at the kind of characters he was loaning the money to."

[A] Devito: You're talking about the people he was in business with?

[Q] Playboy: They weren't exactly the charitable type.

[A] Devito: So are we now saying that everybody who does business with people in Vegas is a criminal? That's ridiculous. Just because a man makes a loan to a person thought to be a shady character, does that suddenly make him guilty? I don't think it works that way.

[Q] Playboy: You don't anticipate a reviewer saying, "Here's a film that goes easy on Hoffa and tries to make him a good and strong man"?

[A] Devito: The movie doesn't go easy on anything. As I said before, this is not a whitewash of Hoffa. It's Hoffa--

[Q] Playboy: Warts and all.

[A] Devito: Warts and all. Absolutely.

[Q] Playboy: Why did you cast Jack Nicholson as Hoffa?

[A] Devito: Jack's a brilliant actor and he was always at the top of my list. When I mentioned to him that I was doing the movie, he was in the middle of filming The Two Jakes. He was busy and I didn't know if I had a shot at him. In a lot of ways, it's uncanny how much like Hoffa he is. Jack's trustworthy, dedicated to his art and dedicated to his friends. And, like Hoffa, he's also Dutch-Irish. Everything clicked. So it was like, bingo! Let me have Jack.

[Q] Playboy: Want to say anything about how he did?

[A] Devito: Jack is one of the hardest-working actors I've ever had the pleasure of being associated with. He works constantly and he plays hard, but he is totally dedicated to what he's doing. I don't believe there were five minutes during the day where he wasn't working while he was on the set. Jack likes to improvise and really dig into his characters, as he did in Hoffa. I think you'll agree that it is one of his finest performances.

[Q] Playboy: Good enough to be nominated for an Academy Award?

[A] Devito: My expectations for him are very high.

[Q] Playboy: What are your chances of getting nominated for directing the film? Do you think you have a shot?

[A] Devito: I have high hopes for that, too. I want to be worthy of recognition by my peers. But, mostly, I just want the audience to enjoy the movie as much as I do.

[Q] Playboy: Would you be shocked if all these nominations actually came about?

[A] Devito: Probably, yes. Very shocked. It's just one of those things: You watch the Academy Awards when you're a kid--it's thrilling to watch them--and you can't imagine what it would be like to be there.

[Q] Playboy: You and Nicholson go way back, don't you?

[A] Devito: Yeah, we've been friends since 1974, when we filmed One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. This will be the fourth movie we've done together--Cuckoo's Nest, Goin' South, Terms of Endearment and now Hoffa. After Cuckoo's Nest, he recommended me to directors every time he did a job. When he did Missouri Breaks he recommended me to Arthur Penn. Penn didn't hire me, but I appreciated what Jack did. He's a very loyal guy and I've always admired him as a human being and as an actor. We're from the same neighborhood in New Jersey--he's from Neptune and I'm from Asbury Park, which is a mile or two away. We didn't know each other growing up, but a cousin of mine was real close to Jack's sister. I always used to hear about him. We'd be sitting around in a coffee shop and there'd be talk about this young kid Nicholson who went to California to become an actor.

[Q] Playboy: Was that part of the reason you chose to give acting a shot?

[A] Devito: No, I just remember hearing about him.

[Q] Playboy: Is it true that you started out as a hairdresser working with your sister Angela and then decided to become a Hollywood makeup man?

[A] Devito: Well, I don't know about Hollywood, but, yeah, I wanted to learn makeup. My sister owned a shop and I was doing hair there. I knew I could make more money by branching out and doing makeup. The only problem was that I didn't know where people learned how to do that. One day I saw an ad for a makeup course offered at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, so I drove up there and talked to a woman who was the Academy's makeup artist. She said, "Oh, I can teach you how to do theatrical makeup. I can also teach you how to do regular makeup." I said, "Well, what kind of a deal can I make with you? I can't come during the day because I'm working in the shop." She said, "The only way we can do this is if you enroll in our night school." I asked, "How do I get in?" She told me, "You have to audition with a monolog." A few days later I did a monolog and was accepted. So I began commuting from Asbury Park to Manhattan.

[Q] Playboy: At that point, had you thought about becoming an actor?

[A] Devito: I was a big movie fan, and I guess down deep I always wanted to be a movie star. You go to a movie and see an actor and you relate to him. You say to yourself, "I can do that. That's who I am--I'm Clint Eastwood, I'm Edward G. Robinson, I'm Peter Lorre," depending on who you are, you know? Thinking back, I'm sure there were times when I sat in the movie theater and said, "I can do that." But I never really admitted it.

[Q] Playboy: Why not?

