Episode Transcript
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In this episode of Pop Culture Weekly, I talk with Sebastian Manus Calco, Robert Teniro, and the cast of "About My Father" let's go!
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Welcome to Pop Culture Weekly with Kyle McMahon from I Heart Radio!
Your Pop Culture News! Views, Reviews, and Celebrity Interviews on all the movies, TV, music, and pop culture you crave, Weekly! Here's Kyle McMahon!
(hums)
(upbeat music)
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♪ Na na na ♪
♪ Hello, and welcome to Pop Culture Weekly ♪
♪ With Kyle McMahon ♪
♪ I, of course, am Kyle McMahon ♪
♪ And this episode is all about about my father.
The film is out today, depending on when you listen to this.
It's out now in theaters,
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and it is a really, really hysterically funny movie.
It is heartwarming, it's touching, it's got soul,
it's got heart.
I was laughing in the theater.
I was crying in the theater.
I was laughing hysterically in the theater.
It is just one of those movies that I absolutely love.
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The cast.
Every single cast member in this is so, so good.
Like there's not a cast member who doesn't hold their weight.
And it's a good guess.
You got Sebastian Manescalco in his first leading role,
(01:34):
you know, in about my father.
You've got Robert De Niro playing his dad, Salvo.
Leslie Bibb playing his fiance, Ellie.
Kim Katral as Ellie's mom, Tigger.
David Rash as Ellie's mom, Bill, Ellie's mom's bill.
Ellie's, David Rash as Ellie's dad, Bill.
(01:58):
Andrews home as her brother Lucky Brett Dyer as her brother Doug.
It is just a really, really great film.
So the film centers around Sebastian,
and it's loosely based on his life and his relationship with his father.
So, you know, he is encouraged by his fiance, Leslie Bibb,
(02:24):
to bring his father to spend the weekend with her family,
who happens to be very wealthy and a little bit eccentric.
And, you know, Sebastian and Salvo are not wealthy.
They may be eccentric a little bit, but so it's about that culture clash
and relationships, you know, obviously parental relationships.
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The relationship between Sebastian and Robert, Sebastian and his dad is beautiful.
And we, you know, as a viewer, at least I could see so much of my own family
and so many of these dynamics, it really just hits home for me and I love it.
It's out from Lionsgate right now.
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And you're going to laugh hysterically believe me.
So I am talking with the cast and with the director, Laura Tarruso.
So I am talking with everybody.
I'm talking with Robert De Niro and Sebastian Manescalco.
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I'm talking with Leslie Bibb and Kim Katrol.
I'm talking with Anders Holm and Brett Dyer and David Rash.
Everybody.
And I love, love, love these interviews.
I love the film.
It's just you gotta, gotta, gotta go see it.
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So you probably listened to the last episode,
which was a special episode from yesterday,
where I was live in Chicago talking to the cast and Laura on the red carpet.
These are sit down interviews as, you know, you're probably more used to from me.
And I just, let's just get right into it.
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Let's start with director Laura Tarruso.
So Laura is immensely funny, immensely talented.
She is a director, screenwriter, producer.
She's done, good girls get high.
Foxy Merkins, hello, my name is Doris.
Let's get in to my conversation with about my father, director, Laura Tarruso.
(04:44):
Thank you so much for speaking with me.
I appreciate it.
Of course.
So the film is absolutely incredible.
I laughed hysterically.
I cried. It is such a, for me, amalgamation.
I don't even know if that's where.
But of what a good film should be.
And it's so well done.
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And I wanted to know, you know, it's very obviously family oriented.
And was there anything that you drew from in your own life in, you know,
tackling as you're directing this film?
Big time.
Yeah.
So Sebastian's, you know, this film is about Sebastian's relationship with his father,
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who is a Sicilian immigrant.
My mother is a Sicilian immigrant.
She immigrated from Sicily in the 1960s, around the same time as Sebastian's father.
