Danny De Vito, Death to Smoochy

Danny DeVito projects a comically dark view of the world in his latest directorial work, the relentless and irreverent Death to Smoochy.

PAUL FISCHER sought to find out where the darkness comes from.

Can you comment on the theme of violence explored in Smoochy?

I'll tell you one thing. It's a cruel, cruel world. I feel like it's about a lot of things. The reason I made it was because I thought it was really funny and unique and just a different genre for me. I didn't do it because of the underlying greed that's prevailing. But it is about greed and it is about doing the right thing at the right time, using your clout when you have it and what for and what reason and what do you do with it and letting things go by with it. I basically chose it after I read it because I thought it was just different and funny and unique and dark and things that I like to do.

On the violence again?

All your films seem to have a darkness about them.

I know. It's like the weirdest thing. It's a question that I pondered. As a kid I always liked mysterious dark movies like Dark Passage. There's one with dark in the title. I loved the Fritz Lang movies, Billy Wilder. What do I like? Well I like Some Like It Hot, but I also like Sunset Boulevard. There's a twisted kind of underbelly of deranged greed, the fleeting youth. But then I also like W.C. Fields and the three stooges and Jerry Lewis and the Marx Brothers. I look at something. . . .

You have such a precise eye with filmmaking. Where did you learn your craft?

I'm studying. I'm always studying and I've been doing it for a long time now. The first time I ever wanted to direct I was in acting school and I went to see the Battle of Algiers up on the West Side. There's not a foot of documentary footage in the Battle of Algiers. Pontecorvo directed it. And I said, 'What the hell. What is this all about? How did they do this? There is a camera there.' It's like when you go see these movies where guys are climbing Mount Everest and they're all alone out there in the middle of the wilderness, but there is a cameraman there. How the hell do they hook his ass to the rock? What is that. Of course all these other movies that I was talking about that kind of play into my love of movies. You pick this up here and that up there and then you see things in certain ways and you start visualizing. Thank God I get the chance to do this because it really is the greatest thing in the whole wide world. I don't think I would be a happy man if I couldn't do it. I really thank God that I can do it, because it's visually and it's exciting. . .

You seem to be good at playing assholes?

Yeah, I'm good at playing an asshole. If you knew me better you'd know why.

Talk about working with Robin Williams?

I thought he did a great job in the movie and he's very dedicated and if you set up actually what you're doing with Robin, he's really, really good about coming in and doing the work. And what I did was I pulled out the stops a couple of times and let him go for it. Then you need to go, 'Come on down Robin.' 'I'm still circling Danny!' We had lots and lots of fun doing the movie. I love working with him. I can't wait to find something else to do with him.

And Norton?

Edward is very, very dedicated also to his role. He's the kind of actor who is always nosing into it. Trying to find it, and looking for it, and searching. Robin is too but in his own way. Edward is very, very smart and has a lot to say about his character and Catherine as well. Catherine is really great with the two of them. I had a great time with all three of them. She's very real and honest, there's not a false note in anything she ever does. Every take that I had of hers. It's just a matter of choosing the balance between the three performances. Any take you want of hers you could hold your head up and say, 'That's a damn good crack at it.'

You thought of Norton for Smoochy first. Why?

I don't know. When I was reading the part I was thinking of him. As a matter of fact I showed it to him up in Montreal. I was doing The Heist and he was doing The Score. We were doing our two crook movies and I had dinner with him after he had read the thing and I said, 'I really want you to do this with me.' Somewhere in the middle of the conversation at dinner, he said something, I don't remember what it was, but I said, 'No, no, no man. I wan't you to play Smoochy.' He lit up like a Christmas tree. Because a guy whose playing parts in American History X and The Fight Club and all of a sudden I've got this. . . when I read it I thought innocence, boyish. . . maybe because I knew him from off-screen. If you know him only on-screen, maybe. . . I knew him socially. I spent a little bit of time with him. He was actually vying to do the part of Andy Kaufman. He wanted to play that in Man On The Moon. Before that even I sent him a note for something he did, I can't remember what it was and we got together and just chit-chatted about his work.

Now your next directorial film, Duplex, is different again, yes?

Duplex is a wonderful romantic comedy I'm directing with Drew Barrymore and Ben Stiller. She is the nicest people you'd ever want to meet. They are very, very good together. It's a romantic comedy. It's a story about a couple who buys a duplex in Brooklyn and they realize that there's a tenant in the house that they buy, a rent controlled tenant, she's in her 90's and boy would it be great to have that apartment. So that's basically the story. There is a moment where they thing, wouldn't it be nice, you know she's so old, any day now she's going to kick the bucket. But, she don't. She needs a little help.

Why wait so long to direct another feature?

I was trying to do it. After Matilda I developed The Man Who Came To Dinner. That took me a really long time. I was going to do that . It's still in the wings at Dreamworks. We may do it. It's a really wonderful story. It's remake of the movie with Bette Davis. It's a really fun Currier and Ives kind of feeling, really beautiful. It could be a really great movie. It was just a matter of trying to find somebody to play the two parts. The man is a great part and I developed that for a long time. I also developed Sugars Sweet Science of Bruising, which was another movie that I was talking about at New Line and that didn't happen. It was a boxing movie. Then in between all of that there were a couple of other things. Then we did Erin Brockovich, Man On The Moon, and I guess Living Out Loud and a bunch of other things in between producing. But now I'm just gonna keep going, I'm going to keep directing.

Acting wise I have one little thing I'm going to do in the summer that I can't tell anybody about and that's it.