[A] Devito: Because it would've been like, "Hey, are you crazy, Danny? Who do you think you are, Cary Grant?" So it wasn't something I went after. When I got admitted to the school, I concentrated on makeup. I was there only for that. But I had to take all the other classes, too.

[Q] Playboy: You obviously liked them.

[A] Devito: Yeah. And then I read a play or two and did scene studies, and pretty soon I got hooked on acting. So I had to break the news to my sister that I was going to New York to become an actor.

[Q] Playboy: You wanted out of Asbury Park?

[A] Devito: Asbury Park was a great place to grow up, but it was time for a change. New York was always my favorite place to be. My father was from Brooklyn, and every summer I'd go back there for a month. My cousin would come to Jersey in July. He would spend a month with us, and then I would go to Flatbush for the month of August. Those Augusts were the best times of my childhood. I did more Huckleberry Finn things in Brooklyn than I did in Jersey.

[Q] Playboy: Such as?

[A] Devito: Flatbush was all swamps. We used to build rafts and light the cattails and float out in the middle of the weeds and listen tothe crickets--it was great. That was in the Fifties.

[Q] Playboy: How long did you study at the American Academy?

[A] Devito: Two years. I finished up in 1966. Then I got a job right away in summer theater. That was good because, by then, I enjoyed getting out of New York. I went to the Eugene O'Neill Foundation in Connecticut for a while and did a play there. That's where I met Michael Douglas. He was a hippie on a motorcycle and we became good friends.

[Q] Playboy: What happened to you and the stage?

[A] Devito: When I thought of acting, it was always film acting. I was reading installments of In Cold Blood in The New Yorker, and when I found out that Richard Brooks was going to make the movie, I thought it would be great to give it a crack. I wanted to play Perry Smith. So I flew out to Los Angeles hoping to meet Brooks, with the idea of having a little tête-à-tête and telling him my idea of the role. When I got out here and finally got to see the casting director, the part was already cast--Robert Blake played Perry Smith and did a wonderful job--and they were getting ready to shoot the movie. I didn't have any idea they were so far along. But it was a nice trip, and I wound up staying around Hollywood for almost two years. Sunset Strip was fascinating, but after a year and a half or so, I hadn't found any work as an actor.

[Q] Playboy: Did you ever think you had made a terrible mistake?

[A] Devito: No, never that. I was never discouraged--but I wasn't working, either. I felt that I wasn't in the right place.

[Q] Playboy: Did a Hollywood agent really tell you that you weren't tall enough to act in movies?

[A] Devito: It was a casting person. It was one of those things that actually gives you inspiration, in a way. They tell you you're never going to do it, and they don't even know you. You could be the greatest thing since who knows what, but they still tell you that you're not going to work--just by looking at you. Idiots!

[Q] Playboy: So have you changed the way short people are treated in Hollywood?

[A] Devito: Yeah, somebody had to do it and I guess I did. When I was in grade school, it was terrible. I always had to fast dance with the girls--not too many slow dances. It depended on the girl. That was tough. But I was never shy.

[Q] Playboy: What about the guys? Did they torment you about your height?

[A] Devito: My friends always took care of me, and I'm still very close to all of them. I would take a little shit from guys from different neighborhoods, but in my neighborhood in Jersey, my friends were the toughest. So I never took any shit.

[Q] Playboy: When you returned to New York from Los Angeles, were you able to pick up where you left off in theater?

[A] Devito: Yeah, and I started thinking about directing around that time. I got this great 8mm camera and started to make short films. I also read about directing. I remember reading how much Marlon Brando knew about directing. He never wanted to go back to the stage and he knew everything there was to know about filmmaking. I was trying to figure out ways to learn more about what it was I wanted to do.

[Q] Playboy: In moviemaking, you wear a lot of hats--producer, director, actor. Does it cause problems?

[A] Devito: Not really. Every film I make, whether I'm producing it or directing it or starring in it or just playing a small part in it, is very important, very precious to me. It's like your children. If somebody has three children and tells you, "Well, the third one is the one I really love," it's bullshit. Every single time I get involved in something, the emotional connection becomes strong no matter what it is--whether it's a picture I've worked on for two years or three months or I'm just sitting in a room with [director] Tim Burton talking about his bizarre take on the Penguin. They all demand so much. You want to give each of them every ounce of energy you can. And you do--at least I do.

[Q] Playboy: Even if the movies themselves--or the parts you play in them-- are stinkers?

[A] Devito: Yes. They're all important to me. I had two lines in The World's Greatest Lover, for instance. I sat in a trailer on the Fox lot for two weeks until everybody forgot I was there. But when it came time for me to say my two lines, they were important to me.

[Q] Playboy: Let's talk about your career as an actor. Until Taxi, how would you characterize the roles that you played?

