Joe Pesci | Late Late Show with Tom Snyder (Full Interview)

joe pesci is an academy award-winning actor who starred in such great motion pictures as goodfellas and raging bull his newest film is lethal weapon 4. it's in theaters now and it's a pleasure to welcome joe back to cbs thanks for coming on i you don't do this very often and i'm honored that you come here to visit us well i i like doing your show thank you now you and mel gibson and danny glover in this picture are together now this is the third time around huh for me yes and i i understand that uh that uh that uh gibson is a pretty good practical joker very good practical uh can you give me an example of what he's done in the past i think that he and uh and uh who was the other fellow danny glover teamed up on you one time didn't they arnold chris rock chris rock and uh chris rock and uh and mel did this last time i was uh i was doing a scene and i always keep the cigar off the set and after i do the scene i come back i pick up the cigar and i smoke it and mel and chris were standing there and he said how's that cigar taste which is is not a strange question because we both smoke cigars a lot and we trade cigars is that a good one something like that so i said it's all right i said it's it it's not as good as the other one we smoked you know he said little bitter and i said well it's just it's just not as good as the other one he said you think this might be the reason and he holds up a polaroid of a cigar stuck up a butt and i said there's no way that's my cigarette and uh no way they could get into my stash i know you know but it was a good try i just think that mel likes to walk around with cigars up his butt i'm not asking you what you will do but do you retaliate along the way do you do you have a comeback now and again it depends on the seriousness of the prank because uh some you know they get out of hand i'm i'm not one who can take it i i don't take it very well so uh it depends on you know how extreme it is gotcha gotcha you know some sometimes i can't take it so i avoid trying to do it back to someone or so that it doesn't go too far you know you know when a picture comes out such as the one that you're doing now with mel and danny uh there's a lot of competition for audience right now like this the armageddon this huge or supposedly huge picture opened up i mean is it tough to to release lisa and i know you have no control over this but when a picture is released in the midst of a lot of competition yeah well i don't i don't like you know like you said i don't have anything to do with that and i certainly don't even worry about it anymore i mean because uh you know the big companies that that do all the marketing i mean they have such great marketing staffs they know what they're doing right and and sometimes they're if it seems like it's a bad choice or a bad time it's because it's the only time that they really can that that they figure out you know the last time you were here we talked a little bit about raging bull and you mentioned in passing that you had done some sparring with roberto duran and i didn't ask you about that and i should have was that was that frightening for you because you you're not a professional fighter and you got to spar with this guy and you get to know the moves how tough was that well you know at the time i was younger crazier yeah and uh i'm not thinking too clearly i was uh bob de niro and i were were doing a lot of boxing at the time before the movie and practicing and and you get to think you're a little good a little i got to give this guy a shot and i was in good shape and we and we were friendly with roberto and i know i was going to go down and watch him spar and he was sparring and i i had told him that i wanted to get in the ring with him a little bit and just pull around you know and i thought it was a good idea i brought a little film crew 16 millimeter millimeter crew a couple of friends of mine and when i got in the ring i realized what a bad decision i made because uh it's it was frightening i there was there was a point where i really got scared i did because even if you if you get a little lucky and you and you make a good move on him there's a lot of people around you embarrass the guy you know and he can he can come at you but what he did was bull me with his body you know what i mean he kept he kept bullying me with his body and i was bruised for about a month just just from that he was about 180 pounds although in that situation even though he was bullying you he probably would never hurt you no no he wouldn't he he wasn't trying to hurt me at all he was he was making fun you know and telling me try to hit me and every and the guy is a master at slipping punches i mean that was that was his forte really and and uh i couldn't hit him i couldn't hit him and every time i'd miss him he'd hit me with his shoulder or something or move his body and a couple of times i you know do a couple of fast little parries against him or something and he went oh and come back roberto i'm only kidding come on it's me it's me and i was running around the ring so when i when i uh when i looked at the film with my friend i just edit out all that me running around stuff get that already yeah just use the good stuff where i look good you know you know it's it's interesting that people know you for the tough roles you've played like raging bulletin like goodfellas which was you know a a milestone motion picture in your career and and and in in in a lot of other careers yet you've done some funny stuff my cousin vinnie was a very funny film when fans see you on the street how do they react to the characters you play do they tend to react to the heavy or to the comedy it depends on the movie that they saw last okay and and usually i can tell which one they saw last by how they approached me it's if it's a joe how's those utes i know they saw my cousin vinnie or hey okay okay okay joe okay okay okay and they'll do that and and then if they saw one of their heavier rolls it's uh hey mr pesci how are you doing mr president and then it's mr pesci how you doing you know and we didn't talk much about you grew up in newark across the river from new york right oh i was born in newark new jersey