June 24, 2021 • 12 mins
Actor Danny A checks in to talk about his new movie 'Lansky', 'I Love Us' & More!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're on with Mario Lopez. Tea. Mario Lopez joining me
right now on Zoom, actor, director, producer, and my boy Danny. Hey,
how's it going, Danny? What's upbody? You're looking good. I
love that your films are prominently placed behind you in
this Zoom that is not only strategic and clever, but
(00:23):
also a good look. So congratulations on that. Thank you.
This is like my office in my mine else. The
fact that I get to sit here and do this
this is incredible stuff. I love it because for those
who may not be familiar, I mean, we've been friends
for for a while now, and Danny was a nightclub
sort of king, ran the hottest nightclubs out in New
(00:45):
York and Vegas in l A. And he transition He
still got a piece of that action, but he transitioned
into the entertainment industry to essentially direct right and fund
his own movies. Uh, and he's done quite well. And
now he's worked with these big actors from like al
Pacino to de Niro, and he's got a new movie
(01:05):
with Harvey Kitel which I'm really excited about, called Landsky.
And this is essentially based on the true story of
the gangster meyer Lancy correct. Absolutely, yes, Uh, I don't
find my own movies. I wish I could. No, you
would get the pardoner you would get, you would get
to the resources. You would get the resources. I can
(01:28):
finance my own movies. I'll be living in Hawaiian Island.
Thank you for correcting me. I meant you. You got that.
You're responsible for putting the money together. I raised the
money to raise the money, that's it. And I raised
the money and I find the talent and description. That's
hard to do. Now, by the way, that's the hardest
(01:49):
thing to do out of everything. Exactly the thing. Yes,
you're exactly right. So this movie about meyer Lansky's often
talked about. I don't know too many movies that have
been dead cater to them. Is this the first? Yeah,
it's it's no. Well, there was one HBO movie with
Richard Dreyfuss, like in the eighties that Lane Sky. But
(02:10):
I mean, you know in Godfather part to Um they
had um the character him Ros that is based on
my Lanes love that character and yet Rasberg incredible, incredible. Yeah.
And you know in the movie Bugsy, Ben Kingsley plays
in a movie Mobsters. You know, that Patrick Dempsey plays him,
(02:32):
so he's been betrayed. But to me, the most interesting
character out of all those guys. I mean just the
fact that you know, the guy's five for two and
he looks like your grandfather and he's the most powerful
gangs in the world. In my mind, I was like,
how is that humanly possible? Because when you think gangsters,
you've been violent. But that's you know, totally different buildings
(02:52):
And quickly before we get in the movie itself, his
back story is essentially what he was. Was he an immigrant?
Was he a kid that was just good with numbers?
And how did he what was this? How did he
put the racket together? Right? So he was an immigrant.
They he was born in Russia and early age nine,
I think they moved to the Lower East Side of
New York, raised in New York. Um how he did it?
(03:14):
I mean it was just basically the brain. Early on
he realized it was great with numbers, and he kind
of figured out odds and and how to like be
the house is the house always wins? And this whole
racket was gambling. I mean that's what he really concentrated on.
Obviously got into everything else, bootlegging, and all that. But
it was a huge money maker for for the mob.
(03:35):
He became the head of the mob. You know, he
started the commission Murder's inc. Everything that you see, you
know in modern day with the Five Families. It was
all started by him and Lucky with n busy siege
finance Las Vegas. Wow, real real life, real true story
and a great cast to Harvey Kitelieve the older I'm
(04:00):
the guy whose incredible plays the young Landsky. You have
David Elliott, you have Minka Kelly, you have seen Worthing
team um really good kind of Jackie Cruz who was
also in my other movie Awesome, awesome good. How was
it on the set there? Where'd you guys shoot that film?
Mobile Alabama? Was hard? When I think Mayer Lansky, I
(04:20):
don't think Mobile Alabama. How did that come into play?
When you think when you think Landsky for five million dollars,
you think tax incentive, Mobile Alabama? Yes, okay, okay? How
was Mobile? I did? Honestly? It's really nice people, nicest people.
How was the nightlife? Honestly? No, no, I didn't leave
(04:40):
the hotel. I mean, but you know, by the way,
it was not easy for me because I worked two days.