[A] Devito: Mostly comic. Like Hog in Goin' South. I don't think my role in Cuckoo's Nest was a comic role, though there was some humor in Martini's quest for sexual satisfaction. Then there was Terms of Endearment, which was my first serious role. But Taxi was a real comic role. I just saw a great episode where Iggy--Chris Lloyd--gets another job as a door-to-door salesman. He goes into a woman's apartment with his attaché case and says, "Does your vacuum cleaner really work? Does it really pick up as well as it should?" And the woman says, "I'm not sure."And Iggy drops a pile of dirt on her rug and says, "Will your vacuum pick this up?" She says, "Well, I think so." Then Iggy says, "But what about this?" And he takes milk, butter, grease and ketchup and grinds them into her rug. And she says, "Oh no! Is your vacuum cleaner going to get all this out?" And he says, "That's why they call it the Miracle Vacuum." He turns his back, opens his attaché case, pulls out a book and says, "Is there anywhere I can plug this in?" Then he does a double take and says, "Oh God, I didn't get the vacuum cleaner job, I'm selling encyclopedias!"

[Q] Playboy: How did you land the role of Louie DePalma in Taxi?

[A] Devito: Before my audition, I read the script and saw what kind of character he was. When I walked in to do a reading, I took the script, threw it on the coffee table and said, "One thing I want to know before we start: Who wrote this shit?" I'd actually heard that joke in a Truffaut movie. In Day for Night, Valentina Cortese tells this story about how, in Italy, when actors are bad on the stage, the audience throws cabbages and other vegetables at them. An actor was doing Hamlet, and they were bombing him with stuff. He walks down to the apron of the stage and says, "Hey, what do you want from me? I didn't write this shit." So I thought that would be a good move--a ploy to get the part of Louie and also in character with him. And it worked. [As Louie] Suckers!

[Q] Playboy: How do you remember Taxi?

[A] Devito: As a great five-year experience. Everybody connected with that show was wonderful. They never let you down, no matter what. They wrote until things worked. They always gave you the confidence and spirit to try anything, and you knew they were going to be there for you. So it wasn't so bad to fall on your face.

[Q] Playboy: Did you personally like the character of Louie DePalma?

[A] Devito: I liked him very much. I appreciated his sense of the world and the place he felt he was in. He was lucky to have people care about him as they did, even though he was sometimes very mean to them. And I think, as was exhibited in some of the shows, that they did care about Louie very much, and that he cared about them. It was a tough job--somebody had to boss those people around--and he did it.

[Q] Playboy: Often with great relish.

[A] Devito: Absolutely, but it was all give and take. Life is a negotiation.

[Q] Playboy: Before you began working on Taxi, did you have any idea that it would become such a hit?

[A] Devito: I had a hint that it was possible. I remember walking down the street in New York with John Belushi just before I started working on Taxi. I knew John from Goin' South and we were talking about my doing the show. He was telling me all about Andy Kaufman, who was on Taxi. John knew Andy and was one of the first people to see his work, in a café. Anyway, I remember what it was like with John on the street. People were yelling at him, "Hey, Johnny, do the samurai guy," and they'd hit him with all the different characters he did on Saturday Night Live. It was great. And John said to me, "You know, you're in for this." We were walking in Soho, and when he said that, I felt like--from his mouth to God's ears.

[Q] Playboy: Both Kaufman and Belushi died not too many years after that. How were you affected by their deaths?

[A] Devito: When Andy died, everybody involved in Taxi was horrified and shocked. It was a great blow to all of us. I was very saddened by John's death. I had a lot of hopes that John and I would work together. We always talked about getting together on other movies someday. I thought it was going to be so much fun. I just loved being with him. He was an extremely talented guy. He was unique and had so much energy and such a remarkable comic sense. There was no limit to what he could have done. Johnny was special.

[Q] Playboy: So why was Taxi eventually canceled?

[A] Devito: I don't know. We got canceled twice. Once by ABC after four years and once by NBC after a year.

[Q] Playboy: It's hard to imagine that the ratings weren't there.

[A] Devito: Here's what I think happened: A network has to care about a show in order for the ratings to stay up there. Cheers, for example, started in something like last place during its first season. But the network took care of that show--kept it in the same time slot, made sure it grabbed its audience. I don't think that the people at ABC gave a good rat's ass about Taxi. At all. No offense to the rat. I don't want to put rats in their category.

[Q] Playboy: It's amazing, though. The show was so popular--and it remains popular in syndication.

[A] Devito: We're talking about a couple things here. We're talking about people who gave a shit and people who didn't give a shit. The people who gave a shit made the show. The people who didn't give a shit put the show on the air. You know what I'm saying? They did not care about the show. At one point, we were on every night of the week--on a Tuesday night one week, Wednesday night another week, Thursday night the next week. That's a good way to lose an audience. And we did. And they canceled us. And good for them--let them do what they have to do.

