Danny DeVito was eating WHAT in Batman Returns?
Legendary actor Danny DeVito on becoming an internet sensation, playing a stripper in hit TV show Friends and what he was actually eating in THAT scene from Batman Returns.
Stellar
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Everyone falls for Danny DeVito, the pint-sized (147 cm) Hollywood dynamo who has fans in every age bracket.
Baby boomers loved the spark he brought to classic television comedy Taxi; their kids dig what he still brings to It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia.
Gen X and Y spent a childhood wearing out VHS or DVD copies of film favourites such as Romancing The Stone, Twins, Batman Returns or Matilda.
And that’s to say nothing of the internet’s dark overlords of god knows what age, who have exploited his cherubic face and affable demeanour to make him a meme and GIF mainstay.
But hours before talking to Stellar, it was DeVito who was doing the falling as he stepped onstage in Mexico City to promote his role as Max Medici the ringmaster in director Tim Burton’s new live-action remake of the 1941 Disney classic Dumbo — and took a tumble.
The 74-year-old, who once said he’ll “do anything if it’s funny”, simply made light of the incident in true DeVito fashion: “I’ll tell you the only thing I won’t do onscreen, and that’s face plant in front of 90 journalists.”
You started your working relationship with Dumbo director Tim Burton on 1992’s Batman Returns, which also starred Michael Keaton in the title role. And Michael is in this film, too. Was making this a bit like putting a hand right back into an old glove?
Yes, exactly. We’ve been friends all along. I worked with Michael before Batman on a film called Johnny Dangerously; Tim and I have made five movies together.
He’s in [one of] the movies I directed, [1992’s] Hoffa. He came to visit one day, and I was doing this scene with open coffins. I said, “Tim, you wanna be in the movie?” He says “yeah”. We put him in hair and make-up and a suit, he jumps in the coffin.
The original Dumbo is actually quite devastating. Is this new version also sad?
Let me just plant this: you’ll be very pleased with the milieu and how we deal with the issue of animals in captivity. It’s very, very positive. Disney has given this precious story to someone who is a real visual artist. I love watching Tim work. I could sit all day and watch him paint with actors and props and lights.
You played The Penguin in Batman Returns, which was filmed nearly 30 years ago. One imagines you were in hair and make-up a lot longer than anyone who appears in Dumbo.
It started at four hours and we got it to about three and change. But I loved every minute of it; we felt like we were at the opera performing a masterpiece. Today you could probably create The Penguin without even putting me in a chair.
The Penguin eats fish, quite grotesquely, in that movie. What were you actually eating?
Raw fish.
Wait, what?
Oh yeah, that was real fish. Bluefish. Fresh, of course. Movie stars only eat fresh fish. Don’t try to pawn two-day-old fish on us. You bring that right from the market.
Surely that didn’t taste good after a while, though.
Well, in the middle of the action, I would squeeze a mixture of mouthwash and spirulina into my mouth — but that was because I needed to ooze this green, kind of black thickish liquid out of the corners.
You have become an internet superstar in the past couple of years. GIFs feature you, meme accounts on Instagram love posting about you. And last Halloween, Jessica Simpson and her husband went viral when she shared a photo of the two of them dressed as you and Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 1988 comedy Twins. What do you make of all this?
I’m delighted by it. I think it’s great. I love watching what people do. The last one was about a month ago. There was this shrine to me that someone put up at [US university] SUNY Purchase in a bathroom where you’d go behind this paper towel dispenser that opened up [like a locker].
These students had put a cardboard cut-out of me in there and people were walking in to leave offerings. They had made me the patron saint of trash men. I love that! It’s not gonna stop, because I’m only going to keep doing crazy things. This job gives me that opportunity. I might as well keep taking it.
Why do you think you are so beloved?
I guess it’s all the different things I choose. I’m fortunate; I’ve been offered parts in all kinds of genres. Well, never really science fiction or horror. But when you do stuff like Matilda or a Batman movie and then L.A. Confidential or Heist, and I t’s Always Sunny on top of that... I bring a certain energy to all the characters that I play. They’re all related.
People appreciate your fearlessness, too. You post pictures of your so-called “trollfoot” on Twitter. You’re politically active. You do nude scenes. On that note, in 2004 you played an ageing stripper at Phoebe’s bachelorette party in an episode of Friends. What do you recall from that?
That I was really turned on by those girls! I don’t know if they were happy about it, but I sure was.
Let’s go back to what you won’t do. Give us a real answer this time.
I mean, I’m sure there is something I wouldn’t do. Maybe you should write something and offer it to me — and I’ll turn it down.
MORE STELLAR:
Sam Armytage: ‘Why don’t people just say what they think?’
Paulini: ‘I thought people wouldn’t want to work with me’
Your birthday [Nov 17] has been designated as Danny DeVito Day in your home state of New Jersey, an honour only bestowed on one other native son: Jon Bon Jovi. If he brings great hair and good guitar riffs to the table, what do you bring?
I bring the smiles.
Dumbo is in cinemas from March 28.
READ MORE EXCLUSIVES FROM STELLAR.
Originally published as Danny DeVito was eating WHAT in Batman Returns?