Smallscreen Features

Danny DeVito interview, NBC's 'Little Spirit' a Christmas Cracker

By April MacIntyre Dec 8, 2008, 2:08 GMT

One of my earliest Los Angeles holiday memories was a magical Christmas Eve before the I Magnin store on Wilshire in Beverly Hills closed for the night. A Christmas Spirit - Danny DeVito - Beverly Hills, CA. USA © Albert L. Ortega / PR Photos

A Christmas Spirit - Danny DeVito - Beverly Hills, CA. USA © Albert L. Ortega / PR PhotosThe cosmetic department glowed with its polished marble floors and holiday lights and decorations. I was standing at the fragrance counter getting a last minute gift when to my right, actor Danny DeVito flung open the heavy copper edged beveled glass doors and shouted to the nearby salesgirls, “Hey, do you guys have lighted makeup mirrors?”He was so energetic, jolly and full of spirit; he waved and wished everyone in earshot a Merry Christmas after taking care of business. DeVito was my very first up-close celebrity encounter. Magnin's is long gone, replaced by Saks. But that first Christmas Eve in California was eight kinds of awesome.

Now DeVito is lending his likeness and voice to a new Christmas children’s classic animation tale, a story penned by Leopoldo Gout who is the creator, co-director and co-staff producer of “Little Spirit Christmas” for NBC.Danny DeVito voices the friendly cab driver who tells two young sisters the story of a boy named Leo moved to Manhattan with his family and a magical adventure that begins.This is one to watch this week with the kids along with all the great classics from "A Christmas Story" to the "Grinch". Even the Abominable Snowman in the old Burl Ives "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" 1964 chestnut still scares me (that opening scene) and the sad little Misfit Toy island scene guts me every time, just like "Old Yeller." Monsters and Critics talked Christmas memory lane and all things Little Spirit Christmas with Danny DeVito and Leopoldo Gout on a conference call last week.
“Little Spirit: Christmas in New York” airs Wednesday, Dec. 10, at 8 p.m. on NBC.Danny, I wanted to know how you felt about how you came out in the animation?Danny DeVito: I really enjoyed it. I thought it came out really well. When Leopoldo first approached me, the first thing that came into my mind was when I looked at the character that they had sketched out, they just sketched out a character. I said I thought it should look a bit more like me and they were a little bit surprised with that because usually people wouldn't want their - I thought it was such a charming script. I thought it was like fun. I think they captured my mannerisms very well.I was really pleased with the way it looked. I mean I always like it when, of course there was a hat on. So, it's - you don't know if I've got any hair or not.So the kids they look - wait a minute. Is that Danny? He's got no hair. But he's got a hat on...so it's okay. Yeah. It was a lot of fun.Leopoldo Gout: And Danny's such a New York icon. I mean when he's on the street in New York, people stop in and say hello. So we wanted to capture that when we did this animation.Trust me. When he's on the street in L.A. people stop him too. Danny, I ran into you at I Magnin in 1985 and you wished everybody a Merry Christmas. It was the day before Christmas. You were looking for a makeup mirror as a gift and you wished all the people working...Danny DeVito: I remember that. Yeah. I remember that. It was like I...You popped in and I was right there, standing there.Danny DeVito: Yeah. I wound up getting a mirror for Rhea.YepDanny DeVito: Like a really nice one on a stand.It was literally Christmas Eve. I'll never forget it. You were one of the first celebrities I ever saw in Los Angeles.Danny DeVito: It's one of those things about me that I, time kind of like - I guess with everybody, you leave the most important person. I never know what to give Rhea. And, besides like a little trinket here and there or whatever over the years, yeah, you want to get her something that she's going to use too.So it just dawned on me that day and I went out and I remember that day like it was yesterday.That's like one of the things I like to go to Macy's. Because when you were a young kid you'd got to all the floors, the different floors shopping. And you'd always see something and you go say, that's good for Uncle Joe. Yeah. Well it's good, yeah.I noticed in your career you produce very edgy noir comedies and dramas and dramedies - or you go for very sweet family, heart-filled projects. It seems like one or the other with your career. Have you noticed that?Danny DeVito: Yeah. I have noticed that. I pick things that are edgy or dark or, a little bit more exciting and for me, I like to see the noir side of it or the dark comedy side of it.And then I've always been a big fan of Disney movies and cartoons and things that were - well they were also some of them very edgy and dark like certainly Snow White and things like that. They're very scary.But I also like, that simple kind of thing that makes you feel comfortable and warm. Like in Little Spirit, that's the quality that you have there. It's the safety that you wind up feeling even though you may be excited and are the kids going to - is the kid going to get his dog back or does this, that and the other thing.In Matilda, the same thing. A little bit edgy but there's a warm kind of a family spirit to it that - we have to make movies for young people and show them - show them realities of life but also let them have some comforting, nurturing and protection.Danny, can you tell us a little bit about how you got involved with this project?Danny DeVito: Well Leopoldo was the cause of it all. The guy on the phone. I met him and we got along very well. We met on a totally other plane. We were talking about directing. He's a wonderful artist and a director and we'd share a lot of conceptual things and our feelings and tastes.And he just mentioned that he was doing this and said wouldn't it be nice to do the voice in this Little Spirit and I immediately responded because it's like - my children are grown. They're in their 20s now. But I do have an extended family of young kids who - it's kind of like the - my Christmas present to them. And it turns out that way.
