What do you get when you pair one of the hottest comics in America with a legendary award-winning actor? The answer, “About My Father” starring Sebastian Maniscalco and Robert De Niro.
“Live In The D” host Tati Amare got a chance to talk with Maniscalco about his new film. While the pair first met on the set of “The Irishman,” that is not how they came to work together in this new project. Maniscalco wrote the film and says it was his producer who sent the script over to De Niro. The writing caught De Niro’s attention but he wanted to hear it played out. So, they hired a bunch of actors and ran through some scenes for him, and that’s when De Niro committed to the project.
De Niro plays Maniscalco’s father in the film, a figure Maniscalco talks a lot about in his stand-up routines. Much of the movie is based on Maniscalco’s relationship with his father.
“I wanted to make people laugh, I wanted to make people cry a little bit, there are some emotional scenes in the movie between my father and I,” explains Maniscalco. “To see it all play out on screen with my father sitting right next to me was pretty fantastic.”
However, one of the most difficult things for Maniscalco while filming was not getting immediate responses to his jokes. Maniscalco says he is used to performing stand-up where if he says a joke and people laugh, he knows it’s funny. Filming a movie is an entirely different thing, where instead of laughing or clapping they just yell “cut.” As he did it more, however, he says he got used to it.
For the full interview, watch the video above.
“About My Father” is in theaters now.