Production Notes:
Track One
Hatching The Plan
Track Two
Recruiting The Team
Track Three
Pulling Off The Heist
Track Four
Rythm and Melody
Life Could Be a Dream
A Brief History of Doo Wop
They used to sing for gold. Now they’re going to steal it.
TRACK TWO: RECRUITING THE TEAM
"It's all changed now. The whole playing field is different. With today's technology,
everybody's an actor, everybody's a singer. There's just too much competition."
--Lou
The heartfelt comedy of THE DUKES emerges out of a series of naturalistic performances from a highly accomplished ensemble cast. From the beginning, Robert Davi knew that the key to bringing THE DUKES to life on the screen would lie in casting a group of men and women adept at revealing the full range of foibles and fractured dreams at the heart of human experience. At the same time, they also had to be believable as a group of buddies who could scheme up – and would attempt to carry out -- the heist of a life-time.
“It was all about putting together the right energies and creating an ensemble that would work as a whole,” Davi says. “These are characters who are often surprising and defy expectations, so the mix of personalities was very important. That’s why I believe in casting over a meal so that you can see the real person and all their idiosyncrasies and individuality. Then, as a director, it becomes a matter of bringing out all those textures in front of the camera.”
Davi always knew he would take the role of The Dukes’ lead singer Danny DePasquale, a man who wears on his sleeve the raw heartbreak of watching his musical career, his marriage and his middle-age esteem flee from his grasp. Perhaps the one realist among The Dukes and their friends, Danny nevertheless still clings to a shred of belief that he can turn things around, which leads him to consent to the gold heist despite his misgivings.
Davi enjoyed having the chance to do something entirely new and different from the roles he is usually associated with in thrillers and action movies. The part of Danny often took him to dark places. In one of the film’s most wrenching scenes, Danny stands before a mirror practicing an impassioned speech about human dignity, only to moments later suffer profound humiliation in a tomato costume. “I think that’s something everyone can relate to,” Davi remarks of the scene. “We’ve all had those private moments in the bathroom where we feel completely humiliated, where we think we’re ready tell the boss to go screw himself, and then we walk out and put on the tomato hat. Everyone has been there.”
Also key to his performance, Davi says, is Danny’s relationship with his son, who lives with his ex-wife and who idolizes his father in spite of his current run of bad luck. “Danny’s story is in part about a father’s driving love for his son and the wisdom children sometimes inadvertently give to us. For me, there are echoes of ‘The Bicycle Thief’ in Danny’s desire to do right by his kid.”
To play Danny’s cousin, the incorrigible ladies’ man George Zucco, Davi always had in mind his good friend Chazz Palminteri, an actor renown for giving vibrantly colorful performances, including his Academy Award® nominated turn as a mob hitman in Woody Allen’s “Bullets Over Broadway.” Palminteri plays George as a man with a literally huge lust for life – and the raffish enthusiasm that leads The Dukes into their unlikely second act as gold thieves. “I always knew I wanted Chazz because we have such a good natural rapport together and he’s such a wonderful actor,” says Davi.
If The Dukes are floundering, their manager is even deeper water, trying to keep them barely afloat with some of the worst gigs in all of entertainment – from playing bobble-heads to performing as singing tomatoes in low-rent ads. Lou Fiola is portrayed in all his bittersweet grittiness by Peter Bogdanovich, himself an Academy Award® nominated writer and director whose films include “The Last Picture Show,” “What’s Up Doc?,” “Paper Moon” and “Mask” -- and whose recent acting roles include playing Dr. Elliot Kupferberg on HBO’s acclaimed hit series “The Sopranos.”
“It hurts Lou even more than it hurts The Dukes to watch them having to go through all this humiliation,” says Davi. “I had known Peter Bogdanovich for years through Stella Adler and I knew he would do great things with this role.”
The main cast is supported by a cadre of equally strong performers including the late Frank D’Amico, who was ill during filming (like his character he faced the prospect of an amputated leg due to advanced diabetes) and passed away in June of 2008. D’Amico reveals his warm wit and big heart in the role of Armond Kaputo, who was once a successful stand-up comic. “I met Frank at a barbeque and thought he had a great energy that would be interesting for the film,” recalls Davi. “In the end, he gave a really solid, funny and touching performance.”
Another hard-luck friend of The Dukes’ – former hotshot airline mechanic Murph Sinitsky, whose job went up in a puff of pot smoke – is played with a wry vulnerability by familiar comic face Elya Baskin, who made his breakthrough opposite Robin Williams in “Moscow on the Hudson” and recently has been seen as Peter Parker’s landlord in “Spiderman 2 and 3.” Murph becomes the group’s reluctant technical expert during the heist, with hilarious results. The burglary is further bolstered by the addition of the seemingly suave safe-cracker Tulio – whose hardened exterior hides his own down-trodden secrets -- played by Emmy Award winner Bruce Weitz, best known for his long-running role on “Hill Street Blues.”
Finally, there’s Aunt Vee – the big-mouthed, iron-fisted Italian restaurateur whose soft spot for The Dukes’ music helps to revive their fading dreams. Davi tapped an unusual actress for the role: veteran British star of stage and screen Miriam Margoyles, who brings out both Aunt Vee’s fierceness as well as her hidden faith in her nephews. “She’s one of the great English actors but she had a quality I thought would work for Aunt Vee,” says Davi.
Rounding out the ensemble are an intriguing multi-generational group of actors in smaller but key roles including “The Office’s” Melora Hardin as Danny’s ex-wife Diane; Eloise DeJoria as Katherine, the waitress who has her eye on George, but whose svelte, blonde beauty ironically turns him off; legendary jazz drummer Alphonse Mouzon as one of the long-lost members of The Dukes; rising young star Dominic Scott Kay as Danny’s beloved son Brion; and veteran star of stage and television Joseph Campanella as the elderly food bandit who inspires The Dukes.
Despite THE DUKES marking his first time on the set as a director – and despite being surrounded by a group of Academy Award® nominated actors and filmmakers – Davi found that his directorial debut felt completely organic, perhaps because he had anticipated it for so long. “I’ve learned that directing is really about being a benevolent despot. You have to give the actors freedom but at the same time you always know what you want and follow that vision.”