Phillyist Interviews... Actor/Director Robert Davi

You not only directed, you starred in, you co-wrote and you produced The Dukes. Is there anything you can't do?
I also sing in it. On an independent film, you know it's funny, people call it a vanity project, I've heard that bandied about sometimes. It's hardly that, it's economics. You want to save as much money as you can. When Clint Eastwood did his first picture, no one said "oh, vanity project" or Stanley Tucci. There's a couple of times I saw that shot like that. But absolutely there's things that I'm not able to do. I had a great line producer, my cinematographer Michael Goi is absolutely brilliant. He and I worked closely together to create a style for the picture which is unique. If you get a chance, go see it on the screen. Because the sound—there's subtleties in there. And with an audience, you'll catch the humor of the picture a whole lot. I've seen this around the world with 10,000 people so far. And it's just quite satisfying.

You have an opera background but do you have any history with Doo-Wop or is it just something you are interested in and wanted to work into the film?
When I was a kid, me and a guy named Nicky Merrerro—don't ask me how to spell it—on Long Island, we used to hitchhike from Seton Hall High School late at night from our football practice, singing Doo-Wop tunes to pass the time. I always loved that very lyrical sound. Because I love the human voice, and the sound of pure singing, and it's an outpouring of the Italian popular songs that my grandmother sang as a kid, Neapolitan love songs, you heard thousands of them. I think there is a symbiotic relationship to those songs to Italians as Doo-Wop is to Italian-Americans in New York and Philadelphia, which had the group The Emeralds there that do one of the songs in the picture.

Have you been to Philadelphia lately? And if so what are some of your favorite things about the city, especially since we have a very strong Italian-American culture here.
Well, let me tell you this. My grandfather went from Avellino, Italy, a province of Naples, the city of Nusco. He went from Avellino Nusco to Connersville, Pennsylvania. His brother Jerry setted in Philadelphia and had eight sons. The boys were all athletic. Jerry Lulo played for the Philadelphia Warrior basketball team. He also then reffed and coached at Temple University. His brother Joe Lulo played second base for either the Phillies or the Athletics in the 1940s and later on he coached baseball at Penn State. His brother John had a restaurant. I love Philadelphia. I was there, actually, I saw the Phillies win the World Series. I had a great time in the streets, let me tell you. It was wild but it was great. And Termini brothers—the cannoli. I send those out as gifts during Christmas to people. A friend of mine, Nick Vance, sent them to me. He managed The Emeralds and he sent them to me one year. I remembered them as a kid, my uncles used to bring them to the house. They were terrific.

You are unlike the faded stars in the The Dukes with your long list of Hollywood credits. What part of your own history, if anything, did you put into the characters in the movie?
First off, the inspiration of the film, if I can digress for a second, in the mid 70s I read an article about steelworkers being laid off, plants being shut down. As a young guy, that resonated with me. It was the first recall I have of the fear of people doing something their whole lives and losing it and then what do they do now? That just was like a flash in my brain. Then my father got laid off from his job a year later, so it hit home, a job he had for 23-24 years. And I was reading a book by Alvin Toffler called The Third Wave where he talked about how we're going from an industrial age to a technological one and how the workforce of America and globally is going to fall through the cracks and there is going to be a devastating transitional phase. So these are the themes that I'm building on. When I did that Cherry Street film, I met Jay Blatt from Jay and the Americans, he plays my brother in the Sinatra film. He was a big Doo-Wop idol. I told you my early influences were the neo-realists. But I wanted to tell the story but in an upbeat way. Not just provide a bleakness about life but provide an answer to how do you pick yourselves up from a something that you once were, how do you redefine yourself, how do you stay true to yourself? And what hook can I provide in the story, so I then framed it with the Doo-Wop group. Elements of myself, you know you go through a divorce, I did live in Marina Del Rey at the beach there. You do put perhaps the frustration of playing characters that make you feel like you [are doing something] that's not who you really are. That echoes everyone's life. People having to do something because the alternative is worse, as [my character] says in the picture. That's the theme that echoes throughout the film. And also the relationships of the guys. You take bits and pieces of story from the characters that they ... for instance Armand, the character in the wheelchair, when I met him at a barbecue at my house in 2000 I saw that he was a stand up comedian. He had done little parts and he was always overacting in the parts, but I saw in him something so I took him in my backyard on video camera over a couple of years I would actually give him acting classes and let him see less is more and give him the whole understanding, prepping him to play this character of Armand. By the time we had the shoot, his foot was in jeopardy, he had diabetes, and he was in a wheel chair. So I like to incorporate the sense of reality that's happening in people's lives into the picture. He was un-insurable by the film insurance company, so I put my house up for him to be in the picture. So it's the sharing, there's an aspect of everything, even in that car [in a scene in the film], you know when [my character] says "We'll make it work for all of us." When Armand says he doesn't have his insurance. That aspect of [my] character to be able to have the compassion for his friends and the ultimate answer to what's happening in the world today. The opening scene where [the camera] spins around table...[the characters are] on the fringes of society, I don't want to center-frame any of us right there, because we're on the fringe. When the newspaper goes up in flames, that's the help wanted ads... jobs in America are disappearing, the gold not being worth what it's worth, the housing market, the stocks not worth it.