And so Leopoldo was the cause of it all.Leopoldo, can you share a Christmas memory?Leopoldo Gout: Well, I mean in my past I just had a fantasy that, Christmas decorations were important. I grew up imagining that there was a secret world behind every Christmas tree that I've ever seen. And it was a fantasy that I had and I manifested that in drawings and little stories that I've been doing since I'm like literally like six years old. I saw snow in movies obviously Miracle on 34th Street. And I never knew - no, it was like for me the idea of having snow falling near the buildings of New York, the Empire State Building and like for me was such a dream.So when we developed the characters in wrote Little Spirit story, it was really such a pleasure that it reflected, a dream that I had since I'm a kid. So that's a big thing of the story - the genesis of the story.Mexico is a little bit surreal because you have inferences of Mexican culture and at the same time there's a huge influence on American culture. So some Christmases are quite warm and we still have huge Santa Clauses with very big overcoats sweating like crazy in Mexico - in the middle of Mexico City. I started painting in England, but when I finished my school years and I start to make movies, I wanted to be in New York and I really literally came here with nothing. And in New York I've had such an incredible opportunity, you know, to build my life and my career. So when we started developing Little Spirit, it was a little bit of my love letter to a city and obviously to my son. But it was a mutual, you know, one side of the post card for New York and the other side is for my son.Danny, what was Christmas like for you growing up?Danny DeVito: Well I was, you know, from New Jersey and the South Shore and very fortunate to be close to the big apple and the big thing was there were several attractions. One was always Radio City Music Hall at the Christmas time.One was of course whenever we would see all the lights and the Christmas tree. The other was Macy's window. When I was growing up, my mother and my aunts would take the cousins and I and everything. We'd go 34th Street and at Macy's windows.And it would be amazing lines but it was really worth it. And then, if you got lucky, you'd go in and see Santa Claus. I feel terrific that now Leopoldo directed and produced this with curious pictures and also Macy's - but it's really cool that I get to do a movie that they are part of the producers.Danny, what are some of your Christmas traditions?Danny DeVito: I'm Italian. He's (Leopoldo) Mexican. We've very same, similar in spirit in terms of family. And what you do is you - we celebrate all the holidays.
So as they're little kids and they're with you - they are in your domain and they're kind of captive. We have Christmas. We have Thanksgiving. We have Christmas, Hanukah. We have Easter. We have Passover. We have all the different holidays we can celebrate to get everybody around the table talking and eating and having a good time.
And as they get older and have their own lives, it's such a great time that even though some of the - maybe the time spent in the house is not the same, but they will come for Thanksgiving. Jake, my son is 21. He came on Thanksgiving Day. Flew in from the East coast.He's in college but taking a semester off and working and he was working in New York. And my one daughter is in Paris. She's 23. She's a painter. She came back for Thanksgiving. And they're gone now but they'll come back for Christmas.
You learn to make those times very special because as the kids get older and their lives become full and full with friends and other activities, you want them to come back to you.So you have to make it a pleasant experience.We have ornaments that we've made. In fact we just made some new ones together, all of us. That's kind of another - we watch movies. We make ornaments. We drink Limoncello together now. I'm sure my kids are going to watch the Little Spirit. And I've very excited that, you know, my extended family as I've been saying is - I have a half dozen younger kids and of course Leo made this movie for his son.What will Santa bring for you this year?Danny DeVito: Oh, I think, we try to keep it small and keep it under control in terms of that kind of stuff. And I've graduated into the socks and underwear, bathrobe generation, where you say, that's what I usually replenish my wardrobe of black pants and black t-shirts. I wear dark clothes because my mother always said it was slimming.And I've been on a diet since I was 10. I thought you guys - by the way, Leopoldo, I think you did a really great job in the drawing of my character. I looked really fit in the movie. That's good. I like that.Leopoldo Gout: Well, your character goes to the gym a lot.Danny DeVito: That's right.How long did this project take Leopoldo?Leopoldo Gout: At least like two and a half years, three years from the very early time when I met - I spoke with my partner Susan Holden who's my co-director on the piece and I showed her my creations and my stuff and we had, as I said, we had the luxury of taking our time, developing the characters and creating mythologies around the Little Spirit.I wrote back stories to the character of Little Spirit and he's connected to the kind of the power of Manhattan, an island who's been a very international, island for many years and even before the Mayflower, the city had this - I mean this island had various native American tribes that co-existed here and spoke different languages and we truly had fun developing each character and bringing it alive.We based obviously the lead character of Danny DeVito in Danny and we took our time with Leo and my son and with Ramona, which is actually my real dog. And it's also a Boston terrier. So we really took the time of development and then - and I feel that kids of all ages will really feel that and see it too.Leopoldo, there are so many Hispanic people in the United States who miss traditional Mexican events. Would that be something that you would ever entertain doing sort of a Christmas special for so many people that would relate to it and appreciate it?Leopoldo Gout: Oh, absolutely. We're very engaged in my, in the - in fact at some point if this movie had more time, we had a whole passage of Leo through a very traditional Mexican part of the city.I love the vast tradition that I grew up with and I'm sure it will manifest at some point on one of my stories for sure. In fact when I was a kid I did a lot of theater Posadas myself and I directed a bunch of them and I'm sure that the humor in that tradition is, it's very present in a lot of the work that I do.What North American or European Christmas tradition do you find or that intrigued you the most as someone who came to this country cold?Leopoldo Gout: Well I mean we're so linked, Mexico and the States are linked with Christmas. I mean we feel that more than one tradition is specific because I also have bloods from all sorts of older religions. I have Jewish in me. I have Catholic in me. I have all sorts of things. So for me it's more than one specific religion. It's more about the feeling of the end of the year...where you go back to your family. You do something with them. That's kind of like what I want to express much more than one specific religion.Do you make Tamales?Leopoldo Gout: Yeah. And I eat them as well.Merry Christmas Danny and Leopoldo!Leopoldo Gout: Take care. Thank you.Danny DeVito: Merry Christmas!