and i lived there until i'm maybe about 11 years old and you're down from your dad was a blue collar worker there a working man oh my father my father was a working dog he loved to work he had a few jobs he was uh he drove a forklift truck for general motors chevrolet division for years and he used to attend bar nights and and if he could get extra work at budweiser used to go there when they needed you know somebody so he was he was a workaholic was it the love of work or the or or the love of supporting it it was the love of trying to get his family out of a certain neighborhood and into better neighborhoods all the time that's what it was and what would he say to you about your future when you were a lad going to school what would he stress education to you he would he well he stressed education but not so much the education as i mean he didn't think he had a genius on his hands without that but all fathers want for their sons and daughters better than what they had right well the thing he worried about more than anything was a trade he always thought about trades in other words he started me off acting and singing and dancing in marie mosher's school of acting singing and dancing when i was about five years old so i was getting trained uh that way and i was performing and going along but he always said you know you can't take anything for granted and if it doesn't work out with show business or your acting or singing or anything like that you should learn something have a trade fallback position well then he started me playing the guitar at nine years old so i would learn some music some extra music you know then he uh he wanted me to become a barber and have that trade then he got me a civil service job in the post office civil service is a good job to have benefits so i worked in the post office i was a mail carrier a male sorter and i worked on the docks i'm loading the drive and i did it all and uh things like that those those kind of trade things that you would never starve you could always feed your family and feed yourself but he did support singing and acting he wanted that he wanted that for me he thought i had some talent and when you were a kid what was on television well we because he worked so many jobs we wanted we were one of the first families in our neighborhood to to get a tv was you know those little ones seven inches right and and the color was a big orange thing that you put in front of it once that came over you remember that's right uh the things well the first things i remember they're waving me to a commercial excuse my interruption we'll continue here with joe pesci who's currently starring along with mel gibson and danny glover in lethal weapon four the toll free is up and running and we'll be right back after this short break with joe pesci uh here's jeff on the toll free in saint clair missouri hi jeff and welcome to cbs late night hello how are you tonight i'm fine jeff i hope you are too i'm doing fine thank you how are you joe fine how are you jeff oh i'm doing fine thanks um now that that's out of the way jeff can we get on to a place yeah my question is joe have you ever really met any tough guys like you play in the movies and and what are they like uh like you base your characters on well you know sometimes when we're doing research they uh they'd introduce us to certain people and they would tell us that they were somebody but naturally you never know i find that a lot of them uh would would say there was somebody when they weren't i don't think a real tough guy or somebody like that would say who they were or come out like that and when i worked in nightclubs when i was younger i did meet a lot of neighborhood guys like that and they were actually in the nightclubs they were very nice to us they liked entertainers uh they would give us good tips and biased drinks and so it was uh they were okay with that well the tough guy is never really a tough guy in that kind of a situation a nightclub situation you know that kind of a setting yeah right well you never uh knew anybody that was notorious or anything like that anybody that we would know of my brother was notorious he used to beat me up all the time it was pretty tough jeff i'm glad you called and i hope you had a happy fourth thanks for your time okay young man take care the the tv when you got the first little seven and says what was on television the horn in heart our children's hour that's right the horny heart children now and at the ted mac show we were talking about that and uh the serials used to come on remember the scorpion yep and the phantom was on the wolf man i used to love them i couldn't wait to it was wonderful now you you spent the time early in your career you spent some time in music you wound up with joey d and the starlighters and they had a big hit record as i recall uh they had a couple of hit records i mean they had the peppermint twist and they had a let's twist and uh probably something else that i'm i'm forgetting but uh i was just in the uh in the road band playing i mean i was i i wasn't part of the the upfront school but you mentioned your father brought you a guitar were you guitar man yes i played guitar in the road band with sam taylor jr and what's tell me about the road what happens on the road when you're when you're a young kid you're with a hot group like the starlighters they got all these hit records and they're all those adoring fans out there in the seats well i didn't have have access to the adoring fan i was in the band but uh it was a lot of fun and it was interesting it was a it was a big learning experience i think you know it really was what did you learn i learned a lot of things uh i learned a lot of uh a lot of things about uh who to bother with and who not to bother with on the road certain types of people you know i mean it's just it's just growing up things you know i think you learn a lot faster when you're on the road and you're around people that are drinking and you're young you get to see people uh at their worst all the time so you you learn a lot you learn fast you know who's who's not nice who's nice who's full of head who who you know what i mean when you saw people drinking like i i remember this when i was a kid i wasn't