Vin Diesel stars as one of the more notorious members of the Lucchese crime family, Giacomo 'Jackie Dee' DiNorscio. Jackie decided - against the advice of the judge - to act as his own attorney and by being himself and adding humor to proceedings which lasted 21 months, he played a key role in the outcome of the trial.
Vin Diesel on the Real Jackie DiNorscio: Although DiNorscio passed away while the film was in production, Diesel did have the opportunity to meet the man before his death. “Initially, I spent all the time prior to meeting him working on the attributes and mannerisms and characteristics and physicalities that Jackie possessed, in an attempt to just be him, just to match the footage that I saw. It wasn’t until I met him, until he actually came to the set, until he had a heart-to-heart with me, that I understood, or began to understand, what the whole trial meant for him, and what at the core he was fighting for.
When I met him all of the attention that I paid to his characteristics, the work that I’d put into imitating him, took a backseat to me representing the truth he was trying to fight for. So it was very, very, very helpful for me and a blessing for me to have met him before starting filming. Consequently, when he passed away, it was a very, very heavy experience, because it was the first time I’d ever played a real character, a real person. All the other characters I’ve played were fictitious and I had the liberty of creating it anyway that I wanted to. This was different. I had to represent a man whose characteristics represented the trial, and whose truth represented the outcome.”
Diesel continued, “When I was shooting the movie I had the luxury of being directed by Sidney Lumet, which allowed me to go full force in becoming this character, and so I didn’t think about how the character would come off as a whole after watching the whole picture.
After watching the picture I realized, ‘This is strange, I haven’t seen a character in film for a long time that has Jackie’s ability to love.’ I haven’t seen a character that had the ability to love to the degree that he could love a cousin that shot him and tried to kill him. A character that would be willing for the sake of loyalty - for that dying virtue - be willing to sacrifice his own life to make a statement about loyalty.”
Defying Genres: Is “Find Me Guilty” a comedy or a drama? “Another good question. I don’t know. I know that while I was shooting the movie I was very in tune with the drama of the character to the point where when I saw the movie… We were in Berlin and I saw the movie with Sidney Lumet, who had been there 50 years earlier to receive an award for ‘12 Angry Men.’ I said to Sidney, ‘I wasn’t trying to be funny.’ And he said, ‘By committing to the character the way that you did, you took on the attributes that Jackie had, and one of them was being funny in that courtroom, and being an entertainer in that courtroom.’ So I don’t know. I guess you would call it a dramedy.”
Vin Diesel’s Take on Jackie DiNorscio’s Impressive Courtroom Skills: “It’s real simple at the end of the day. He was there on trial where the objective by the prosecutor was to expose how inhumane they all are, and all he really did was expose how human they all are. He was revealing the humanity of everyone, through humor, through his own experiences, through anecdotes that the jury could relate to in one way or another. So that’s how.”
Vin Diesel Lavishes Praise on Director Sidney Lumet: Diesel acknowledges working with Lumet was a major reason he wanted to star in “Find Me Guilty.” “A huge, huge, huge, huge reason for me doing this movie was Sidney Lumet,” said Diesel. “I started acting in the New York theatre over 30 years ago and as a New York actor, you dream of being in a Sidney Lumet movie - one of our few New York directors.
He was such a role model for us New Yorkers, for everybody really, that when I went off to direct my short film ‘Multi-Facial’ - and I had spent years learning how to write at Hunter College and I’d already spent years working as an actor and studying to be a student of the craft for so long - I had no idea how to direct a movie. I went and I bought a book called Making Movies by Sidney Lumet and that’s where I got the confidence to direct my first short movie. It comes full circle 10 years later when he sees that short movie and becomes adamant that I should play Jackie DiNorscio. So having an opportunity to work with Sidney Lumet was kind of like going into the Masters Program of Filmmaking.
I was scheduled to go off and start ‘Hannibal,’ so it was a great experience for all types of reasons, one of them learning from one of the great master directors.”
Page 2: Diesel on the Makeup Process, the Courtroom Scenes and Riddick's Future