Yeah, as I was watching the [screener of the] film I was thinking that it's definitely going to resonate with a lot of people in terms of what's going on in America today.
The piece has resonated with people, even in terms of things not falling neatly into pattern. Because in life just when you think it's going to be okay, you get shut down.

Life is messy and everything doesn't always get neatly wrapped up.
And look, there's a thing, Angela, that... whether it comes from... my parents died at an early age, as a young boy my grandfather was murdered, nine years old, my father gets a call that his father was murdered by some guy. My grandparents—my mother's father and mother—they had a tremendous car accident, she died in a car accident, when I must have been about 12 or 13, and they were living with us at the time. My sister was murdered by her ex-boyfriend. My parents died young. There is a thing in life, but in spite of all that, you still... that's why in the movie I have the guys in with their ashes... the irony of them talking about a heist on Ash Wednesday.

I thought it was very real, I see it as a movie people will see more than once. It's real life. Well, not everyone is pulling a heist but there were so many elements that were real life that people will really relate to it.
My moral question is, and I think that good people, fantasize about that...there's a moral dilemma you have going on. A limo driver saw the picture, he was my driver in New York when we were there a couple of weeks ago, he came in to watch the screening, and now he's driving me around. He didn't know me except for that day, and he said, "I gotta tell you something, me and my friends, we sit up, and sometimes we talk about this. I won't do it, but sometimes we talk about this." It's human nature when you are pushed up against the wall.

Out of your long list of credits, which one of your previous characters are you most recognized for by fans?
That depends. It goes from James Bond aficionados, Die Hard, The Goonies, people that loved Profiler. It morphs. One of those four.

For me it's The Goonies. It was always my favorite. I just re-watched it recently and it still holds up.
Donner said that at the time, that this thing would be a new classic.

What are you working on now?
I'm working on another original called Little Al with my co-writer James Andronica, financed by an independent company. I'm very excited about, though it's a lot of work, and I'm doing the hard lifting. I'm also in post-production on a film that I acted in called Magic. And then when they saw The Dukes, when they saw the director's cut of the film, they asked me to take over as director, so I re-edited. It's like getting fifty pounds of spaghetti and trying to unravel it into something else. I didn't want to do it, because I just wanted to do the stuff that I authored, but I figured it was a challenge and they put me in a beautiful picture here so I did take it and I'm quite pleased about what happened. We edited, took out 35 minutes, redesigned, re-wrote scenes, shot extra things. Ever hear of the Celtic Woman? When you get a chance go on YouTube and type in Celtic Woman and listen to The Voice. You'll love this music. It's a very sweet picture. I haven't test screened it yet so I can't say but just from what I'm seeing and feeling on it I think it's a very unique and lovely piece. And if you listen to Celtic Woman you'll get an idea of the enchantment of the piece. I'm using their music and I'm also using the composer that did The Dukes with me who composed these Irish folk themes throughout the whole piece.

Thank you very much for your time and I will try to get to see the movie on the big screen to get the full effect of it.
I would like to see the perception you have. And if I get to South Philly I'll have to let you know and we'll have a cannoli.

The Dukes is in theaters now.