[Q] Playboy: How did you and the rest of the cast feel when the ax finally fell?

[A] Devito: We felt as if we were a family being wrenched apart by these bozos. It was just appalling. I went on Saturday Night Live that year and blew up ABC--did a little film of me blowing up the building. That was the year Taxi won a lot of Emmys. And they still canceled us. They're creepolas. I don't even like to talk about them. It's just not worth it. Whoever they are--I don't even know who they are.

[Q] Playboy: How long did the NBC experiment last?

[A] Devito: A year.

[Q] Playboy: How was that?

[A] Devito: It was OK. It was a good time to say goodbye. We knew the show wasn't going to continue, so it was nice for us. I appreciate what NBC did for us, bringing us over for a year. We had a lot of fun that season and we got to say goodbye. It wasn't like having the rug suddenly pulled out from under us.

[Q] Playboy: Do you still keep in touch with the crew from Taxi?

[A] Devito: Oh, yeah--a lot. I see Marilu [Henner] and Tony [Danza]. I saw Jeff [Conaway] not long ago. Chris Lloyd. Ed Weinberger. And Jim Brooks and I did War of the Roses together. As a matter of fact, right now we're both working here on the Sony lot. He's doing his film in a building two balconies away. We can throw stones into each other's windows and talk.

[Q] Playboy: You mentioned Cheers. One of that show's most popular characters, waitress Carla Tortelli LeBec, has a lot in common with Louie DePalma: mischief, a touch of malice and loyalty to the people with whom she works. Any coincidence that Rhea Perlman, who plays Carla, is your wife?

[A] Devito: It's only coincidence. The character Rhea plays really stands on her own . I think it's true that Carla reminds people of Louie DePalma, but there's a little bit of Louie in everybody. She's no exception.

[Q] Playboy: Do you help Rhea prepare for some of Carla's more outrageous antics?

[A] Devito: Not really. The Charles brothers, who were producers of Taxi, created Cheers as well. They obviously thought it was a good idea to have somebody with that certain demeanor on the show. Carla's a very colorful character. She gets away with a lot, just as Louie did.

[Q] Playboy: What's your assessment of your wife as an actress? How far do you think she can go?

[A] Devito: There's no limit to where Rhea can go. She's a really talented woman. I believe this is the final season for Cheers, and Rhea's going to be doing a lot of things after the series is finished. She's got great range, but it's been eleven years since anyone's seen her do anything but Cheers.

[Q] Playboy: Do the two of you plan to act in films together?

[A] Devito: We have a couple projects in development that we want to star in, so there are things in the works. But it's not something that we're actively planning right now.

[Q] Playboy: After breaking the Louie DePalma mold with Terms of Endearment, you went on to act in a number of comedies in which Louie resurfaced.

[A] Devito: Well, the situations were different but the characters in Romancing the Stone and Jewel of the Nile were close to Louie. Sam Stone in Ruthless People wasn't exactly Louie, but he did have some of Louie's qualities that I just didn't want to let go of. Same thing with Larry the Liquidator in Other People's Money. Larry was more worldly than Louie, which had to do with his being a college graduate who traveled extensively and spoke a couple of languages. Nevertheless, he had a biting way about him and he definitely shared some colors with Louie--who was intelligent in a street sense but limited in his experiences. Larry the Liquidator could have been played other ways, I imagine, but not by me. Anyway, I finally got to play a good guy in Tin Men.

[Q] Playboy: We didn't view you as a good guy in that film.

[A] Devito: But I was!

[Q] Playboy: Explain.

[A] Devito: There were two groups of salesmen--mine and Richard Dreyfuss'. But I didn't get to hang out too much with Dreyfuss on the set because he was like the opposition--the bad guy. It came as a real shock to him.

[Q] Playboy: In what sense?

[A] Devito: Well, I remember that during the first day of shooting, we did the scene where Dreyfuss buys a new Cadillac and backs out of the dealership. Meanwhile, I'm driving down the street and we collide. While [writer-director] Barry Levinson was setting up the shot, Richard and I were sitting in chairs in the shade of a prop truck. It was a hot day. We hadn't really had much contact, so while we were sitting there, I leaned over to him and said, "How's it feel to be playing the bad guy in a movie?" And he did one of those looks that he does and said, "What do you mean?" I said, "Well, obviously I'm the good guy in this picture and you're the bad guy. That's a departure for both of us--especially for you, because you're usually the good guy." He asked me what I meant, and I said, "Well, Richard, first of all, you back out in your Caddy and hit my car." And he said, "No, you hit me." And I said, "No, Richard, I had the right of way. Look at any of those little books they give you at the Motor Vehicle Bureau and you'll see that you backed into my path. You're the bad guy. Not to mention, of course, that you steal my wife [played by Barbara Hershey] away." Well, Richard gets up and runs over to Levinson, and I can see him talking to Barry about whether or not he was the bad guy. Then we shot the scene and none of that mattered.