So when I read the script, I just felt an immediate personal connection to the characters,
to the story.
And so I just pursued it doggedly because I, I was like, I have to tell this story.
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It's very rare that you read a script that is so personal,
while also being so universal.
Right. And well, that love, I think, comes through.
De Niro.
I mean, you know, what?
That's all I have to say. Could you answer that?
I mean, the rumors are true.
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He's incredible.
He's probably one of the greatest actors of living actors of all time.
He's everything.
And working with him was such a gift.
And yeah, just a lesson in collaboration and trust.
And I feel so fortunate.
Well, you know, you did an incredible job.
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And another thing that I find interesting is, since it is partly, you know, Sebastian's story,
do you feel any kind of, as you're doing the film?
Do you feel any kind of like responsibility when it's
somebody's life?
I feel like it only enriches it because it makes it, it just makes it more authentic and more truthful.
And that's what we do, right?
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Like art is the pursuit of authenticity and truth and empathy.
And having, knowing that this is Sebastian's actual story, you know, on the set on the day,
I remember we were shooting this helicopter scene where Sebastian was shooting.
And I was like, "Oh, I'm so happy."
I was like, "Oh, I'm so happy."
And I was like, "Oh, I'm so happy."
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And I was like, "Oh, I'm so happy."
And I was like, "Oh, I'm so happy."
And I was like, "Oh, I'm so happy."
And I was like, "Oh, I'm so happy."
And I was like, "Oh, I'm so happy."
And I was like, "Oh, I'm so happy."
And I was like, "Oh, I'm so happy."
And I was like, "Oh, I'm so happy."
And I was like, "Oh, I'm so happy."
And I was like, "Oh, I'm so happy."
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And I was like, "Oh, I'm so happy."
You know, this is our love letter to our parents.
And it's also a film about the American Dream
and even in making it, Sebastian and I have been able to live our American Dream.
So it's kind of like everything comes full circle with this film.
I love it. Thank you so much.
I can't wait for everybody to see it.
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Thank you so much. Of course.
Laura Tarruso.
Love, love, love. Her. She's so funny.
All right. Let's move right along.
We got a lot of interview coverage for you from about my father.
Let's talk to the brothers and father in the film.
Brett Dyer is hysterical as Doug.
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I see I'm afraid to like give too much away because it is so funny.
I don't want to spoil anything.
You may know Brett from Jane the Virgin.
And he starred as CB in school, the sitcom on ABC.
Really great guy.
And his role is as Doug is hysterical.
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I could relate to him in a lot of ways.
Anders home as Lucky Collins, Ellie's brother.
He, you, I'm sure, know as Anders from "Work a Hullex."
He was a creator and writer and producer in the film.
He also became the hip or played, the hip pastor who played Mindy's
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fiance in the Mindy project and works a lot with Seth Rogan.
So really great guy, talented actor.
And finally in this group is David Rash who,
when I was doing that, you probably heard it.
When I was doing the red carpet for about my father in Chicago,
David, and a group of fans that were flagging me over.
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And I'm like, ooh, they listened to my show.
And then I realized they're like, can you get David to look over here?
And I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah, sure, of course.
So thanks to you boys, deflated me.
And then thanks to David for being awesome.
He is incredible as Carl Muller in "Succession."
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He was also a sledgehammer, freaking sledgehammer.
And he's been in a million other things, the United 93,
flags of our fathers, men in black, three.
And that's just, you know, some highlights on his film career.
On the television side, he played Jack Trenton on nurses.
He was in empty nest.
Of course, spin off from Golden Girls.
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Veepe, he played Hunter Black.
Let's get into my interview with David Rash,
Anders Home, and Brett Dyer.
Hi, radio.
Yes, sir.
We're here.
Thank you all for speaking with me.
I absolutely love the film.
Good.
What'd you like about it?
It is hysterically funny.
It made me cry as well.
(10:39):
Oh, yeah.
At the end there.