I'm all four days. I worked one day in most
three days, I'm sitting. You didn't leave the hotel in
those three or four days stints. Yeah, you understand. No
moo service, no use service. There's no bar downstairs, no restaurant.
It's just like a little cafe thing that you can have,
(05:03):
like microway food. It was, it was. It was very difficult,
but again that's what you do. You want to you
want to make these movies. People think it's the first
You in Mobile, Alabama sitting around waiting and uh, i mean, look,
the movie came out great, so I'm very excited. Well,
it must have been a really good script. You've got
some great talent, and uh, I'm glad to hear that
(05:24):
it was done for a relatively modest budget with with
this cast. And the premiere was this week. To feel
nice doing something normal like that, going to a movie premiere.
You went with your lady. You guys look really good. Oh,
thank you very much. Yeah, I mean it's I mean,
you know, they still try to make everyone wear the
maskt Honestly, everyone was like, no, I'm not it's ridiculous.
(05:44):
I'm going to a restaurant after this, I don't have
to wait, Matt, but you still gotta feel a little bit.
But you know, overall, just being around people, people that
you haven't seen a while felt like a high school union,
I bet. And this fall you have another project coming out.
This one has a special place in my heart because
Mrs Lopez, my wife, is in it. I love Us
(06:06):
is the name of it. What's this film about? For
people who don't know. Oh, by the way, she's so
good in it. She's great in it. She did a
good job. Huh, he did a really really good job.
I know coint me, and I know that she can
bring the attitude when she needs it. And I just
said to her, all you need to do is just
bring that out to her. Don't let it go because
(06:27):
she does it in a joking where every wants in
a while, and just stick with this tone. And she
did such a great job the movie. You know, one
of my things that movies is The Family Man. And
I love The Family Man because I love the dynamic
of this guy's wealthy, eating all these beautiful girls and
has you know, the life that he thinks driving Ferrari
and then he gets a glimpse of his life if
(06:49):
he would have married his high school sweetheart and his
kids and family and no money, and but you see
the love, and you see the all this like passion
in the house and all this excitement in the house,
and this really life and and and I figured, you know,
in my mind, I was like, what if I kind
of like combined to and see if that could work.
(07:11):
And that's how it all came about. During COVID we
started working on it. I had the idea. I hired
the writer and uh, he wrote it, and I really
wanted to shoot it. And COVID things started getting you know,
the restriction started getting a little less and less, and
we ended up shooting it in March, and I knew
my lady was coming, so I was doing fifteen sixty
now days. I edited, I did everything I could and
(07:34):
just get it done and sold it and comes out
September seventeen. Well, I'm excited. It turned out great. And
Mrs Lopez, how would you describe her character? Well, she
plays the child service. Her character is actually very difficult.
She's in charge of coming to your home and telling
you that your kids or the kids that you adopted,
or whatever the situation is, you can't keep him and
(07:57):
they have to take him, and that easy. It's not
easy showing up to someone's house and knocking on their
door and being like child services. But she, she did
such a great job. I'm really really happy with the job.
I hope she likes it, and I hope she enjoyed
the movie and it's good. Well, I appreciate you casting her,
And again that's my favorite movie aside from her. I
(08:18):
really was surprised because I didn't want to know anything
about it. I went to a screening, um not not
having an idea of what the premise was on purpose,
and it was fun to watch it that way. When
you don't know, you think it's going at way and
then it ends up going another one. Um are you?
Are you taking a break at the moment? Any idea
what you might be wanting to work on next? Any? Well,
(08:39):
I'm going away tomorrow to New York the New York
premiere of Landsky's Thursday. Then I'm gonna go to tele
Aviv and see my family, seed, my my fiance family
be there for a month. And I have an idea
of what I want to do next. Um Um. I
did this movie called The Iceman with Michael Shannon sat
(08:59):
and wait raliotas and it me. He has a character
by name of Roy the Mayo. Did he plays and
his story Roy the Mayor story, Um is really interesting
and uh, it's something that we're working on, trying to
develop script. I think that would be something that I
like to do. I got hired to direct the movie
called Dancer, and I'm going to do that at some point,
(09:20):
hopefully by the end of the year. Um. And I
mean that's he's just keeping busy, you know, I love it.
