Podcast: THE GOTTI MOVIE (2018) | Director Kevin Connolly on The Truth Behind The Trainwreck
Chris Kasparoza GOTTI director Kevin Connolly spoke publicly, in depth, for the first and possibly only time on the disaster that was the 2018 movie about former Gambino crime family boss John Gotti on the July 28, 2022 episode of his podcast: Kevco, The Company Podcast.
During the show, produced by his company, Action Park Media, Connolly, who I met, and believe to be a genuinely nice guy, said: “The movie is terrible.”
The blame should not fall on him though. Those involved with the production, which received a 0% score from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, should know he was not given the tools to succeed. In fact, he was set up for failure.
The project was a mess long before Connolly agreed to direct it.
Excerpts from the podcast are transcribed below. Aside from listening to it in the Apple Podcasts player below, you can also listen to it at: PodcastOne.com/episode/THE-GOTTI-MOVIE.
(02:11)
Connolly: “So, obviously we all know how this played out, right? That’s no big secret… I mean, listen c’mon bro, the movie’s terrible, right? The movie is terrible.”
(02:44)
Connolly: “First thing I wanted to say about that is, you know, Doug (Ellin) talks about, um, his professor at AFI, when Doug was in AFI and he was a director, and the guy, his professor, Stuart Rosenberg, uh, AFI professor, right, for directors. But he also directed, he directed Cool Hand Luke, he directed Pope of Greenwich Village, he did the original, original Amityville Horror. He’s like a real guy, and he’s a professor, a film professor. And he said that, would always say to Doug, and Doug has always said this, and it’s funny too, because we’re dealing a little bit with it, with Ramble On now. You cannot travel with your work… In other words, I could sit here, and I will, I’m gonna make a whole bunch of shit ton of excuses, but at the end of the day, the buck stops here, and I, it just, you have to let it go. It just goes, right? And you have to be able to… Ultimately, for better or worse… there are things that I, I should have probably stood up for myself a little bit more, but, at the end of the day, I have to live with that, that I’m the director. And I’m not saying, ‘live with that.’ I’m saying like, it is what it is. The movie was what it was, it became what it became, and I am the record of director of that movie.”
(04:07)
Connolly: “Just to take it back to the very beginning… there was a splashy headline when, you know, John Gotti Jr. sold his rights and somebody, they were making movie, and it was like a big, big, big budget movie. It was supposed to be 60, $70 million or whatever. Of course, behind the helm of that, and no need to say his name (Mark Fiore), but it was the guy, shady kind of producer or, a rookie producer with some, uh, with a shady past. He ends up getting, getting the rights. Um, so now they’re gonna make this big movie. Travolta was always the guy. Um, budget, 70 million bucks. They had, and they had all these directors. These big directors are coming on. Barry Levinson, directed Rain Man was attached. Nick Cassavetes was attached. A bunch of director, directors were attached, and they kept falling off. So as that happens, the budget starts dropping. And then the movie becomes, the movie falls into a, a bucket of, it’s probably gonna be, I wanna call it like a chop shop movie, but one of those movies that you do, for no money, and it’s pre-sold foreign, that’s kind of where the movie always was going.”
(05:30)
Connolly: “This is the funny part about it. And, in hindsight, if the movie was, if the job was such a great job, I wouldn’t have gotten the job, right? ‘Cause why would I get that job? It wouldn’t make any sense for them to hire me for that, for no reason. Um, so, a friend of mine calls, and the guy calls and says, ‘Hey, you wanna, uh, direct the Gotti movie?’ And I was like, yeah. Like, literally, I was laughing like, sure, of course. Yeah, let’s start shooting tomorrow. He’s like, ‘No, serious, you wanna, meet Travolta, to, to, to direct the,’ I was laughing. I was like, yes, I wanna meet Travolta. I’d love to meet Travolta. Of course, still, still literally going like this is most ridiculous conversation. So, then, a couple days later, he’s like, yeah, the meeting is at this restaurant, two o’clock. Blah, blah, I’m like, meeting with Travolta at the restaurant, two o’clock on Thursday. He’s, Travolta’s just gonna be there, and I’m gonna to walk in and I’m gonna? And he’s like, ‘Yeah.’ Yup. First time meeting him. I go in, I sit with Travolta, um, and it was not, I wasn’t even home because the meeting was in Brentwood, they called and said that, that they wanted me to do it. Right. Does that make any sense to you at all?”