[Q] Playboy: Did you enjoy working with Barbara Hershey?

[A] Devito: Yeah. We had a scene in a bathtub; she washes my hair. That was great for me physically, because as soon as I found out I had to do a bathtub scene with Barbara, I went on a diet. I lost about twelve pounds. So the film was good for me in a lot of ways.

[Q] Playboy: You mentioned Romancing the Stone and Jewel of the Nile. More than anything else, those films appeared to be a lot of fun to make. Were they?

[A] Devito: Yeah, we had a ball. With Stone, we were in Mexico--Jalapa and Cuernavaca and Veracruz--and had a great time. The same thing with Jewel of the Nile. For that one we went to Morocco. We were in Fez for a month. It was beautiful. I had a new baby--five weeks old--and a two-year-old with me. Fez is the cultural capital of Morocco--it's beautiful. And Melilla is like a world city.

[Q] Playboy: Did your wife go along?

[A] Devito: Yeah, Rhea was with me. And we had the nanny, the nanny's boyfriend and I don't know how many refrigerator boxes full of supplies.

[Q] Playboy: In Other People's Money you played the role of a hard-hearted takeover artist. In real life, did you get caught up in the money frenzy of the Eighties?

[A] Devito: Not at all.

[Q] Playboy: How often would people come to you with deals for you to invest in?

[A] Devito: People don't come to me with deals. I'm not known as a financial expert. I'm an actor. I've got three kids. I have no time for that kind of speculation. I don't mind investing in a school, because that's the kind of thing that's useful. That's where my head is.

[Q] Playboy: Do you employ someone to watch over your money?

[A] Devito: I have people who do the books for me and stuff like that. But I don't have them look for investments I can make a killing on.

[The conversation picked up the next day over lunch. DeVito appeared to be almost despondent.]

[A] Devito: You know, what's going on right now is fucked.

[Q] Playboy: What do you mean?

[A] Devito: In the world.

[Q] Playboy: Are you talking about Bosnia? [News of Serbian detention camps had been broadcast on television the night before.]

[A] Devito: Yeah, it's fucked. It's hard to keep your mind on anything else. It's terrible. And no one seems to give a shit that people over there are being tortured. Not only them, people all over the world. We have to help them, to do something. Babies are being bombed over there. What's the matter with people? What the fuck. Nobody learns in this world. It's ridiculous. They have people in concentration camps, they're torturing them, they're killing them. It's terrible, and I don't know what to do about it. It takes the pleasure out of everything. In terms of doing and thinking of something else, it just takes the pleasure out of everything.

[More silence]

[Q] Playboy: Let's get back to the interview.

[A] Devito: OK, go ahead.

[Q] Playboy: Tell us about Batman Returns.

[A] Devito: [Smiles faintly] Yeah, that was good. It was an incredible experience from the beginning, starting with my meeting with Tim Burton, where he explained his concept of the Penguin character. It was fun learning things about the Penguin--how he was raised by birds, then taken around by a circus company so he could be gawked at by the public. It was a great role, but the costume part of it was very uncomfortable. They made molds of my body. I had to put on long silk underwear--a silk sweat suit--and was completely covered with grease and then plaster of paris. They did a few of those body molds, and when they were finished, they sculpted a big glob, a mass.

[Q] Playboy: We've been told that even before Michelle Pfeiffer was cast as Catwoman, most people in Hollywood considered you a lock for the role of the Penguin. True?

[A] Devito: Before anybody talked to me about it, there were a lot of rumors that I was going to do it. I was a fan of Batman comic books when I was a kid, and I also liked the TV show. But I didn't see myself playing the Penguin. Then Tim Burton asked me to meet with him, and I decided to listen to what he had to say . What he had to say was pretty exciting.

[Q] Playboy: Such as?

[A] Devito: I liked his physical take on the character, which was more like a bird boy than the comic-book version of the Penguin. Tim gave me a painting he did that had a kind of a circus background, with stripes in front that were like bars. And behind them was a little roundfaced boy with sharp, pointy features, tiny flippers and a bulbous body. The boy was sitting down, and the legend on the bottom of the painting said, "My name is Jimmy, but they call me the Hideous Penguin Boy." That was intriguing and challenging, and it made the difference about whether or not I thought Batman Returns would be good. And it was good. The only drawback was that 1 wasn't able to socialize or communicate with people during the filming, including the crew and my family.