And all the while, Uh, you're engaged, recently engaged. You
got a wedding to plant. Do we know a date yet?
That's the thing. We're going to Israel and we're trying
to come back with a day everything said, the whole thing. Um.
(09:40):
So I'm hoping sooner than later I'll have a date
to you because I know you're coming. Well, you gotta
give me a heads I'm there, I know I know
the business to me a lot. I'm going to give
you at least two three months in advantage. Okay, three days,
God perfect, I appreciate that. Awesome. Well, listen, Danny, before
we let you go, I'm gonna put you on the
spot with some quick questions, quick answers. Okay, alright, go
(10:02):
to cocktail red wine. I'm sure sure that qualifies. It's
a libation, favorite mob movie of all time? Stuff one easy, easy, Okay,
I could say Scarface can sellers. You know I'm a
huge Yeah, but the guy Father Party is the greatest
(10:25):
movie of all time. One and two to me is
like one long movie. They should have made that. You
know what I mean, because it's essentially you know, I
sit there every Christmas for four hours. I watch all
of it, even three he said, Okay, an actor that
you would love to direct? Oh my god, al Pacina incorrect.
(10:46):
We're looking for Mario Lopez. But that's okay, hold on
twice already and he's like, hey, I gotta be on
the radio, very busy. Most overrated pizza topic mushrooms. I
agree with you on that. And what's your go to
(11:07):
late night snack? This new popcorn things that Ali has
been giving me. It's got like this Eminem's and do
you know what I'm talking about? That's my favorite snack,
by the way, popcorn and Eminem's. I don't know if
you know that, but I don't. I don't know this
one I used the old school. There's a new grand
that Ali actually represents and they mixed. They actually put
(11:27):
it into the popcorn. You gotta tell her to send
that to me. That's like my favorite thing, dude, It's
my whole closet. I want to do it. And last question,
favorite thing to do in Mobile, Alabama? Sleep? Perfect answer.
(11:47):
All right, Well, we're gonna be sure to catch Danny
in Lansky, which is hitting theater is this Friday. Can't
wait to check it out, Danny, Thanks for checking him.
Man Mario with Mario a Basketrol
You're on with Mario Lopez. Tea. Mario Lopez joining me
right now on Zoom, actor, director, producer, and my boy Danny. Hey,
how's it going, Danny? What's upbody? You're looking good. I
love that your films are prominently placed behind you in
this Zoom that is not only strategic and clever, but
(00:23):
also a good look. So congratulations on that. Thank you.
This is like my office in my mine else. The
fact that I get to sit here and do this
this is incredible stuff. I love it because for those
who may not be familiar, I mean, we've been friends
for for a while now, and Danny was a nightclub
sort of king, ran the hottest nightclubs out in New
(00:45):
York and Vegas in l A. And he transition He
still got a piece of that action, but he transitioned
into the entertainment industry to essentially direct right and fund
his own movies. Uh, and he's done quite well. And
now he's worked with these big actors from like al
Pacino to de Niro, and he's got a new movie
(01:05):
with Harvey Kitel which I'm really excited about, called Landsky.
And this is essentially based on the true story of
the gangster meyer Lancy correct. Absolutely, yes, Uh, I don't
find my own movies. I wish I could. No, you
would get the pardoner you would get, you would get
to the resources. You would get the resources. I can
(01:28):
finance my own movies. I'll be living in Hawaiian Island.
Thank you for correcting me. I meant you. You got that.
You're responsible for putting the money together. I raised the
money to raise the money, that's it. And I raised
the money and I find the talent and description. That's
hard to do. Now, by the way, that's the hardest
(01:49):
thing to do out of everything. Exactly the thing. Yes,
you're exactly right. So this movie about meyer Lansky's often
talked about. I don't know too many movies that have
been dead cater to them. Is this the first? Yeah,
it's it's no. Well, there was one HBO movie with
Richard Dreyfuss, like in the eighties that Lane Sky. But
(02:10):
I mean, you know in Godfather part to Um they
had um the character him Ros that is based on
my Lanes love that character and yet Rasberg incredible, incredible. Yeah.