(07:11)
Connolly: “I wanted to do something different. Yeah, I was looking to do a movie. But the, and the craziest thing is, and as this is happening, and I’m, I’m kind of laughing to myself because I know, I know, I guess in hindsight, I know that this is just a terrible idea. How am I, how am I, how am I, how did I get this job? I knew it wasn’t, I knew that at that point that it wasn’t gonna be for the faint of heart… I was aware of the fact that it went, you went from Barry Levinson to, or to Nick Cassavetes and then to me as the director. Clearly, there’s problems there… But, for me, I really at the time thought like, fuck it man, this is basically a job that nobody wants. I hate to say it. This is a job that nobody wants. Will be a fun adventure. Let’s, fuck it. Who cares? Let’s just dive in and do it. Right? Now, that’s the biggest mistake I’ve ever made in my life. That, that moment. Where I was like, fuck it, we’re making a movie. Let’s get out there. It’ll be fun. Blah, blah, blah. And, and… ultimately, if, if I could go, if I had to go back, at that moment, I would have took a, taken a harder look at, like, the repercussions, of, of something like that.”
(08:33)
Connolly: “But we get out there, we’re shooting, um, Cincinatti, for New York. Which is, we’re shooting in Cincinnati, right? So we have to make Cincinnati look like New York… So that’s your first problem. And then, you’re, you’re talking about 40 years, difference, right? And, and, the characters, you got John Gotti… it’s like a 40-year period piece. It’s a lot. You don’t go out and knock out a movie like that in 21 days, with no money.”
(09:26)
Connolly: “But I remember the first day I got there, and um, obviously, I was the first one there because I was gonna to start the prep the movie. When I walked in, I mean, I knew, on the first day, I said, ‘Holy shit. I’m fucked.’ I knew on the first day, before anybody else even got there, I knew that I was… I just knew. I knew we were underfunded. I knew, I just knew, I was like, you know what? This is fuckin’ bad. This is bad. And then when we had, I noticed we were having a hard time getting people hired, and all that kind of stuff. No people, didn’t want to work on it. And it was just, I knew. I knew at that point.”
(10:26)
Connolly: “John Travolta may be one of the greatest guys that ever lived… I could not say enough good things about John Travolta. I mean, he’s just, like, he’s like a guy that says like, ‘Hey, Scottie, how was your night last night?’ And he’s actually wants, he actually is asking you how your night was, or else he wouldn’t ask you… He’s a megastar, and… I could not say greater things about John Travolta. He’s just fuckin’ awesome. So then that, there was that part of it, right? So… I didn’t wanna quit on him.”
(11:00)
Connolly: “You know as, with regards to the Gottis. John Jr., you know, he uh, he doesn’t like me… because of how, how kind of things went in the end. But, but I do have to say, you know, the Gottis were very, very, very nice to me. And they gave me, access, that they didn’t have to give me… John Jr. invited me to his daughter’s engagement party. Um, they were very, very, very nice to me. They, it went south when the movie went south. And that’s the kind of, everybody kind of started pointing fingers. But, all along, you know, I got along with them pretty well. Now, is there an intimid, intimidating thing there? Yeah, absolutely, of course. Of course. But, you know, he had never done this before. So, you know, I don’t, I just don’t think he, almost like me, I don’t, I don’t think he thought we were going down that direction of being challenged as heavily as we were.”