[Q] Playboy: You didn't want your wife and children to see you in costume?

[A] Devito: No one came to see me. No one was allowed to see me. From the beginning, I realized that to be in the same room with Oswald Cobblepot--that was the Penguin's real name--was uncomfortable for other people, and for myself as well. Having my wife and children and my agent and publicist come down to the set and see me in my Penguin getup wouldn't have been fair to anybody. In fact, it would have been horrible. Usually, while I'm working, I don't want anybody around, because I need total concentration and focus. But the Penguin was a special case. So I just stayed in my trailer. About the only times I socialized were when Vincent Schiavelli--he played an organ-grinder in the movie--made lunch. Vinnie's a wonderful cook, and every afternoon he would make some sort of Italian meal for me and my stand-in. And once in a while, people from the cast--usually Chris Walken and Michelle Pfeiffer--would eat with us.

[Q] Playboy: Was life a little more lighthearted making Twins?

[A] Devito: That was a different story, and a funny one. When we began that movie, the script called for me to have the kind of relationship with Arnold Schwarzenegger's character, Julius, that a streetwise guy would have with a country bumpkin. It wasn't unlike some of the' relationships I had with the people on Taxi, except that Arnold wasn't my employee. Also, on Taxi I could rule the roost in a much greater way. I was more of a con man with Julius than I was with the gang on Taxi. Those guys had to do what I said, or else they'd be out on the street.

[Q] Playboy: In Twins, it appeared as if you turned Schwarzenegger on to a whole new strain of comedy.

[A] Devito: Arnold is used to experimenting. In his way, he really wants to do other things. I imagine he was going through the same thing someone goes through when doing a television series: If you do one action movie after another where you have to say these cute lines just before you demolish your opponents, there's eventually a sameness in that. The movies that he was choosing to do around the time of Twins were kind of a departure for him.

Arnold is a very hard worker. He has this kind of determination about what he wants to do. As far as his comic abilities, are concerned, he's a funny guy--always has been--who likes to joke around and break chops. Arnold's very comfortable with that side of himself, and all of his friends know it. He's got a good sense of humor and he handles people with a light touch.

[Q] Playboy: Was Twins a stroll in the park for you?

[A] Devito: No, I worked hard. Arnold's character, Julius, was on a quest to right a wrong. He really needed Vincent--my character, his blood brother--to find our mother. I got heavily involved with the concept and the writing of Twins. I thought, Terrific idea, but let's see what else we can do with it. I felt it would be nice to make a good film that had a strong story and well-developed characters. I've always been interested in finding movies that are fun to do but have something else going for them.

[Q] Playboy: Which you did when you co-starred in Throw Momma from the Train. That movie also marked your debut as a feature film director. Why did you choose Throw Momma for such an important career move?

[A] Devito: I read the screenplay, liked it and had some ideas about it. Like Twins, it could have been a joke--a very light, over-the-top movie.

[Q] Playboy: And it wasn't?

[A] Devito: No, I made sure of that. Throw Momma, from the Train's dark humor comes out of the sick relationship the character Owen has with his mother. He wants to kill her. So it's dark and scary--but it's funny, too. And I'm pulled toward that.

[Q] Playboy: What else is important to you when you direct?

[A] Devito: I like to know as much as possible about the characters. For instance, when I was a kid, I was the only boy in the family. I had two older sisters, Angela and Theresa. If you were a cousin or a friend from down the block, when you came over, I would take you into my room and show you all my stuff--like if I had dinosaurs, an Erector set, whatever I was into, I'd show it to you. You share it, right? It's a male bonding kind of thing. Anyway, I asked for such a scene in Throw Momma, and the writer, Stu Silver, came up with one: My character, Owen, shows Larry [Billy Crystal] his coin collection. And it's a unique coin collection because it's not made up of rare coins--the coins aren't worth more than their face value. But they're worth a lot to Owen. They're all small change that his father had let him keep. It was a sweet and lovely scene. That whole movie was an enjoyable experience.

[Q] Playboy: Even the directorial aspect?

[A] Devito: Yeah. Directing isn't a piece of cake, and there were other people in town who were able and willing to direct Throw Momma. That was a big risk for Orion Pictures to take, a real leap of faith.

[Q] Playboy: Were you confident that you'd direct The War of the Roses?

[A] Devito: No. It was a big movie at the studio and, as I said before, it's not that easy to move from acting to directing at the studios. I knew the writers, Jim [Brooks] and Michael [Leeson], would let me do it in a second, but it was going to be a lot tougher to get the people--the scarolla folks--over at Twentieth Century Fox to go along. Those are the ones who are saying, "You're going to let Danny direct this? This is a big movie. Why don't you get somebody who's already done one?"