on the road but i had moved from my father's house i was working down south and television you know for for no money but just because i love television so much and like yourself you you i tended to not go with those who were the drinkers because they turned into people that i didn't want to be around exactly and it it kept me away from drinking to be honest with you right well i was never a big drinker but i you know i did get into drugs for a while with with the with the bands and stuff like that which i'm i'm not thrilled about but no but how could you not i mean every young pro almost every young musician it's a terrible thing i mean you don't realize what you're doing i mean you really don't when you're young you're doing that stuff you just don't realize what you're getting at no because you're immortal then joe yeah i'm just so sorry i ever did physically for myself i understand mentally i understand so your first first picture in the 70s was it there was a death collector first picture yes that was the first picture and you played you played a gangster type huh i played a neighborhood uh tough you know something like that i don't know if there's really gangsters they were just neighborhood guys sort of like martin scorsese's mean streets you know okay okay um wannabes stuff and in that picture you would have a credit as a writer and i was told to ask you about a line involving the word sneakers sneakers wow don't let me catch you wearing sneakers oh yeah i i did i said don't wear do me a favor don't wear sneakers i said to bobby alto i it was such a it was such a strange kind of a thing because they thought they were they were doing they were going to do well because they they made a score they made some money and and he was telling his friend bobby this is in the picture yes and and he was telling him you know we're going to be doing great now you know we're going to be uh dressing better better cars going better cars when you go to better places he says yeah and he says um so i wanted to tell you he says um yeah what i said do me a favor he said anything i'll do anything for you and i said don't wear sneakers anymore and he said okay never asking why but like wondering why can't i wear sneakers but it was just a thing like you get to a point where you don't wear sneakers anymore when you're that type that type in that neighborhood and things like that but i was told that you would write some of this dialogue or make it up as as as you went along we did yes we did we improvised the law and wrote ralph devito who's my friend who who wrote it and directed it uh you know would let us do these things and it was helpful to me to learn and get this experience to be able to create like that you know and then when i when i worked with uh martin scorsese and robert de niro it was a lot it was so easy for me to get into that and they and that's what they wanted they liked that so how was your career after that first picture did the offers come rolling in yeah sure so much so that you went back to new york huh yeah i i came out to hollywood i couldn't get an agent i i couldn't i couldn't get arrested doing anything i could have kind of arrested you i really couldn't do well at all i mean i tried so hard and i did some bid parts you know in kojacs and things like that you know i'd go up for things and just uh just wind up with extra work and try to get an extra line here i just couldn't do anything it's a tough business tough thing to break into you have to really be lucky i mean i consider myself very lucky i think not only do you have to be lucky i mean you have to be prepared so that if you do get a chance at least you're ready you're ready you know i mean it doesn't help you to get lucky and you're not prepared you're dead because then you just stopped but you went back to new york and you went to work in a in a legendary restaurant in the bronx i've been in that restaurant it's a great treasure what was your job there my job was managing the place i was running it and for a while for a short time and when we were trying to build it up i uh my boss got me a guitar i would sing nights around the tables and everything that stopped quick because a couple of fights broke out and i wanted to smack people with the guitar so i think that's funny huh get hit with a guitar they hurt it's not the wood so much it's the strings that hurt when they cut and uh you're working in amici's one night and you get a phone call i read right well i got a phone call in in the morning i was uh doing something and and i came back to the restaurant i was out doing something else i come back to the restaurant and one of the guys that worked for me said uh uh you got a phone call from robert de niro he said the number's over there on the bar i said yeah you're right drop dead the first chance you get you know because i thought somebody was they used to call me the actor and they had all these nicknames for me so i thought somebody was just pulling my legs but when i i looked at the number you know just settled over to the bar just take a little peek at it without them knowing i was looking i noticed that the area code was the correct area code for los angeles and the dope that told me didn't have the brains to know that so i said this is real so i went upstairs and i called right away and uh it was uh i think united artist studio and uh i said yes can i speak to robert de niro please and he said who's calling us to joe pass you just a minute she comes back on the phone she said he's not in right now and i said yeah well i figured that just tell him joe pesci called and i hung up i figured somebody would just prank or whatever yeah and then i went to sleep and i uh the phone woke me up and and the woman on the phone says i have a call and is this uh mr pesce yeah uh robert de niro calling i said oh good she gets on the phone on here hello i said hello this is uh yeah uh joe uh joe pesci i said yeah this is um this is uh bob de niro i said um yeah and he said is this is this this really joe pesci is this he says this is really bob de niro i said this is really joe pesci and what can i do for you you know he says uh the actor i said well i don't act anymore i was acting and i just give it all up he said you