It's really, yeah.
It's actually a few parts during it made me,
it's just, it's very touching in ways that I didn't expect.
Good.
And so good to hear.
Yeah, it really, it was great to watch.
Yeah.
And so I, for you, you know, it felt like there was a family atmosphere.
You all just kind of like clicked together.
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I mean, I felt like I was watching a family,
which of course is what good actors do.
Right.
But, uh, but did that, was that true for you as you're filming?
Yeah.
Who made you cry the most?
Was it me?
Uh, yes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, we felt pretty good together.
We were getting, the three of us were getting dinners all the time.
Yeah, we really clicked.
(11:22):
Yeah.
Uh, that was great.
Yeah.
It was fun.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Really great.
A very talented cast.
Everybody, Kim was great.
I mean, he was awesome.
Leslie and everybody.
Yeah.
Who's the other, what was the name, but Robert?
Robert, Robert?
Was it Robert?
Robert and Denyar.
Robert, he was good.
He was good.
He was good.
Yeah.
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Robert, Robert.
He's gonna go places and go.
Right.
Yeah.
What was your favorite part as you're filming?
You know, what I think is really interesting about this is, you know, obviously it's based,
uh, on, uh, on Sebastian's life.
How was that for you when you, you know, I almost feel like, is there more, do you feel more responsibility as an actor when you're doing a not totally fictional film?
(12:08):
Or is it, does it not matter?
I didn't care about Sebastian's life at all.
So I think it's still just my part.
But, uh, it was really fun to be, uh, at the father of, uh, such a terrible father who had let these children become so completely out of the question.
And it was always entertaining to see just how far out of the question they were and they went in their own ways very far.
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How about for you?
Well, um, Sebastian's life.
Sebastian's life.
Sebastian's that year.
Well, I didn't find out, I didn't find out until like the third day of shooting when I already like, and so I told, well, clicked in.
I was like, wait a minute, am I playing a real dude?
And he's like, yeah.
And I'm like, what?
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
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Like, oh shit.
You were two.
Yeah, I was two.
Oh, yeah.
I was, I found out last night at dinner.
Yeah.
I was like, well, I just played this perfume.
That's all that's good.
Um, yeah.
So it's loosely based on this.
Right.
And so it's not, I'm sorry.
I don't think I would have been any different.
I don't think I would have been either.
I wouldn't have played a different one.
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Unless he's like a famous guy that everybody knows that you're kind of, uh, acting line.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, yeah.
And finally, what was your favorite part?
Because there's all kinds of fun, at least for my opinion, fun things that you guys got to do.
Sound bowls and, and you know, horrifying.
Uh, golf swing.
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Yes.
Well, one of the funniest things for me was when we, uh, remember when, uh, when Bob won the prize.
Were you there for that?
Yes.
He won the prize.
Oh, yeah.
That's whatever it is.
And he's hot, and his whole thing about you, not the wolf at.
Yeah.
So funny.
He's so inventive.
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He's so funny.
He's so curious and, uh, goofy.
And, uh, it was just delightful to watch him.
Yeah.
I love it.
Thank you, uh, both, not both.
Thank all three of you.
They're really just two of us.
Yeah.
You're not wrong.
Thank you.
Thank you for speaking with me.
I can't wait for everybody to see about my father.
Good.
Thanks.
Thank you.
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Thanks.
David Rash, Anders Hohman, Brett Dyer.
Their hysterical.
David is like, I couldn't stop laughing funny.
He's a great guy, but I ended up seeing him at the cast party of book club the next chapter
in New York two days later.
And he's like, Hey, Kyle.
I'm like, Hey, David.
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You know, you follow me around here or what?
He started laughing and, uh, just a really fun guy.
All right.
We have the ladies up next.
I mean, how do you even, Kim Ketral?
I mean, Kim Ketral and Leslie Bibb are up next.
Kim Ketral, of course, you know, starred in Sex and the City of Samantha, Samantha Jones.
