Humor Is His Weapon

While Mel Gibson and Danny Glover get top billing in “Lethal Weapon 2,” Joe Pesci is stealing scenes as Leo Getz, an excitable little accountant who has laundered a fortune in narcotics money. Each time Getz prefaces a remark with “OK, OK, OK”--as if to rev himself up--it generates more laughs. The crowd-pleasing turn is causing Oscar talk, and seems certain to boost Pesci’s up-and-down career.

“Some scripts are coming in, especially comedies,” Pesci said from New York, where he’s co-starring with Robert De Niro in director Martin Scorsese’s gritty gangster drama, “Good Fellas” (formerly “Wiseguys”). “Before, I was only being offered ‘Raging Bull’-type characters (meaning heavily dramatic). I guess ‘Lethal Weapon’ shows a broader me.”

The problem now, he said, is that producers want to pigeonhole him another way--broad, slapstick parts. “They’re sending the wrong comedy scripts.” He’d much prefer to find the humorous elements of a character within a dramatic framework. “We’re looking at a lot of things and hoping a good thing will come along. Not like the last time--the wrong things.”

Frustrated with the actor’s struggle in the late ‘70s, Pesci quit and was managing a restaurant in the Bronx when De Niro and Scorsese caught him in a small film called “Death Collector.” Scorsese cast Pesci in “Raging Bull” (1980) as the combative brother of boxer Jake LaMotta (De Niro’s character)--and Pesci was Oscar-nominated for best supporting actor.

The nomination was “nice,” he said, but he made the mistake of “letting myself get all wrapped up in it.” When Timothy Hutton won for “Ordinary People,” the bubble burst. “The other four (nominees) are forgotten so quickly,” Pesci recalled painfully. “It’s very hard. Some things you don’t know if it hurts or helps.”

He appeared in “Eureka” for director Nicolas Roeg, “Easy Money” with Rodney Dangerfield, “I’m Dancing as Fast as I Can” with Jill Clayburgh, among others. But most were unpopular. He barely paid the bills, and at one point went almost two years without a job.

Now, with the success of “Lethal Weapon 2,” he’s back in the spotlight.

“I didn’t do interviews on ‘Raging Bull,’ ” he said. “I don’t like to put my kisser up front. (But) this time I did a lot more interviews and helped promote the movie. They like that in Hollywood. We’ll see if it makes a difference.”

He put People magazine “on hold,” however--the weekly wanted to photograph him at home with his family and “talk about personal stuff.”

“Enough is enough,” Pesci said. “We’ll leave that to the superstar types.”