Danny De Vito

Extremely versatile actor, prolific on television with TV series and sitcoms between the seventies and eighties such as Taxi , alongside Andy Kaufman . In 1971 he had a small role in Mario Monicelli ‘s La mortadella . In 1975 he was in the cast in the film version of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest , with the same role he brought to the theater in an Off-Broadway production in the early seventies. Thanks to this interpretation he achieved success and embarked on a solid career which led him in the eighties to appear in many films such as Terms of Endearment (1983), Romancing the Green Stone (1984), the sequel The Jewel of the Nile (1985) , Corpses and Friends (1986) by Brian De Palma , Please Kill My Wife (1986), up to The Twins (1988) with Arnold Schwarzenegger . He also participated in the dubbing of My Little Pony – The Movie (1986).

In 1991 he worked in Other People’s Money , followed by Batman: The Return (1992), where he played the villain Penguin . Subsequently he starred in films such as Half a Professor in the Marines (1994), Get Shorty (1995), Mars Attacks! (1996), LA Confidential (1997), The Rainmaker (1997), up to providing his voice for the Disney animated film Hercules . Towards the end of the nineties he was still very active in the cinematographic field, where he played The Virgin Suicides (1999) by Sofia Coppola , The Big Kahuna (1999) and Man on the Moon (1999) by Miloš Forman , a film that tells the life of Andy Kaufman , with whom he had worked on Taxi . In 2003 he worked again with Woody Allen in Anything Else , with Tim Burton in Big Fish: Stories of an Incredible Life . In 2004 he appeared in the film Christmas in Love alongside Massimo Boldi and in 2005 he was in the rich cast of Be Cool , the sequel to Get Shorty .

In 2006 he was nominated for a Razzie Award in the worst supporting actor category for his performance in The Holidays ; in the same year he joined the cast of the sitcom It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia , where he played the role of Frank Reynolds. In October 2014 he appeared in the video for Steal My Girl , by the Anglo-Irish group One Direction . In 2019 he played the circus director Max Medici in the film Dumbo , a live action remake of the classic animated film of the same name , directed by Tim Burton . In 2022 he gets the part of Bruce Davis in the film The Haunted Mansion , directed by Justin Simien , released in theaters on August 28, 2023.

Director
After his experience as a director in some television series, DeVito directed some films. His films always have a bizarre neo-surrealistic sensibility and a strong gallows humor , although these elements are completely absent in Hoffa’s script – Saint or mafioso? (1992). The cinematic approach that distinguishes him, however, emerges in many of his films, such as The War of the Roses (1989), a success with critics and audiences. The humor of the film is very similar to another of his films, released later, Mythical Matilda 6 (1996), which takes up themes dear to the stories of Roald Dahl , such as the topos of the intelligent and gifted young girl, limited by the severity of her headmistress and by the indifference of his parents. In any case, his last two films Eliminate Smoochy (2002) and Duplex (2003) were not as successful as their previous ones. [2]

Producer
He has produced many films, such as Pulp Fiction (1994) by Quentin Tarantino , Gattaca: Gateway to the Universe (1997), Out of Sight (1998), Kiss (1998), Man on the Moon (1999) and Erin Brockovich – Strong as the Truth (2000).