(12:10)
Connolly: “And then, it’s like, so you got the Gotti family. You got, the producers. You got the, a group of shady producers. You have the bond company there. So, it’s like, literally there was like a series of monitors. I mean, like, you know, like the Gottis basically had their own monitors. Which is pretty wild. But they were really cool to me. They were cool to me. And it’s like, people always say like, oh, and it’s like, yeah, would John Jr. get mad at you? Like, he’ll mad at you. Like, if he’s gonna smack you, he’s gonna smack you himself. He’s not gonna… he’d gotten frustrated with me a few times. And it’s like, John is the same guy that he was. He’s just not a mobster anymore. So yeah, when he’s like mad at ya… you’re not worried that he’s gonna blow up your car, but like he, he could also smack you across the side. You know what I mean? So, but he was cool and, and, and he was super, super, super smart. And we just, just attempted to do the movie the wrong way. And um, it just blew up. But for me, the craziest part is how early I knew we were in trouble… it just is a fucking straight shot downhill, just in terms of, you know, we don’t have enough prep time. We don’t have enough prep days. We can’t find this person. Like we just, literally threw the whole thing together, in a few weeks. And anybody that knows anything about making movies will tell you that that’s just the wrong way to do it. It’s all prep.”
(13:44)
Connolly: “But it’s all, it’s also too, budget. I mean, like, I’m not, accusing anybody of anything, but like, the, wherever the money went was not on the screen. You know, and I know that, and I know that Travolta was very respectful with his paycheck, so it’s not like Travolta mugged everybody. I don’t know, it just, it just felt like… an underfunded rodeo… I mean, he had to know at some point, but you know, John, actually, like, which got even a little bit more problematic for me, is, is that John liked the movie, right? So, where I kind of thought the movie was just gonna fall by the wayside, be on VOD, no harm, no foul, John and, and John Gotti Jr., were, like, wanted to really push, right. So, and then they had somebody buy it, and then we went to Cannes, and it’s like, guys. I mean, I’m like looking around, and I’m the director of the movie thinking like, how could anybody here be sitting here thinking that this movie is good enough to show at Cannes? Like, I didn’t even wanna go, but this is where kind of the pressure started from the outside for me, truthfully. Like… I was like working on some of the stuff, but I was like getting squeezed. They wanted me to get them like, yo, you got the biggest, one of the biggest movie stars ever. What the fuck, what do you want me to do? You know, especially when I didn’t believe in the movie. And furthermore, um, they recut… I was in Málaga, Spain, shooting Snatch, the TV show. And um, I get a call from somebody, an actor that was in the movie… Long story short… those guys recut the movie. So they took my cut, and I’m not saying my cut is fuckin’, whatever, but like I, they, they recut the movie, and just, without even telling me they recut the movie… I did my cut. And then, when, whoever guy came in to buy it to try to then take it to France and like make a fricking, spectacle of it, um, he recut it. But, but nobody called to ask me. They just did it. In fact, I’ve never seen the final movie. As we sit here today, I’ve not seen it.”
(16:27)
Connolly: “On Entourage, the anticipation was that the movie (Medellín) was good. And I was sick to my stomach, because I knew it wasn’t. You know, 50 Cent’s performing at the show, it’s like a fuckin’ huge thing… and then we shouldn’t be there, or whatever. And then it was like, we just, you know, we ended up setting ourselves up, for all that. It was, it was fucked up. It was fucked up. And then, and then there’s like, well, were you ever, uh, you know, people say, did you ever, were you ever threatened, or anything like that? And it’s, no. Not, first of all, not by the Gottis, but there was plenty of shady people on there. Not that people threaten you, but they, they talk to you in ways that, kind of go, what? What does that, kind of mean? Right? And it’s like, you just, it’s just that you’re around a certain element of people, right. Like, that it’s just where, I don’t know, man. There was some, there was some pretty wild, uh, there was some pretty intense times. Like, not, again, I don’t want to say I was scared, but like uncomfortable, for sure.”
(17:34)
Connolly: “It shouldn’t have been, but they fuckin’, they made it, they made it be a theatrical release. Which is what opened it up to being like, you know, it’s like, if you didn’t throw it in everybody’s face, like it was some, you know, great movie… it flies into the radar, but now, you know, you’re getting reviewed everywhere. It just, it just, it just was, I don’t know how, how everybody didn’t see that we shouldn’t have done that, but, again, if it comes down to making their money back or whatever it is, but.”
