I love doo wop music. How can we bring it back to modern music?
"Well, the way for me to bring the music back is to first get it in this film here, talk about music from that time period and the guys that were great groups and what's been happening to them. Also, my plan is to at some point do a doo wop concert, an American Doo Wop, Doo Wop Idol. I would love to have that in the consciousness because I was told by someone that there are 10,000 a cappella groups in the country, in high schools and colleges. When KCET or the public stations do those doo wop concerts, they get huge ratings."
And you wanted to use all catalog hits, no new compositions mimicking the old style?
"They're all the original groups. I wanted to use the original groups from that time period. My style with the film is I shot in super 16 because the lives of these guys and the music of that time period had a rawness about it. The whole thing was to capture that kind of essence and those original soundtracks without them being remixed. I wanted that rawness to stay there, the purity. It also fit the tone of the story in terms of these guys being a bit down and out. I wanted to use the hits because I wanted to give it the relevancy. Some people that see the film, it's funny, they go, 'Yeah, I remember that group.' Or they go, 'Was this a true story? Is this what really happened to these guys?' That's what I wanted to portray in the film by not having contemporary hits made that sounded like of that time period. I wanted to be authentic to that time period."
Did you have to train for that style of singing?
"Well, I studied opera as a young man, as a boy. I studied with Tito Gobbi and then had a coach from Julliard. I won New York State School Music Association first place solo competition, a lot of practical training with singing. So to put it that way, what I did do though is I did use a coach that had more of a popular background in terms of some of the just breathing and some of the intonation because the legato line of opera is a much different thing. I didn't want to sing the song like that. I used to grow up, when I was hitchhiking home from high school, I used to all the time, I used to sing doo wop hitchhiking home. So I was familiar to this and I also love singing."
I remember you worked opera singing into The Goonies. Was that your idea?
"Yeah, here's what happened with Goonies. Do you remember the film?"
Oh yeah. I grew up with that.
"Okay, Fred. [Laughing] When we did Goonies, there was that scene in the basement where I feed Sloth. That scene was written where I just put the food out of reach and as he just gets close to it, I push it further away. Then I push it close and I taunt him with the food and I felt that that was such a cruel thing to do that there was no justification except being sadistic. I didn’t want to make Jake Fratelli just a sadistic character. So my thinking behind that was, 'You know what? No one in the family, Francis, Joe Pantoliano's character, or Anne Ramsay's character, the mother, listen to Jake Fratelli. He's a frustrated guy with a love to sing. This kind of dysfunctional family, the only one that will listen to him is his brother Sloth who's chained to the thing.' It was a take off on instead of sing for your supper, listen to me sing for your supper. When Sloth doesn't listen to me, that's when I start that whole thing."
Did you also want to include the sort of crime story that you're more known for?
"The heist element came out of it because good people will be faced during these quite desperate times with moral choices sometimes. If they have medical bills or they have to pay rent or if they want to invest in whatever it might be, there may be somebody that thinks, "You know what? I could shoplift this or if I could pull a heist." So I wanted to provide that aspect to it in a comic way because the heist is dental gold, because Chazz loses a tooth and we hear about this. And then say that this is not the answer. This is not how we should respond to our current situation. There's a better way, in fact, for us to pull together as a people. That's the underlying message of the film. I wanted to be able to blend stylistically, tell a story of a period of time when life was a little different and juxtapose that with the current circumstances and also this crime drama thing, the heist."
As your directorial debut, were you always planning to star also?
"Absolutely. You know, you get typecast. People see you in a certain part or role and they assume that's who you are. It's so far away from who I am in terms of most of the characters I played, again I've always wanted to direct. My first films were the Italian neorealists and I used to look at those films for the auteur of them and the message and I was intrigued by who made these films. Subsequently, wanting to act in it as well, to show a different side. It's also financially more feasible because I don't have to deal with paying another actor. So just on the practical level it's a lot of fun."
I find actors who play tough guys are actually the nicest people.
"Really? I guess I've heard that before."
Is that surprising?
"No, I don't think so. I think knowing myself and knowing [others], I'm just pleased to hear that you've found that experience."
Are you planning a Dukes tour?
"You know, I would like to do that. It's something I've fantasized. We shall see."