[Q] Playboy: Why did you want to direct and act in that film?

[A] Devito: Well, as with Throw Momma, I saw that it could be dark and funny. It was a chance to find humor in an angry divorce fight, which is a serious thing to make fun of. Plus, I had wanted to work with Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner again. We'd had such a ball with Romancing the Stone and Jewel of the Nile.

[Q] Playboy: We've read that Turner and Douglas battled from start to finish on War of the Roses. How did that affect you?

[A] Devito: It didn't affect me at all.

[Q] Playboy: Why not?

[A] Devito: Because the stories about Michael and Kathleen fighting with each other are all bullshit. I guess being a journalist is a tough job, because you always have to come up with interesting angles and new stuff. There were some uncomfortable times during the movie, but that's because I put them through hell. And they deserved it. [Laughs] Especially that end sequence with the chandelier. I don't remember exactly how long that took to shoot, but every day they got coated with petroleum jelly and dirt. I wanted them to look sweaty.

[Q] Playboy: Were they really hanging up in the air?

[A] Devito: They certainly were. We attached them to a chandelier and swung them up thirty-five feet. It was very uncomfortable for them.

[Q] Playboy: Is it true that there was some real concern about how The War of the Roses ended?

[A] Devito: There was no question that the ending was going to be a problem because we killed off the two stars of the movie--two of the three stars of the movie, thank you very much. We never thought of changing it, though we did pitch around a few different ideas.

[Q] Playboy: Such as?

[A] Devito: That Michael and Kathleen didn't die. That it was all a horrible lie that my character was telling his new client just to save the guy's marriage. I think we talked about the new ending for eight minutes--not just that specific idea, all the ideas.

[Q] Playboy: If you knew you were satisfied with the ending, why discuss changes?

[A] Devito: Because of the low numbers we got at previews. You take a movie out and show it to an audience so you can get a feeling for how it plays. We got such low numbers that people were saying we were in for real trouble. The low scores came because we killed off Kathleen and Michael at the end, and we were told that people weren't going to like that. So when you ask the viewers, "Well, who will you recommend the movie to?" what are they going to say? That they'll recommend it to their two friends down the block who are having some difficulties decorating their apartment? [Laughs]

[Q] Playboy: When the studio executives saw your preview numbers, did they panic?

[A] Devito: No, not at all. War of the Roses was finished just as Joe Roth came in and took over Twentieth Century Fox. And never did we get a boink from him, like, "Change the ending!" It was more like, "Whew. OK, the two stars are dead." In some cases people might panic about this. The point is, Fox didn't.

[Q] Playboy: Did you hear any epic divorce stories that even approached the one you filmed in War of the Roses?

[A] Devito: The only one that struck me that way was one I heard about on the radio. It was a weird thing about some woman who poured paint into either the gas tank or the engine of some guy's Ferrari. Then I heard another story about a woman cutting the nose out of a guy's Picasso painting. Those are the little revenge things that can happen during divorces--things we explored by having Oliver cutting the heels off Barbara's shoes. All of these different tit-for-tat things.

[Q] Playboy: After the movie, did people ever approach you for marital advice?

[A] Devito: No.

[Q] Playboy: Do you now have opinions about the best and worst ways to handle a divorce?

[A] Devito: I think Oliver and Barbara Rose handled it the worst way. At the time I made the film I thought divorce was a dangerous arena to tread in. There was a line in the movie--"There's no such thing as a civilized divorce"--that I think is pretty true. You have to be careful about it because of the pain involved--coupled with the instigation factor of somebody telling you, "You should be doing this" and "Why are you letting him get away with that?" Both men and women are vulnerable to suggestions in that situation. And suggestions are sometimes made by people who have their own best interests--not yours--in mind. I don't want to point fingers or anything, but there are a lot of lawyers who churn fees during divorce cases. It's a business and you've got to be careful. When people want to separate--even if there was a compromising thing that happened--you ought to be adult enough to work it out. But too often, people get their feelings hurt, their hearts stepped on. It's messy and difficult.

[Q] Playboy: Having directed and acted in Throw Momma, War of the Roses and Hoffa, are you determined to direct most of the movies you appear in?

[A] Devito: I'm torn in that area. I like to do it--and it's exciting. If you ever wanted to throw yourself into your work totally, this is it. You get right inside of everything, including the music. You work with the artists, the actors, the technicians, everyone involved on the the film.

[Q] Playboy: So the job is a lot less solitary than simply acting?