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She got five Emmy Noms for it, four Golden Globe Noms, Bill Noms, and, uh, and one for best
supporting actress, both Sex and the City movies.
She was in a mannequin, a classic, big trouble and little China police academy, Star Trek
six, the undiscovered country.
And she kills it as ticker in this film.
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She really, really hysterical.
And that's again, just on the movie side, on the TV side, I mean, again, Sex and the City,
Starsky and Hutch.
She's the narrator and how I met your father and just a wonderful, wonderful woman.
And then Leslie Bibb, who is hysterical, I just fell in love with her as Leslie and I fell
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in love with her in person too.
She's so awesome.
You may know her rock in popular on the WB network.
She is in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Christine Everhart.
She was in, uh, what if Iron Man, Iron Man 2?
She played Grace Samson and Jupiter's legacy on Netflix and is just a genuinely awesome,
(16:09):
awesome person and talent.
She's really funny.
She's got so much energy and I love her.
I love Kim as well.
So let's get into my interview with Kim Kattra and Leslie Bibb.
Thank you both so much for speaking with me.
I love the film.
I was laughing.
I was crying.
It was really crying.
(16:30):
It really did.
Yeah.
Last night I saw it in the theater and I literally cried.
It's really got a lot of experience.
It really is.
I lost my mama two years ago.
I'm so sorry.
Thank you very much.
And so it really, really had a special, for me, a special little, you know, angle that
it's just awesome.
(16:51):
I feel like that's interesting.
If you have parents, it resonates.
And if you've lost your parents, it really, like I just lost my mom a few years ago.
I lost her mother last year.
I lost my dad when I was three.
And he said last year, it was November.
Yeah, it was last year.
And I lost my dad when I was three.
(17:11):
I love I whispered that, like I'm saying something.
But I feel like it's just family.
And it's a beautiful look at how weird every family is and they have their idiosyncrasies.
And they do things that seem insane, but they're with love.
And I don't know.
I just feel like this movie really resonates.
(17:33):
And I feel like it's kind of what we need right now.
Everybody needs to go sit in the movie theater and have a good laugh.
I so agree.
I have my mom.
This is her.
I got this after she passed.
It's her signature from a card.
So sweet.
And I also wear her.
This was not what I planned, but here I wear her ring.
Oh my god.
So nice.
But, but yes, I totally agree that this is something I think no matter where you are in
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that status of life with your parents that you can really resonate with it.
And the cast does such a great job.
I mean, you guys are amazing.
I felt like I was watching a family.
I could really relate to certain things with different actors and their roles.
(18:21):
And it just really comes together so well.
Did you find that familial bond as you were?
It just sort of choke off.
I think we got chemistry is this elusive thing.
Oh my god, my stomach's growling.
She's like, I'll feed you later.
Okay.
And so I think you don't know when it's going to happen, if it's going to happen, is it
(18:46):
going to?
And it really like, it just like everybody, the bread and onters and David and you and
then within that, you and David, like I remember the first that we were at the club.
And shooting.
It was a huge scene.
It was a long day.
It was like, well, I think the first day with Bob and I just remember watching you and David
(19:13):
and I looked at that Sebastian and I'd already been working with Sebastian for the week before.
So it was like our second week of shooting.
And I was like, they are freaking crazy.
And I'm so into it.
They're so nuts.
I'm so into it.
And then Brett is doing that great.
I mean, he's so cuckoo.
Everybody's great.
And the Bob had that crazy ring that came on the phone and I said, what is that ring?
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And he said, oh, that's actually my dad's ring.
Bob has taken that when he was with my dad.
And when he spent like three days with the actual salvo.
And I was like, oh, this is going to be a funny movie.
This is going to be, this is where we're in good hands.
We had a good script.
We had a wonderful director.
We had wonderful leading man.
We had a great company.
(19:58):
All at a time when it was the rainy season in Mobile, Alabama, the rainy season of City
and America.