were in death collective right i said yes he said listen uh martin scorsese and i saw you in this thing i'd like to uh talk to you about being in this movie that we're gonna do together and i said well i said i don't work anymore i said unless it's really a real big part or i could you know go one-on-one with you and i could really get out there and show my stuff i said i i don't think that you should you should give it to someone who's a working actor that'll really appreciate it and he said no he said well can i talk to you about it i said well yes i said but i can't come to california i said i'm running a restaurant you know he said oh we'll come there i said okay okay sunday five o'clock dinner robert de niro uh martin scorsese sis corman the casting director and her husband come and have dinner with my boss and i and his wife they loved it so you know and we had this dinner and they were talking about all this um this raging bull stuff and everything and telling me how good the part was and how good they thought i was and would i just read and so i said no no no and then my boss said i think you should go read for it so i said okay and i i went and read and we read for a few days and finally worked you got lucky i got i mean this is extremely lucky you're talking you were prepared but i was prepared let me do a fast break here we're chatting with joe pesci one of the stars of lethal weapon four we'll be right back after these messages with joe pesci you know i've got these fellas coming on to talk about this this news thing at cnn i don't know if you heard about that where they had to retract the story do you watch news a lot do you trust what you what you see on television news what you're reading the papers um not all the time i mean i think uh it gets too crazy it's it's much too crazy the news i i i'm a channel flipper right channels like i hear a little bit about everything and i keep going unless you know something really stands out and well like when this thing came out then i i'm not asking you for an opinion on bill clinton and and this monica lewinsky but with that thing remember it was everywhere when it came to did you follow that i follow i mean you hear it for a while and then i start laughing about it because it's like it's so crazy it has nothing to do with his job i don't care what he does i don't i'm just amazed that people care what he does and any spare time yeah but they do i well i mean well they are i we were talking about that because people want to know what you do as a celebrity right when you're not working and doing your job i understand that but but something that becomes very personal he says he didn't find he didn't and in your life you know you're you're a known figure you're a movie star right do you often wonder why people are so taken with what you do for a living you know a celebrity you know they they wanna they wanna pictures of you uh at social events or they want a map to find out where you live i mean do you ever wonder what it is about celebrity i mean would you get on a bus and drive through beverly hills looking at people's houses because there were movie stars do you ever wonder why people do that uh i don't know i mean i never went that far but when i was younger i mean because of because of my interest in the business i always had a big interest right than anyone who was a celebrity or movie star type but uh and the average person i can see being a little taken because they're surprised to see you where they don't expect to see you that i can understand but it's like a doctor when a doctor comes into a room and everybody finds out what kind of a doctor is he and the minute he gives up what kind of a doctor he is someone's got a pain or something or a question they're going to ask him about you know doctors seem to have the same problem we have as celebrities or or actors or something but but uh in general we don't go into a room at a social event and ask other people what they're doing or how's your job what are you doing next that's a big question what are you doing next what are you doing now yeah or what are you doing what are you doing here you know i get it all the time why aren't you in new york well because i don't live in new york i work in los angeles well if i go to church people turn around and stare [Laughter] you pesci goes to church [Laughter] well i go to church when there's no one around i go in the afternoon really i'll go in the afternoon when i see nobody there i'll just walk in and just relax and sit there a while and have my little conversations with our lord but i mean i i can't go in there on sunday i'm sorry i just can't do it i feel so awkward i understand i feel terrible i understand i remember al pacino and i went to see frank sinatra one day at carnegie hall and we sat in the sixth row we had nice seats we went we sat down and uh buddy rich was playing first it was the opening act and before you know people were going and sinatra sent us these three big guys came in with it you knew we came out frank says what are you trying to do ruin the show get upstairs in the box he'll talk to you later but that was it we couldn't sit there it is always a joy to see you in that chair thanks for coming over i'm honored that you do our show joe thank you i wish you were still going to do it well we'll be here for until the end of the year maybe you'll come back one more time okay nice seeing you tomorrow it's nice to see you sir always a pleasure mr b joe pesci is the guest lethal weapon four is the pictures in theaters now next john leo and marshall loeb and strange goings-on at cnn and time magazine after this time out you

Channel: AD Vids

Views: 62,272

Keywords: casino, goodfellas, joe pesci, joe pesci interview, joe pesci interview tom snyder, joe pesci raging bull, joe pesci snyder, joe pesci tom snyder, late late show tom snyder, late late show with tom snyder, late night tom snyder, late show tom snyder, snyder joe pesci, the late late show with tom snyder, tom snyder, tom snyder 1998, tom snyder best interviews, tom snyder interview, tom snyder interviews, tom snyder joe pesci, tom snyder late late show

Id: J9mFwkYFYrI

Length: 23min 50sec (1430 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 23 2020