Human Gangsters
An Interview with Stanley Tucci
By Antony Teofilo
Italian-American actors of a certain cut and camber (it helps to have a prominent cleft in one's chin, I'm told) can make a pretty decent living playing nothing but gangsters of one shade or another. Not that it's really their fault; Hollywood tends to paint one into niche roles based on their appearance.
Stanley Tucci is a rare exception to the rule. Tucci has become an awe-inspiring example of a disciplined independent director and actor. He heartily disagrees with the broad brush strokes that have painted Italians on the big screen. That's why you've never seen Tucci in a gangster role. Not until now.
Tucci's portrayal of Frank Nitti in ROAD TO PERDITION is startling in its quiet calculation, and even its despair. Here, Nitti is not a frothing homicidal fiend, but a creature far more dangerous: a placid businessman who silently signs legitimate contracts, deeds and bills of sale with blood enemies, and on occasion, friends.
PRESS: The portrayal of Frank Nitti in this film is not the standard type of gangster we're used to seeing. Did that draw you to this part?
PRESS: I have consciously not taken the role of a gangster, which has been offered to me far too many times. I feel the prevailing view of Italian-Americans in Hollywood is that we are gangsters. When I talked to Sam [Mendes] about this, I looked at the story, and of course I wanted to work with Sam. I did it really without hesitation. It was a conscious effort on Sam's part and on mine, not to make it that classic stereotypical gangster that we see all the time. Frank Nitti was in fact a very intelligent guy. It was a very interesting exercise to make these characters as human as possible.
Often you'll see in movies the Italian gangster is always dumber or meaner or bloodier than the others. In this movie, that's not the case. This film is really about relationships
and how these relationships are changed by violence. [Yet] none of the violence in this movie is gratuitous. None of the killing is for the audience's satisfaction or titillation.
PRESS: Can you comment on the challenges a period film might present as opposed to making a modern film?
TUCCI: It's more interesting because you get to research the history of the period, and all the different aesthetic elements that make a film, particularly this film, so stunning. I've directed a film set in the '50s. As a director you have to be careful you don't over-design the film. You have to be careful that the period aspect does not take over.
ANTONY: Does your experience as a director inform your acting process?
TUCCI: Without question. You learn about one from doing the other. Whenever I direct a movie, I always say, "I'm never doing that again. It's too tiring." Then I go and act, and I watch directors and see what they do right, and what they do wrong, and that informs my next effort. As a director, I also get to sit and watch actors and learn from them in a way that I don't get to do when I'm just acting.
Sometimes it's difficult directing yourself on film because you can't quite separate yourself from the subject. It's good to have a co-director like Campbell Scott, who can say you're good there, or you're not good there. One time I said, "I want to use that take," and he said, "No, you just want to use that take because you think you look handsome." And he was right, it was the only shot that I liked of myself. You have to disassociate yourself, or you'd never get through it.
PRESS: This is a very serious movie. Were there light moments on the set, despite the subject matter?
TUCCI: If you have a good director like Sam who has a sense of irony and a great sense of humor, as does Tom, you can't help but laugh about what you're doing at times. They put a gag reel together that was truly hysterical. I remember, I did a scene where I talked on the phone, and I slammed the [receiver down] and I kept my hand on the phone. Sam kept rolling and rolling, and I finally said, "I can't take my hand away from the phone," because I had broken it into pieces, and I knew it would fall apart as soon as I took my hand away.
PRESS: You played a scene opposite Anthony LaPaglia's Al Capone that was cut from the movie. How do you feel when that happens?
TUCCI: I'm actually one who will encourage directors to cut my lines. I think [what's more interesting is what] actors can do with their faces and their bodies and their movement. When I write a screenplay, and when I direct, I always pull lines out. So many directors think you have to say more. The acting is much better when you [don't have to talk].
PRESS: What's it like sharing a scene with Paul Newman and Tom Hanks?
TUCCI: I become very quiet. And I'm not exactly a new kid on the block. You just do the scene. It's hard sometimes not to become an audience member because you've been watching them for so many years, you just want to watch them. You don't really want to act with them. Then, you just forge ahead.
PRESS: Does Paul Newman have to work as hard as everyone else?
TUCCI: He has tremendous technique, which someone who has done as many movies as he has and has gone on as long obviously must have. When you're that good, you have a very refined technique. This does not stop him from truly preparing for a scene. I watched him sit in a very hot room, very still, which we all left. He stayed in that room in a heavy wool suit until we started shooting, just concentrating.
PRESS: How do you prepare to play a historical character like Frank Nitti, or Walter Winchell or Eichmann?
TUCCI: I read as much as I could on Frank Nitti. I had done some reading many years before. You owe it to your subject to know as much as possible about them.
ANTONY: This movie's pace is drastically opposed to that of the regular summer action movie. Do you think summer audiences will respond in a positive way to a movie that is slower in pace?
TUCCI: Absolutely, on every level: the acting, the intelligence of the script, the direction, the aesthetic of the film. It's very real cinema, it's cinema as it was meant to be. It has that pull for people who really long for that [slower pace]. I hope that a younger generation will start to watch a movie like this and start to better understand a slower pace in a truly cinematic way.
ROAD TO PERDITION opened in theaters July 12, 2002.
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