“This was not planned,” says stand-up comedian Sebastian Maniscalco about his auto-biopic comedy About My Father making it to the screen.
“This is not something I had on my vision board,” he tells us on today’s Crew Call.
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About My Father, directed by Laura Terruso, and written by Austen Earl and Maniscalco, follows the stand-up as he meets his posh wife’s well-to-do family. Complicating matters is Maniscalco’s salon stylist immigrant Italian father, Salvo (played by Robert De Niro) is also along for the ride.
Earl and Maniscalco bonded as both of their wives “come from a better cut of cloth” as the stand-up puts it.
How did Terruso win the job?
“She had –I don’t know what the hell it was–a power point presentation,” Maniscalco tells us, “She came in with visuals of what the wardrobe is going to be; I’m a visual guy.”
“If she took this much time and effort and energy just on the interview — just that showed she had a lot of passion for this project,” he continued.
Then there was the Italian-American connection.
“We’re like dolphins, we have a secret language Italian speak,” he says about his working relationship wiht Terruso, “I knew I would have a shorthand with her.”
The duo talk with us about landing De Niro, as well as the 2x Oscar winner’s method prep in playing Salvo. Maniscalco also shares with us his take on the state of comedy in the face of political correctness, as well as whether peacocks really made their way into a pasta dish in real life.
About My Father opens via Lionsgate this Friday.
You can listen to our conversation below:
