Happy Birthday: Michael Rapaport

Michael Rapaport

Born: March 20, 1970 in New York City, New York, USA

(2011, on True Romance) It’s the only movie I ever did that I knew was gonna be great. Everybody knew going into it, the script was so good, and you’d hear, “Oh Christopher Walken’s gonna be in it now! Oh shit! James Gandolfini’s gonna be in it!” Well James Gandolfini was a nobody. Me and him were nobodies. But like, “Gary Oldman’s gonna be in it! Oh shit! Val Kilmer’s gonna be in it! Oh shit!” The script was just so good, and there was such a buzz on it, and Quentin Tarantino was so hot and unique at the time, not that he’s not now. But it was like, this unraveling of this special guy. I knew it was gonna be a good movie. And creatively, Tony Scott embraced me and gave me the trust for me to go forward and bring things to the character. ‘Cause I would ask him, “Hey can I try this?” And he’d be like, “Yeah, that’s fine.” “Can I do this?” “No that sucks.” But he would listen to everything that I asked, and he gave me a forum to try and create more than what was on the script.

(2011, on The Basketball Diaries) That was when Leonardo DiCaprio would need me to do a favor for him. “Yo, can you do this cameo!” Not that I’m giving him shit. I’m friendly with him. I love him and respect him, and we’re buddies. He said, “Yo, there’s this one scene in the movie, can you do it?” I said, “Yeah I’ll do it.” So I got to smack him around a little bit. But now I’m waiting for him to put me in one of his new ones! Can you put me in Inception or something like that? Why do I have to be in the only Leonardo DiCaprio movie with a $2 million budget?

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