Vincent D’Onofrio embraces role as Mafia boss

http://www.thestreet.com/story/11038964/1/legendary-hollywood-impresario-marty-ingels-named-co-executive-producer-of-fiore-films-upcoming-motion-picture-based-on-the-life-of-john-gotti.html

Vincent D’Onofrio’s working the other side of the street.

Famous for his role as Detective Robert Goren on the long-running “Law & Order: Criminal Intent” television series, D’Onofrio plays a mobster in the fact-based crime drama, “Kill the Irishman.”

By Stephen Schaefer,Boston Herald

D’Onofrio’s Mafioso, John Nardi, heads a crew of criminals, but compared to his compatriots, he’s practically a teddy bear

I knew there was a lot of mob stuff in this, and I’m Italian-American and didn’t want to portray him as all sharkskin suits, slicked-back hair and overdressed,” D’Onofrio said last week in New York on a break from filming his final eight episodes of “CI.”

The movie, which co-stars Christopher Walken and Val Kilmer, is based on Cleveland’s gang warfare of 1976. The “Irishman” in the title is gangster Danny Greene (Ray Stevenson), an associate of Nardi battling over the city’s turf.

As he does with all his roles, D’Onofrio, 51, opted to “not do the typical attitude” and decided Nardi was “more like an accountant than a killer.”

“I did a little research, but the problem with Nardi, there is nothing around except the book the movie comes from (Rick Porrello’s ‘To Kill the Irishman: The War That Crippled the Mafia”). There’s only one picture of him. A lot of it, I had to make up.”

“Irishman” is a movie populated by thugs, killers and creeps — and D’Onofrio knows that’s the attraction.

“From the beginning when novels were written, crime stories have been popular,” he said. “People love them in short form and long form, and that’s why people go see mob movies and why ‘Law & Order’ is successful. It’s intriguing.”

It was more than a year and a half ago that an exhausted D’Onofrio left the Dick Wolf-produced TV series that made his Sherlock Holmes-like Goren a household name.

He came back because “Dick asked me to finish the show for eight episodes. I’m just trying to knock them out of the park for Wolf and USA (Network),” he said.

As for life after “Law & Order,” he said, “My thing is film, and I will continue to do that. I don’t have a huge plan, but I thank God I’m still respected as an actor.” (“Kill the Irishman” opens Friday.)