(18:12)
Connolly: “Look, there, I made some great friends on the movie. Um, the shoot was miserable, and, absolutely brutal. Um, and then, when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, the post-production and then, the kind of end result of it… I always knew it was a massacre. The analogy I would use, imagine if, you had a really, really, really big, dark secret, that you had to, like, walk around with, and knowing that in, three years that secret was gonna be exposed… It’s a horrible feeling. So, there’s part of it that was like, as bad as it was, part of it was like… part relief… like let’s just get it over… I always knew that that was gonna happen. Wasn’t like, I was surprised or, you know… I think we thought Medellín was good. I knew, I knew that Gotti…”
(20:37)
Connolly: “I also think that, they were gonna be hard on it, no matter what… Just because of the history, and it had been around for so long, and it’s like, yeah, I mean, it’s just… all the stuff was there. And then, the funny… the other point, which is fuckin’ hardcore, was the New York premiere. Right, so I didn’t even wanna go. I was like, they’re like, ‘You have to go.’ … now I’m in Puerto Rico, and uh, I’m doing The Oath. So I have to fly out of Puerto Rico and fly into New York for the night for the premiere… I go to the New York premiere. Invited not one person. You know who was my plus one? Craig Carton, the radio host. (laughs) I didn’t invite a member of my family. I didn’t invite anybody. And we were at the premiere, and the premiere was, the premiere was dark. The New York premiere was dark… because there were guys there, bro, that like you didn’t have to be, you just, you just knew. You were like, whoa… you could just cut the fuckin’ tension with a knife in this place.”
(23:00)
Connolly: “Let’s put it this way. Scorsese spends more money in a, in a day on one of his movies than we spent on the whole movie. And then some… And then… this is like when we get back to, you know… traveling with your work. You know, when this shit hit the fan, and you know John Jr., I think he, he like wanted me to like stand up for the movie. And I’m like, well what, stand up for it how? … if somebody watched the movie and doesn’t like it, I can’t make them like the movie. Like what do you, what am I standing up to? It’s, it’s the, that’s it. It’s, can’t travel with your work. It’s going. Am I gonna, argue with everybody that didn’t like the, that didn’t like the movie? So, I think that’s where he thought, that I kind of bailed on the movie, but I just, it’s just two different philosophies. Uh, basically, I didn’t think, I didn’t know. What am I supposed to do, go, ‘No, that’s not true.’ Like, I’m not gonna fight with people about, you know.”
(24:01)
Connolly: “I’m able to look back on it and laugh at it, but it was, it was um, it’s the most difficult thing I’ve ever been through in my career. And then some. I mean, it was, you know, it was a long time. Dude, at one point… I had like a nervous breakdown… I walked into the hospital… when the adrenaline settled, from all that, like I got sick, basically. You know, so, um, but– it was wild, and, you know. (laughs) You know, I got, I did have some pretty good access and stories, that, you know– like I said, the making of the movie would have been, you know, would have been as good as anything.”
(25:55)
Connolly: “I knew it was comin’, I hoped it would just kind of go away, but the minute they called me about Cannes, I was like, fuck, man.”
(26:09)
Connolly: “Travolta liked the movie… John does a lot of movies. You don’t see him out promoting movies. He went out, he promoted it. He did it, you know, so. Um, he was awesome.”
(26:23)
Connolly: “And you know, the Gottis, whatever, they can be mad at me all they want, but they were great to me. Um, and you know, he was, he really wanted to get, he really wanted to get it, right. You know, John Jr., he just didn’t, know how to do it, and he, and he put it in, in the wrong hands. Um, and I might have been part of those hands at the end, but, he ultimately made, like, the deal with the wrong guy.”
(32:02)
Connolly: “I think back to that day where I said, oh, fuck, whatever man. This is, this’ll be fuckin’, this is gonna be wild. Like, you know talk about stories forever, like, so kind of like jump into it for the experience… I was like, fuck it, it’ll be fun. And then, and the other thing that I, that I did was, is that, you know, again, I don’t know, I think my, my reps… could have been, little more helpful or protective. It was just, it was literally, it’s, it’s such a cliche, but it’s just like me against the world. There was nobody there on my, on my behalf. There was nobody there on my behalf. It was, it was wild.”
(34:16)
Connolly: “But yeah, there were times where you found yourself in rooms where you’re like, wow, man, this is, this is crazy. This is surreal… and that’s why I say about the Gottis, like… I had dinner at the Gotti kitchen table, a few times. You know, so, they were good to me. I feel bad they don’t like me, but what can I do? They’re mad at everybody.”