And you know in the movie Bugsy, Ben Kingsley plays
in a movie Mobsters. You know, that Patrick Dempsey plays him,
(02:32):
so he's been betrayed. But to me, the most interesting
character out of all those guys. I mean just the
fact that you know, the guy's five for two and
he looks like your grandfather and he's the most powerful
gangs in the world. In my mind, I was like,
how is that humanly possible? Because when you think gangsters,
you've been violent. But that's you know, totally different buildings
(02:52):
And quickly before we get in the movie itself, his
back story is essentially what he was. Was he an immigrant?
Was he a kid that was just good with numbers?
And how did he what was this? How did he
put the racket together? Right? So he was an immigrant.
They he was born in Russia and early age nine,
I think they moved to the Lower East Side of
New York, raised in New York. Um how he did it?
(03:14):
I mean it was just basically the brain. Early on
he realized it was great with numbers, and he kind
of figured out odds and and how to like be
the house is the house always wins? And this whole
racket was gambling. I mean that's what he really concentrated on.
Obviously got into everything else, bootlegging, and all that. But
it was a huge money maker for for the mob.
(03:35):
He became the head of the mob. You know, he
started the commission Murder's inc. Everything that you see, you
know in modern day with the Five Families. It was
all started by him and Lucky with n busy siege
finance Las Vegas. Wow, real real life, real true story
and a great cast to Harvey Kitelieve the older I'm
(04:00):
the guy whose incredible plays the young Landsky. You have
David Elliott, you have Minka Kelly, you have seen Worthing
team um really good kind of Jackie Cruz who was
also in my other movie Awesome, awesome good. How was
it on the set there? Where'd you guys shoot that film?
Mobile Alabama? Was hard? When I think Mayer Lansky, I
(04:20):
don't think Mobile Alabama. How did that come into play?
When you think when you think Landsky for five million dollars,
you think tax incentive, Mobile Alabama? Yes, okay, okay? How
was Mobile? I did? Honestly? It's really nice people, nicest people.
How was the nightlife? Honestly? No, no, I didn't leave
(04:40):
the hotel. I mean, but you know, by the way,
it was not easy for me because I worked two days.
I'm all four days. I worked one day in most
three days, I'm sitting. You didn't leave the hotel in
those three or four days stints. Yeah, you understand. No
moo service, no use service. There's no bar downstairs, no restaurant.
It's just like a little cafe thing that you can have,
(05:03):
like microway food. It was, it was. It was very difficult,
but again that's what you do. You want to you
want to make these movies. People think it's the first
You in Mobile, Alabama sitting around waiting and uh, i mean, look,
the movie came out great, so I'm very excited. Well,
it must have been a really good script. You've got
some great talent, and uh, I'm glad to hear that
(05:24):
it was done for a relatively modest budget with with
this cast. And the premiere was this week. To feel
nice doing something normal like that, going to a movie premiere.
You went with your lady. You guys look really good. Oh,
thank you very much. Yeah, I mean it's I mean,
you know, they still try to make everyone wear the
maskt Honestly, everyone was like, no, I'm not it's ridiculous.
(05:44):
I'm going to a restaurant after this, I don't have
to wait, Matt, but you still gotta feel a little bit.
But you know, overall, just being around people, people that
you haven't seen a while felt like a high school union,
I bet. And this fall you have another project coming out.
This one has a special place in my heart because
Mrs Lopez, my wife, is in it. I love Us
(06:06):
is the name of it. What's this film about? For
people who don't know. Oh, by the way, she's so
good in it. She's great in it. She did a
good job. Huh, he did a really really good job.
I know coint me, and I know that she can
bring the attitude when she needs it. And I just
said to her, all you need to do is just
bring that out to her. Don't let it go because
(06:27):
she does it in a joking where every wants in
a while, and just stick with this tone. And she
did such a great job the movie. You know, one
of my things that movies is The Family Man. And
I love The Family Man because I love the dynamic
of this guy's wealthy, eating all these beautiful girls and
has you know, the life that he thinks driving Ferrari
and then he gets a glimpse of his life if
(06:49):
he would have married his high school sweetheart and his
kids and family and no money, and but you see
the love, and you see the all this like passion
in the house and all this excitement in the house,
and this really life and and and I figured, you know,
in my mind, I was like, what if I kind
of like combined to and see if that could work.