The rainy season.
The rainy season.
City and America.
The rainy season.
The rainy season.
City and America.
The rainy season.
The rainy season.
City and America.
City and America.
The rainy season.
City and America.
The rainy season.
The rainy season.
(20:19):
City and America.
City and America.
The rainy season.
City and America.
City and America.
The rainy season.
City and America.
City and America.
So perfect.
There was nothing bad that happened and then they go, and this one there was like, the
dog wouldn't pick up the thing.
The peacocks wouldn't do the thing.
We're losing light.
It was just always something.
Something.
Yeah, it was a long story.
Yeah, and so we had a lot of stuff in it.
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And it all came together really well.
I mean, I feel really grateful because all the everyone was really wonderful to be in
it and to show and to be around and and also sometimes you do a comedy.
People are just like waiting for them.
They're like, "Well, you're so talking.
So I can do my bit and I'll be funny."
(21:03):
Here it was.
I'm like that.
Here it just felt very like everybody was throwing a ball around and bouncing and I'm not
lying.
It really was great.
It was an improvisational element to it, which was really fun.
And it was changing as we developed the characters.
You know, you start playing her after a couple of weeks.
It feels easier and more familiar and feeding off of each other.
(21:26):
It was a really fun job.
It was.
I love that scene when I'm sitting between she and David and we're all matching pajamas.
We're like such journalists.
Like psychopaths, the matching pajamas.
And it was like it's so loving and like also cost your photobook.
But I remember like in my heart I was like, "I wish Kim was my mom."
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That was happening.
Like they're so funny.
No, you don't.
Can I just go to your closet?
Absolutely.
What I wanted to do was in closet.
I feel like it's just a really good fashion in there.
Thank you both so much.
I really appreciate it.
I cannot wait for everybody to see about my father.
Make them go see it.
Absolutely.
(22:08):
I'm bringing people with me.
Great.
Do it.
Thank you.
I really appreciate it.
Okay.
Take care.
Leslie Babenkin Kitschra.
I mean, wow.
Awesome, awesome, awesome.
Guess they are so cool.
I love them.
I had the time of my life with them.
They are hysterical.
Historical hysterical hysterical hysterical.
And they're amazing in the film.
Okay.
(22:29):
Next up,
Sebastian Maniscalco and Robert
Mother Dineiro.
Sebastian, he's done six comedy specials.
He's huge on TikTok and Instagram and Facebook for, you know, viral clips of his comedy work.
He has had supporting roles in the Irishman,
(22:50):
Green Book, and this is his first big starring role in a feature film.
And does Robert Dineiro need an introduction?
It's Robert Mother Dineiro.
One of the best to ever do it.
One of the best to ever do it.
How do you even, you know,
(23:11):
encapsulate Robert Dineiro?
He works a ton as a collaborator with Martin Scorsese, one of the, of course, you know, most
incredible directors of all time.
He's won every award known to man, two Academy Awards, you know, two Oscars,
Golden Globe, Cecil B. Demiel Award, Screen Actors, Gold Lifetime Achievement Award,
(23:32):
Kennedy Center Honor, Presidential Medal of Freedom.
You know, started try back a film fest was in the Godfather Part II,
as Vito Corleone, he has received numerous Emmy Awards and won as a standing lead actor
(23:55):
in a limited series or movie for the Wizard of Lies where he played Bernie made up.
Has been in raging bull taxi driver, the deer hunter, Awakening's Cape Fear Silver, Silver, Silver Linings playbook,
Casino Jackie Brown, Heat, the Irishman, upcoming in Killers of the Flower Moon
as a director, he's directed at Bronx Tale and he's done funny too, war with Grandpa,
(24:16):
meet the parents, analyze this and analyze that.
Wag the dog, the intern, just an icon, just an icon.
So in any event, I said, you know, he needs no introduction and then gave him a long-ass introduction.