(34:58)
Connolly: “They just, they just put themselves out there, for, big acclamation, and it just didn’t, didn’t come… they set themselves up for it. Cannes? Like, what the fuck are you talking about? What the fuck are you going to Cannes for? It’s fucking unbelievable… I was sick, like, putting on my tuxedo. For the Cannes, uh, for the Cannes screening of the fucking Gotti movie. It’s crazy… Maybe I was on Dave’s Xanax. I must have had some kind of like, I must have had some kind of thing to like take the edge off my nerves ‘cause it was, it was absolutely horrendous, you know, for me… There’s nothing about it that I enjoyed, so. That’s kind of the, that’s kind of the story there.”
(36:35)
Connolly: “You know, and, and it’s funny, and again… there’s so many things that, like, just, absolutely, ridiculously, absurdly funny things that obviously we couldn’t get into even right now, because, it’s just– the actual experience of it, for all the hard part, it’s like, so, it was such an unforgettable experience with characters and the cast. It’s like the people, that I came across through that journey. I mean, that might be worth the movie alone.”
Co-host: “I wish they did do a, a behind-the-scenes like documentary on it. It’d be great.”
Connolly: “Imagine?”
Co-host: “Yeah.”
Connolly: “It would have been, (laughs) it would have been better than the movie. Um, yeah, so, you know, like I said, it, you don’t get to travel with your work, but um, you know, the Gottis, I guess they’re always mad. They’re mad at everybody, it feels like. They’re always fighting with everybody, but, they were very good to me. And uh, yeah. I, I heard, I heard some really cool stories and like, met some, uh, larger-than-life characters. You know, it’s funny, um, Pat Borriello, Pat Borriello is the guy that came to the live show, with the weed pizza. That sent Dylan into the stratosphere… Pat Borriello, he, he you know, he’s a, he’s a buddy of mine. He’s a good buddy of mine. His, his dad, Bobby Borriello, was John Gotti Sr.’s bodyguard. He like, got killed in the war… I made a real friend there, you know. I made a couple, a couple real friends, and, and like I said, but the cast of characters, was uh, was pretty intense. And um, yeah man. Again, one day, you know, I guess I would have to sit and kind of really, kind of write, write it down, just in terms of like, some of the, the stuff that’s so far out there.”
(38:58)
Connolly: “Gotti deep dive. I mean, yeah, I, like I said… it is what it is, and it’s like, on, on one hand, like, of course you wanna take it back, but like, the experience of it. Like having come out through the other side, like I’m fine joking about it now, but like at the time, it’s just like… you’re sick of hearing about it, and it’s just like, and again, I’m by myself. It’s like everybody was always huddled into corners. Like everybody was off over here, and I was always just like, just on my own.”
(39:29)
Connolly: “I wasn’t taking heat. Like, it’s like any other cycle. A news cycle. It comes, it goes. Right, and that’s, that’s what it is. So, you know, whatever… we knew what we were getting, getting ourselves into there, but. You know I have no ill will towards any of those people. Um, you know, it’s a model that people make movies, and then, and then what can you do? I should have been, I should stood up for myself a little more. I should have stood up for myself, and I should have, you know, whatever… it wasn’t that I was scared… I was just alone, and it was tough battles, where you’re fighting, you know mobsters over here, and like, producer mobsters over here. It just doesn’t, it just doesn’t end… What happened to me, it was outrageous. It was absolutely outrageous. Um, but all right, that’s it… it just kind of is what it is. But you’re right, at the end of the day, it’s a movie. Who gives a shit?”
(41:07)
Connolly: “Travolta came in on a plane. And he couldn’t have been, he couldn’t have been cooler. I mean… he was smooth, man. He was smooth. Fun… I always say like, joking around, it’s like, but honestly, like… they’re gonna hold the gates of Heaven when Travolta shows up. It’s, ‘Alright, hold the line.’ … He’s just one of the good guys. And Kelly Preston, his wife, who passed away, was lovely, as well. They were just such a nice family. So, I always felt bad like I let them down. And, you know, the Gottis would have been mad at me regardless.”