(07:11):
And that's how it all came about. During COVID we
started working on it. I had the idea. I hired
the writer and uh, he wrote it, and I really
wanted to shoot it. And COVID things started getting you know,
the restriction started getting a little less and less, and
we ended up shooting it in March, and I knew
my lady was coming, so I was doing fifteen sixty
now days. I edited, I did everything I could and
(07:34):
just get it done and sold it and comes out
September seventeen. Well, I'm excited. It turned out great. And
Mrs Lopez, how would you describe her character? Well, she
plays the child service. Her character is actually very difficult.
She's in charge of coming to your home and telling
you that your kids or the kids that you adopted,
or whatever the situation is, you can't keep him and
(07:57):
they have to take him, and that easy. It's not
easy showing up to someone's house and knocking on their
door and being like child services. But she, she did
such a great job. I'm really really happy with the job.
I hope she likes it, and I hope she enjoyed
the movie and it's good. Well, I appreciate you casting her,
And again that's my favorite movie aside from her. I
(08:18):
really was surprised because I didn't want to know anything
about it. I went to a screening, um not not
having an idea of what the premise was on purpose,
and it was fun to watch it that way. When
you don't know, you think it's going at way and
then it ends up going another one. Um are you?
Are you taking a break at the moment? Any idea
what you might be wanting to work on next? Any? Well,
(08:39):
I'm going away tomorrow to New York the New York
premiere of Landsky's Thursday. Then I'm gonna go to tele
Aviv and see my family, seed, my my fiance family
be there for a month. And I have an idea
of what I want to do next. Um Um. I
did this movie called The Iceman with Michael Shannon sat
(08:59):
and wait raliotas and it me. He has a character
by name of Roy the Mayo. Did he plays and
his story Roy the Mayor story, Um is really interesting
and uh, it's something that we're working on, trying to
develop script. I think that would be something that I
like to do. I got hired to direct the movie
called Dancer, and I'm going to do that at some point,
(09:20):
hopefully by the end of the year. Um. And I
mean that's he's just keeping busy, you know, I love it.
And all the while, Uh, you're engaged, recently engaged. You
got a wedding to plant. Do we know a date yet?
That's the thing. We're going to Israel and we're trying
to come back with a day everything said, the whole thing. Um.
(09:40):
So I'm hoping sooner than later I'll have a date
to you because I know you're coming. Well, you gotta
give me a heads I'm there, I know I know
the business to me a lot. I'm going to give
you at least two three months in advantage. Okay, three days,
God perfect, I appreciate that. Awesome. Well, listen, Danny, before
we let you go, I'm gonna put you on the
spot with some quick questions, quick answers. Okay, alright, go
(10:02):
to cocktail red wine. I'm sure sure that qualifies. It's
a libation, favorite mob movie of all time? Stuff one easy, easy, Okay,
I could say Scarface can sellers. You know I'm a
huge Yeah, but the guy Father Party is the greatest
(10:25):
movie of all time. One and two to me is
like one long movie. They should have made that. You
know what I mean, because it's essentially you know, I
sit there every Christmas for four hours. I watch all
of it, even three he said, Okay, an actor that
you would love to direct? Oh my god, al Pacina incorrect.
(10:46):
We're looking for Mario Lopez. But that's okay, hold on
twice already and he's like, hey, I gotta be on
the radio, very busy. Most overrated pizza topic mushrooms. I
agree with you on that. And what's your go to
(11:07):
late night snack? This new popcorn things that Ali has
been giving me. It's got like this Eminem's and do
you know what I'm talking about? That's my favorite snack,
by the way, popcorn and Eminem's. I don't know if
you know that, but I don't. I don't know this
one I used the old school. There's a new grand
that Ali actually represents and they mixed. They actually put
(11:27):
it into the popcorn. You gotta tell her to send
that to me. That's like my favorite thing, dude, It's
my whole closet. I want to do it. And last question,
favorite thing to do in Mobile, Alabama? Sleep? Perfect answer.
(11:47):
All right, Well, we're gonna be sure to catch Danny
in Lansky, which is hitting theater is this Friday. Can't
wait to check it out, Danny, Thanks for checking him.
Man Mario with Mario a Basketrol
Host
Mario Lopez
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