 DeVito  was dressed in black and wearing his trademark Jersey Films hat. It was a good-natured DeVito  who joked around with the audience before answering questions. Our LA correspondent Paul Fischer was there and here is a sample of what this college crowd asked of the diminutive DeVito .

Question: What do you think about product placement in movies?

DeVito : Well, I don't usually think about it, but I think sometimes it's really a good thing to get placement. If you're producing the movie and you want people to help you advertise the movie, like if you're going to read a paper or drink a soda or you're going to drink wine or use a can opener, maybe you'll get Black & Decker to advertise your movie down the line. I think that's kind of an interesting thing to do, but I don't think you should go overboard putting it in.

Question: What message were you trying to send, if any, with the sexual innuendo surrounding Rainbow Randolph?

 DeVito : Well, there's a place for everybody in the world. I don't know. We were just having a lot of fun, so it was just one of those things. Robin [Williams] just goes off and is incredible to work with. They all are. Edward (Norton) and Catherine (Keener) and Robin and Harvey (Fierstein) and Jon (Stewart). Everybody was just a joy to work with. Robin just kept going farther and farther into certain...areas (laughs). We let him go! There are some things in the DVD that I've got saved that'll be kind of interesting. Question: What intrigued you most about the script and what made you decide to direct it?

DeVito : Well, I read the script...even though I wear the hat; this is not a Jersey Film. I'm a gun for hire and they sent me this script to direct. I read it and I thought, geez - and I called Rhea (Perlman) and I said, "You know, we're always looking for movies to take our kids to. This ain't it!" I thought it was really outrageous, far out, and fun and I just kept going farther and farther with it. There were a couple of things I had taken out of the movie. Then you look at it and you think, maybe I should rein it in. I don't usually rein things in. I like to have fun.

Question: Was this movie inspired at all by "Meet John Doe" or "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington"?

DeVito : You know, I wish (screenwriter Adam) Resnick was here. We were in Aspen last night and showed the movie and somebody asked a question about influences. I know that there are elements of the guy "being put upon" and I understand what you're saying, but I'm not sure if that was the inspiration.

Question: Are you worried about the marketing and how some people might think it's for kids?

 DeVito : The thing is that we're trying to get the message out that it's absolutely not for kids. First of all, it's R-rated, but I know my kids go to see...I remember when I was doing "Matilda" and my daughters, this is about five or six years ago, my kids are 18, 16 and I have a 14 year-old son, but when I was in the middle of shooting "Matilda", I came home one day and my oldest daughter said, "Dad! We just went to the movies and saw the greatest movie we ever saw" and I said, "wow, what is it?" And I'm in the middle of shooting, so I'm not in the current, looking at the papers, seeing what's out there and this was "The Usual Suspects". About a week later, they said, "we saw it again! It's our favorite movie!" And these were my little girls! I said, "oh, I'm going to get time off pretty soon, honey, and I'll get you to take me to the movies." They saw it three times before I got to see it. You get to the first scene where the guys reading the paper and he's like, "fuck you, you fucking cocksucker!" (laughs) I looked at my kids and went, "mm-hmm." I don't really want to market it (to kids), to answer your question, we're doing everything we can to tell people, but it is bright and cheery and colorful and beautiful, but keep your kids away.

Question: Is it a lot tougher to direct scenes that you're in yourself?

DeVito : Well, I love being in front of the camera and I really love being the director, sometimes the producer. I think of it as one thing. I work with the actors and set up my shots, which I work real hard on whatever I'm doing and I don't really think about it. It's not really hard to do to go in front of the camera, behind the camera. I mean, I do a lot of takes, I do a lot of shooting, so I try different levels, so I take it to the editing room and really make my movie, make my choices, especially for my stuff. I do less takes for me. It's one thing I've noticed. It's really interesting. I'll shoot Edward, Catherine and Robin and try different things and I go up and do one or two takes and they get really pissed off at me since I move on. I don't know what it is. It's just one of those things. I enjoy it. I really enjoy doing that.

The movie I'm doing now, I'm shooting a movie now, I started two weeks ago called "Duplex" with Ben Stiller and Drew Barrymore and it's the first movie in like seven movies that I've directed counting the one I did on television - "The Ratings Game" that I did for Showtime many years ago - that I'm not in. It's so bizarre. I don't have to think about fitting in to my costume. It's scary because I think they'll be pushing me around on the set in six weeks.

 Question: How did you go about casting "Death to Smoochy"?

DeVito : When you get a project as a director, you make your list and you try to figure out whom you can get to be in the movie. First of all, Harvey I wanted right away, Harvey Fierstein. I wanted him to play Merv Green, but Catherine, Edward and Robin were always on the list.

I was doing "Heist", Mamet's movie up in Montreal and Edward was up there doing a movie and I met with Edward and I had sent him the script. We talked about it and we went on and on about it and at one point during the dinner, he said something like, "this Rainbow Randolph has a lot of complex..." and I said, "whoa, whoa, whoa, man, you're going to play the Smooch!" I mean, Edward is just so perfect for that part. He's always doing "American History X" and "Fight Club", stuff like that, he's just so genuinely nice. He's got that naivety and can play real committed things. And Robin, there are so many colors to Rainbow Randolph. He was all over the place. I was really happy to be with them. They were genuine team players on the set all the time.

Watch Out For More On The Film As Paul Chats To The Cast In Coming Weeks.

Duplex (2002)

Release Date TBA 2002
A young New York couple decides to seize the opportunity to move into the duplex of their dreams. Their only obstacle? The woman who lives there, a sweet senior citizen.
Starring Drew Barrymore, Ben Stiller, James Remar
Directed by Danny DeVito
Written by Larry Doyle
Studio Miramax Films
Genre Comedy