Joe Mantegna | The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan
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What is Joe Mantegna's early experience with theater and music?
ironically you mentioned that i got a residual check for a penny yesterday for simon and simon one penny were there judas there were judas groupies there was a group called the process hot goth girls yeah i'm down they came to see godspell and i'm playing judas and godspell at the intermission such a good story yeah and i walk in and the owner of the place looks at me goes joe montana you son of a bitch you're gonna be in a godfather movie oh my god but that's all i knew the pizza guy the pizza guy
I know you're a big star and all. Oh, yeah. I'm a big star. But we got to start here.
Okay.
The Apocryphals. The Apocryphals.
Wow.
Knee the Weasels. We're going further back. Oh, my God. You are going further back. This is your high school band? Yes, it was. About 65?
About 64, 65. Yeah, that's correct.
Take me— Take you back? I'm very interested in this part of your life.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow. And I get to tell this to a rock and roll god here. This is good for me. This is fun for me. Well, basically what it was is I was a junior in high school, and we were in—it was English, my English class. Okay. And I remember that the assignment was, we want to do something on English history, meaning England English history. They said, you come back with a project based on something that has to do with the history of England and how it's affected. So the Beatles. So the Beatles. So in other words, of course, everybody else was digging up things like, well, there's a Cromwell, and there's this and that, or everybody's digging up the kings of this. And there was another guy in the class who was actually a wonderful musician, my friend Neil Sordelli.
and uh he had this idea he goes well you know the beatles are really big now he says you know i play guitar he says you sing because i've been doing some singing in the theater department at the school at the time he says maybe we should just do so you know that's english right well i said yeah that'd be cool because we really didn't want to work very hard on this project so he said we'll do this we'll do this thing we'll come in we'll learn a beatles song you play the guitar i'll sing it and we'll say well this is part of english history but the beatles because they were like red hot at that time So, of course, we did it. But when we did it, I mean, it was just him and I, and I think we had another guy in the class who just used like a bongo drum to just give us a little percussion while we sang the song.
But the class went crazy. Like, oh, my God, this is great. It was like, we're like, hello. Well, maybe we got more of this. So we decided just for fun, let's do it. Well, the teacher then asked us, you know, there's an assembly coming up. If you guys want to duplicate this at the assembly, I think the kids would enjoy this. Yes.
How did Joe Mantegna's high school band influence his career?
So, of course, we took it seriously. We get this other guy. Now, these are all Italian guys because this is Cicero, Illinois. So you're either Italian or Polish or something in between. Yeah. So Chris Montagna, Joe Montagna. Tommy Masseri and Neil Sordelli. These four people. We put together this thing. We had an extra guy that we wound up not using later named Art Stout. Maybe because his name didn't end in a vowel. We didn't stick with him. But anyway. But we took this seriously. So we had one guy, Tommy, the drummer, Tommy Masseri. His sister made us little jackets without the collars because the Beatles were wearing them then.
What unique challenges did Joe Mantegna face as a young actor?
She made them out of material. Beatle wigs. Yeah, Beatle wigs. The whole thing. And we figured, well, we... We'll call ourselves the Weasels because it kind of rhymes a little. It'll be fun. We'll come out on stage at the assembly and they say, here they are, Morton East High School's own the Weasels. And people go, Weasel, what? And then we would do this number.
Yeah.
Well, we do that assembly. And we had, the auditorium is a, it's like a landmark place now, it's called, I think the Cole Auditorium. It's in Chicago, it's in Cicero, Illinois, but it was built like in the 30s. Holds like 2,500 seats. It's packed.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is Joe Mantegna's early experience with theater and music?
0:00–2:43
2
How did Joe Mantegna's high school band influence his career?
2:43–3:19
3
What unique challenges did Joe Mantegna face as a young actor?
3:19–12:06
4
How did Joe Mantegna transition from theater to film and television?
12:06–41:30
5
What was the significance of Joe Mantegna's role in Godfather III?
41:30–42:12
6
How did Joe Mantegna prepare for his role as Dean Martin?
42:12–43:22
7
What challenges did Joe Mantegna face with his daughter's autism?
43:22–44:37
8
How has Joe Mantegna's experience shaped his perspective on parenting?
44:37–1:27:02
Speakers
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