Dennis Farina
Dennis Farina
Dennis Farinawas an Italian-American actor of film and television and former Chicago police officer. He was a character actor, often typecast as a mobster or police officer. His most known film roles are those of mobster Jimmy Serrano in the comedy Midnight Run and Ray "Bones" Barboni in Get Shorty. He starred on television as Lieutenant Mike Torello on Crime Story and as NYPD Detective Joe Fontana on Law & Order. He also hosted and narrated a revived version of...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionTV Actor
Date of Birth29 February 1944
CityChicago, IL
CountryUnited States of America
I think all actors are supposed to be character actors.
I think first impressions are important when you pick up a script.
You can change a person's life in an instant; put him in a movie, and you start thinking differently, you want to be in another movie. It's like an addiction almost.
This is my first experience working in a foreign movie, but the mechanics, I think, are pretty much the same all over; you still have to wait in the trailer.
You cant act for the editing. You just go in and do the scene the way you think is right.
When too many people get their hands on things, they want to make it commercial, and they wanna do this, and they wanna do that.
We keep monitoring ourselves, censoring ourselves, being too sensitive to this, too sensitive to that. We can't keep doing that.
When I was a kid going to the movies, we'd go because Bogart was in the movie, or Cagney, or John Wayne. We didn't know what the story was about or anything.
I have a home in Arizona. I go a couple months a year, but basically Chicago is my home.
Do whatever you're directed to do, and leave the rest of that technical stuff up to the director.
As far as carrying the American banner, you just do what's right for the kids.
I don't know if I have a technique. I'm just trying to remember the words.
I know people who go back and check themselves, but it drives me crazy. Everybody wants to look in the mirror and see Cary Grant looking back at them, but that's just not the case.
I read the script and try not to bring anything personal into it. I make notes, talk to the director and we decide what kinds of shades should be in the character.