But, you know, let's just me.
So in any event, let's get into it.
My sit-down interview with Sebastian Maniscalco and Robert Danira.
(24:41):
Thank you both for speaking with me.
The film is so incredible.
I was laughing hysterically, crying, it is unbelievably, and unexpectedly heartfelt.
For you, you know, you could have done any film in the world.
Why was it important to tell this story?
(25:02):
Yeah, so I talk about my dad and my stand-up routine and I thought other stories I had about my father
would definitely work better in a movie format rather than on the stage because there were more relationship based.
They needed more of a runway to kind of take off and kind of show the relationship that I do have with my dad.
(25:23):
So, and I did this out of sheer passion and fun.
It's not like I did this movie at all.
And we're going to get the narrow and we're going to take this thing and take over the world.
It wasn't like that.
It was, let's write a movie for fun.
If it gets made, it gets made.
If it doesn't, hey, you know, we had a great experience doing it.
And we really just had, it was a passion project.
And the next thing, you know, I'm in my hometown promoting it with Bob.
(25:48):
And my father's doing this press outlets with me.
So, I mean, I'm really, really taking it all in.
And for you, Mr. D'Nero, you know, it is, again, your Robert D'Nero, you could do any film that you wanted.
What spoke to you for this role?
Well, I liked Paul White too, as I worked with as a director a few times.
(26:12):
Paul sent me the script.
He was one of the producers on it and I read it and I said,
"Let's have a reading of this so we can kind of see a little more, lift it off the page a little."
And so we did.
And with Laura Tarruso, the director.
And I liked everybody.
Of course, Sebastian and the whole world was something that these guys know.
(26:38):
Laura from Brooklyn, a certain area of Tang-American neighborhood in Brooklyn.
He's from Chicago.
And they, I know that I'm in a good environment, a good milieu, a good,
there's a foundation there of this world that is not going to, you know,
there's nothing going to be wrong about it, basically.
(27:03):
So that appealed to me.
And it really, you know, I feel like you can tell that it is a passion project because it is just so heartfelt.
So, you know, everybody just felt like a family.
I felt like I was, you know, watching a family doing this, which is what great art does, you know.
And so Kudos to you for that.
Finally, you know, having Robert J'Niro playing your father,
(27:29):
was anybody given anybody else tips on, you know, on actually playing your father?
Was your father like, "Oh yeah, he's good. Let him do what he wants."
You little nervous? No, no, I mean, he spent some time with Bob in Oklahoma,
and then he came to the set and he was given, you know, like he wanted to know how to do a die job on set.
(27:52):
He wanted to make sure it was right.
He had some sayings that he wanted to make sure that the Italian was, was how my dad would say it.
So, no, it's not like anybody was telling him, you know, how to do this.
He knows how to do this.
He was just getting more information on how to make it very unique, specific.
Thank you both so much. I really appreciate it, brother.
Sebastian Manescalco and Robert J'Niro.
(28:16):
I cannot believe that I just interviewed Robert J'Niro,
and that's the second time, the second time I've interviewed Robert J'Niro.
Like, what? It's crazy. In any event, go see about my father.
It is hysterical. It's the kind of movie, like, you know, it's Memorial Day.
(28:38):
So, a lot of people will be with their families or whatever.
Go take your family, I mean, your adult family. Don't take little kids to see it.
Take your, you know, your mom or your dad or your sister and brother, your cousins, whatever aunt,
uncles and go see about my father. You will relate somehow to all of these incredibly funny and authentic family dynamics.
(29:03):
It's a great film. You're going to love it. I can't wait till you see it so we can talk about it.
Hit me up on the socials and we'll chat. I will see you next week. I love you.
We out.
Thank you for listening to Pop Culture Weekly.
You're all the latest at PopCultureWeakly.com.
I just interviewed Robert De Niro. Robert De Niro, yes, I did.
(29:35):
I just interviewed Robert De Niro or as a call and buy.