Chazz Palminteri tells the tale

The Bronx is up
By SARA FAITH ALTERMAN  |  March 26, 2009

090327_chazz_main

You may not recognize actor/writer Chazz Palminteri by name, but you definitely know his face — that kind of furrowed Italian-wiseguy mug that would make you swear up and down that you'd seen him whack some two-faced hooker on The Sopranos (even though he was never on the show). It was playing such a tough guy in Woody Allen's Bullets Over Broadway (1994) that earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

But the project for which Palminteri is best known — and with good, Robert DeNiro–endorsed reason — is authoring A Bronx Tale, originally a one-man stage show depicting a good kid's rough-and-tumble upbringing in the Bronx in the 1960s.

Nine-year-old Calogero Anello witnesses a shooting involving top-of-the-heap gangster Sonny, but refuses to squeal, cementing an unexpected friendship between the mobster and the moppet. "It's a story of the triumphs of the human spirit, the working man," says Palminteri, who portrayed all 12 of the main and supporting characters in the stage show.

The production caught the eye of DeNiro, who made his directorial debut with the 1993 film adaptation. Sixteen years later, Palminteri is reviving the theatrically athletic story for the stage at the Boston's Colonial Theatre. And even if he looks the part, he claims gangland is not A Bronx Tale's focus.

"This is not a gangster story," he explains to the Phoenix. "This is more about the working guy, my tribute to the working people."

Writer/actor Chazz Palminteri is perhaps best known for authoring the one-man show A Bronx Tale, which inspired the Robert DeNiro-directed film of the same name. The play originally debuted in the 1980s, and, two decades later, has been revived for a national tour with Palminteri bringing new depth to 18 separate characters - including a crime boss, a nine-year-old boy, and his bus driver father. A Bronx Tale runs March 31 - April 5 at The Colonial Theatre.

Why reviveand tour withA Bronx Talenow, 20 years after its initial debut?
I've done almost 60 movies, and over the years, anywhere I go - in Europe, the U.S., anywhere - people talk to me about A Bronx Tale and how much they loved the movie and what it meant to them, and the themes of it. I hear this constantly, and I thought, 'You know, there's a lot of people who never saw the original show. I'm still young enough to do it.' So, I relearned it, and I brought it back to Broadway [in 2007] and it was a huge hit. So I said, 'I don't want to stop yet, I want to go do this across the United States.'

The dynamics of a one-person stage show are so different from anything an actor can do on television or in a film. Can you talk a little bit about that? What do you find difficult, and also, rewarding, about doing a one-man show?
One-man shows are either really bad or really good. Because you've got to have a great story and, for whatever reason, this thing just works. It just works. And [when I first did the show in 1989] I wanted to do something really different and spectacular, something that would get me noticed as an actor. It's a very visual experience for the audience. It really touches people - you see people in the audience crying. The show is extremely funny, much funnier than the movie. I encourage people to bring their kids to see it. I have cards like one that my father had given me when I was a little boy, that say, "The saddest thing in life is wasted talent," [a famous quote from A Bronx Tale] and I hand out those cards to kids.

1  |  2  |   next >
Related: My two Dads, Review: Rock of Ages, Interview: Constantine Maroulis, More more >
  Topics: Theater , Celebrity News, Entertainment, Movies,  More more >
| More


Most Popular
ARTICLES BY SARA FAITH ALTERMAN
Share this entry with Delicious
  •   INTERVIEW: ANDY RICHTER  |  November 25, 2009
    We have a chub for Andy Barker, P.I. (just released out on DVD), because we have a major chub for the show’s star, Andy Richter. Richter plays an accountant who is mistaken for a detective-for-hire and decides to just roll with it. 
  •   REVIEW: SPREAD  |  August 19, 2009
    If only there were some way to watch a con-artist houseboy give his cougar sugar mama a squirming reach-around, charm the pants off a candy-necklace string of countless empty-eyed Hollywood stick figures, lose his heart to an untouchable social chameleon, and, in the process, find himself .
  •   NORTHERN EXPOSURE  |  July 29, 2009
    While New York is grittier, Los Angeles juicier, and Boston is wicked smahter, for some odd reason it is Montreal that, for two weeks every summer, becomes the epicenter of the comedy universe.
  •   JUST FOR LAUGHS  |  July 27, 2009
    Blogs, Tweets, and comedy video direct from moose country
  •   BEAT THE TWEET  |  July 22, 2009
    Warm weather is supposed to be accessorized by lackaday, by a breezy sensibility best enjoyed with a frosty tall boy in one hand, the sloppy product of a back-yard barbecue in the other. Instead, I find myself struggling to balance my beer between my knees and my overstocked paper plate on my thigh as I furiously poke at my BlackBerry.

 See all articles by: SARA FAITH ALTERMAN