Danny Aiello, Bluntly Candid: I’d Rather Play a Priest Than a Mobster
In a nearly shockingly candid interview, Danny Aiello dishes on Hollywood, his role preferences, music career, etc. He’s involved in an interesting new project. Details below.
Monday, 16 Jun 2014
By Bill Hoffmann/Newsmax.com
Danny Aiello can play a terrifying tough guy like nobody else — but the beloved actor says he turned down a chance to play a vicious Mafioso in a new movie in order to tackle the much smaller role of a troubled priest.
Aiello, 80, told “The Steve Malzberg Show” on Newsmax TV that he was approached by director John Herzfeld to star in “Reach Me,” a bittersweet drama set for release this October.
“He wanted me to play a gangster. I said, John, I’ve played too many, and I’m not coming to California, I don’t like to fly,” said Aiello, whose mob movies include “The Godfather, Part II” and “The Last Don.”
“He said, ‘Danny, play any part you want.’ So, I looked at the script, I saw an underwritten role, and said this interests me,” Aiello said Monday.
The role is that of a priest who is part of a group of radically different people who are connected by a self-help book written by a reclusive former football coach.
“I said, I want to play a priest, [but one] that’s never been seen on the screen before,” Aiello said.
“So, I played an alcoholic priest who was there for the wrong reasons. He went in because a woman jumped away from him 30 years earlier.
“He went into seminary and decided to become a priest for the wrong reasons, but he stayed a priest for the right reasons. It’s a wonderful, wonderful little story.”
Aiello co-stars with Sylvester Stallone — “No, he’s not fighting in this one!” Aiello insists — Tom Berenger, Kelsey Grammer, Thomas Jane, Frank Stallone, Chuck Zito, Cary Elwes and Frank Valli Jr.
He said the ensemble film is unlike much of the Hollywood fare being released today.
“Look, I’m a . . .lover of movies that tell stories, stories of people, not necessarily generations of people, maybe a family,” he said.
“Today they’re making stupid, dumb people – I mean shows. For instance, this thing called ’22 [Jump Street,’ starring Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum] . . .
“I’m not cutting on them, they did it, they made it, and it’s making a tremendous amount of money. However, the reviews were the worst reviews ever written because the American public wants garbage.”
Hollywood, he added, is in the business of making money — lots of it.
“If you go to a studio today and you say, I have this $100 million dollar movie, they’ll say, what’s that going to make? $30 million, that’s not enough,” Aiello explained.
“They want to make $200 million, $300 million, if you go in with a $30 million movie and you’re going to make $20 million, it’s not enough, they’re not interested.
“They’re only interested in $100 million, [where] they’re going to make $100 million. So you can’t get the small movie anymore. When you get a small movie [made], that’s generally the one that wins the Academy awards.”
Aiello, who was the second-youngest of six children, grew up in the Bronx … Read the rest/See the video at: Danny Aiello: I’d Rather Play a Priest Than a Mobster
Image: Courtesy of: http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Aiello