[A] Devito: Very much so. [Laughs] Oh, God. [Facetiously] There's never a dull moment. Seriously, it's great to experience. First of all, working with actors--you can't compare that to anything else. And designing everything in the movie is also wonderful. Sometimes 1 think I'd like to stay behind the camera and concentrate on that. But in Hoffa, for example, I have a wonderful role. I play Bobby Ciaro, who is a compilation of several people. I've never played a part like that. I couldn't pass it up. As soon as I read the script, I knew I wanted to play that part.

[Q] Playboy: And you never had concerns that you may have bitten off more than you could chew?

[A] Devito: Three or four weeks into a movie, I usually say to everybody, "This is the last time I'm going to do both." But that goes away. I love the thrill of getting into a new costume, of never having a second when I'm not thinking about anything but the project.

[Q] Playboy: What's the down side?

[A] Devito: It would be great to be able to film scenes over and over again, which is why I admire and envy Woody Allen. If he takes a look at one of his movies and doesn't like it, he probably; gets to shoot the whole thing over again.

[Q] Playboy: Would you do that if they let you?

[A] Devito: Probably not, because you have to move on. Life goes on. Daylight comes and everybody wants to go home.

[Q] Playboy: Except the director.

[A] Devito: That's right, and now I'm doing something bigger than I've ever done before. I've never been involved in a movie for this long a stretch. I got Hoffa three years ago and I became emotionally attached to it immediately. The scope of this film is bigger in every detail than any other I've done, beginning with the deal that said we were going to make the movie. I've never been involved in something so complex.

[Q] Playboy: In what way specifically?

[A] Devito: First of all, we knew that Hoffa was going to be expensive to make.

[Q] Playboy: How much did it cost?

[A] Devito: I don't know what the final number will be, but it'll be more than forty million dollars. Even War of the Roses wasn't nearly as costly. So Hoffa is big. I guess it shouldn't be a surprise that it is that big. I shot scenes in Pittsburgh, Detroit, Chicago and Los Angeles.

[Q] Playboy: How did that go down with the studio?

[A] Devito: Well, when we started out, Twentieth Century Fox was enthusiastic about it. Then they saw the price tag. That kind of put a damper on things. But, fortunately, I had it in my power to make it happen--and I did.

[Q] Playboy: Meaning?

[A] Devito: Let's say that it was a real good thing for Twentieth Century Fox that somebody was willing to work for nothing because he wanted to make the movie. Otherwise, Hoffa never would have been made.

[Q] Playboy: The idea being that if the movie's a winner, you get a piece of it?

[A] Devito: Hello? What? What did you say?

[Q] Playboy: You heard what we said: You worked for peanuts, but if Hoffa's a winner, you get a piece of it. And if not, the studio has already cut its losses.

[A] Devito: Right.

[Q] Playboy: How long did it take to negotiate that little deal?

[A] Devito: I guess it took a year and a half.

[Q] Playboy: Has that now become a standard part of a director's contract?

[A] Devito: Not all the time. But I think what's happening in the business is that people don't really want to make big, rich, expensive movies anymore. And they don't want to make movies that die. They want to make money.

[Q] Playboy: They do . The last movie you appeared in was marketed so thoroughly that McDonald's was selling cups with Batman characters on them.

[A] Devito: Yeah, but I really think that's an exception. People don't want to spend a hundred million dollars to make a movie.

[Q] Playboy: Does having a huge movie such as this take you to an entirely different plane as a director?

[A] Devito: Yeah, and the cost of that movie will be up on the screen for all to see. We did strike scenes in Hoffa that are like the taking of Aqaba scene in Lawrence of Arabia. There's an energy to Mamet's script that's unique and captivating. I imagine he read lots of books about Hoffa, threw them all away and then created this piece with fictitious characters. Mamet creates a dramatic tone and touches on all the things I talked about earlier: Hoffa's loyalty, his dedication, his unending energy, his quest to take care of his family--and his extended family, which was the Teamsters.

[Q] Playboy: And you're satisfied that those elements in Mamet's script were indeed elements in Hoffa's life?

[A] Devito: Absolutely. Now all I have to do is finish editing the picture.

[Q] Playboy: It's been only a handful of years since you directed your first film. Are you surprised that you've become such a strong presence in Hollywood so quickly?

[A] Devito: Am I surprised? I don't know, man. I'm just happy that it happened. I always thought I could do it--and now I'm hoping that I'll do it better. And I appreciate your kind words. [Laughs] A guy's gotta do what a guy's gotta do.

[Q] Playboy: So what's next for you?

[A] Devito: I don't know. I'll read some things, look around, hope that something tickles my fancy. But right now I've got to finish editing this picture. Then maybe I'll go skiing. Yeah. How's that?

"Hoffa did what he had to do, and as far as I could see, he really didn't do anything illegal."

"That was the year 'Taxi' won a lot of Emmys. And they still canceled us. They're creepolas. I don't even like to talk about them."