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Although the pair live in separate houses, Danny DeVito says he and wife Rhea Perlman remain “best of friends.”
“We are not living together anymore. She lives close by,” the “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” comedian told Digital in a recent interview.
He added, “We are really good, best of friends, and we always were from the very, very, very beginning.”
The 81-year-old said he and Perlman love talking about their passions, mainly movies and acting.
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Despite not living together anymore, Danny DeVito says he and Rhea Perlman are best friends. (Vivien Killilea/Getty Images)
“And we talk, we love movies. We love, you know, we love acting,” he said. “We love talking about it. We always, we read plays. We’ve always kept it alive with the kids, you know, with the movie business.”
DeVito and Perlman married in 1982, and they share three grown kids: Lucy, 43, Grace, 41, and Jake, 38.
He explained that Lucy and Jake both work in the business and Grace is a “wonderful painter.”
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“But Lucy’s an actress. She’s in the new movie we just produced called ‘Drag,’ which is coming out in the [winter] … And we produced that with Jake, my son, who’s a producer. Lucy’s also producing it, but she’s in it as well. So the whole family is like kind of, we’re all like in the, I guess, you know, the roar of the grease paint, the smell of the crowd, or the other way around,” he joked.
And DeVito is celebrating the 30th anniversary of one of his classic films with “Matilda in Concert,” something the actor started doing in 2017 and which will happen at three locations this year: Cleveland, San Francisco and London.
Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman with daughter Lucy in 2022. (Frederic J. Brown/AFP)
DeVito explained that 1996’s “Matilda,” which he produced, directed and starred in, was “one of my favorite movies to make because I had all kids in it.”
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He added, “It was a lot of ice cream, and it was a lot of tea parties, and there was a lot of like playing games, and a lot of clownin’ around. I like to clown around,” he emphasized, “So there I had a built-in audience.”
The “Jumanji: The Next Level” star said that he first discovered the book when he was reading to his kids in the early ‘90s.
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“And we read it,” he said, “and it was like amazing. And Rhea and I said, this is like — these are great parts for us, first of all. They’re great.”
“We had a great time and Rhea got into it really big time,” he said. “Rhea and I always have a good time working together. We’ve done a lot of things together: ‘Taxi’ and short films, and we produce things together, and at NYU, we worked together, like, years ago, in 1970 something.”
Danny DeVito as Harry Wormwood in “Matilda.” (Getty)
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DeVito and Perlman played Matilda’s “crazy” parents, Harry and Zinnia Wormwood.
For “Matilda in Concert”, he said: “They do this thing where they take the philharmonic, we strip out the sound and the music, we leave the dialogue, sound effects, and you strip out just the music, and you play it with a live orchestra. And the great thing about it is that I also narrate the movie.”
“Rhea and I always have a good time working together.”
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DeVito not only narrates, but he reprises his Mr. Wormwood character complete with the used car salesman’s bowler hat.
Rhea Perlman and Danny DeVito together in 2023. (Bruce Glikas/WireImage)
“I always take something from a movie,” he explained. “I wear it [at ‘Matilda in Concert’] and I come out, and I have a kind of wild jacket that I wear an orange shirt or something, tie and do the thing.”
DeVito said in the past, he’s performed with orchestras from places like Texas and Toronto and this year he performed with the Cleveland Orchestra on June 3 and 5 has upcoming performances with the San Francisco Symphony on July 25 and 26 and the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra at Royal Albert Hall in London on Oct. 30.
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The evenings are also conducted by composer David Newman who wrote the music for “Matilda.”
As he enters his 80s, DeVito said his philosophy is people should “Always be in love. You know, you love yourself, right? You gotta love yourself, and you love people around you. So that’s good enough love. That’s good love.”
He clarified, “It doesn’t have to be romantic love. Doesn’t have be always, you know, you’ve got a girlfriend or a boyfriend … It doesn’t have to be that way. It can be just love of other people and love of yourself. And think about them. That circle doesn’t have to be wide. You don’t have to be somebody who embraces the entire world. You could be somebody who embraces your entire world.”
Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman, seen here in 1993, married in 1982. (Vinnie Zuffante/Getty Images)
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Devito added that he is now “more conscious” of taking care of himself as he gets older “because I want to be around” for his two young grandchildren, Sinclair, 3, and Carmine, who will be 2 in July.
“So, I am gonna stay healthy because I want to see those two characters, what they do,” he beamed.
He said all of them live around 15 minutes from him. “So I get to see them all the time, which is great.“
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“If I’m working, I quit early because they’re on schedules,” he explained. “Like the other night, we all went to dinner, and they like to eat at five o’clock.”
He said he usually starts working around 9 or 10 in the morning, and he doesn’t mind working late, “but on a night like that, 4:30 I’m in the car, get to that place, have a nice little dinner with Carmine. Slobber around, make some faces. Always open your mouth while you eat. You know what I mean? He loves it. I mean, maybe the parents don’t like it that much, but you know what? I’m the grandpa.”
DeVito is also adamant that he’ll never quit the business.
Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman with Mara Wilson in the 1996 movie “Matilda.” (Getty)
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“I wouldn’t retire. Nope. You’re stuck with me,” he joked. DeVito is currently shooting the 18th season of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” and his new movie “Jumanji: Open World” premieres this Christmas, and he said he wants to keep doing things like “Matilda in Concert” and even Broadway.
“My fans have been with me from Louie De Palma, well, even Martini [from ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’] all the way to Frank, you know, Reynolds,” he said, adding that fans even come up to him and tell him they want a Jersey Mike’s sandwich after seeing him. DeVito became a spokesperson for the sandwich chain in 2022.
And he said a lot of his younger fans are “digging” “Matilda” all these years later.
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DeVito and Arnold Schwarzenegger are also planning a new project together.
“We really liked working together on ‘Twins,’ on ‘Junior,’ and we’ve become good friends,” he said. “We’ve been dying to do something together, and now that we’re getting older, you go like, ‘Come on, man. We got to find something to do together. I’ll direct it.’”
Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito in a scene from the 1988 film “Twins.” (Universal/Getty Images)
He said they had planned on doing a “Triplets” sequel to “Twins,” but director Ivan Reitman died before they could.
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“Ivan Reitman was a gem,” he said. “Ivan Reitman was a beautiful man.”
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But he said he and Schwarzenegger are actively trying to get a movie going.
“I don’t know what it is yet, but when we find it, you’re gonna know about it,” he promised, “because … Arnold and I can’t keep our mouths shut, so we’re going to blab about it.”
Speaking of his career, DeVito remembered a time when he blew an audition for a play at the Public Theater in New York for “Elephant Steps” in front of Richard Foreman, who he called a “wild director.”
“And I knew the casting director, she used to always bring me in for things,” he explained. “I said to her, ‘Before you walk me in and introduce me to Richard Foreman, just open the door and stand back.’ Right? And she said, ‘What are you going to do, Danny?’ I said, ‘Just do it, please.’”
Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman at a charity event last year. (Paul Archuleta/Getty Images)
DeVito said he had prepared a monologue and when the casting director opened the door, “I laid down on the floor and I rolled in. And I said my monologue and I didn’t know where I was because I was rolling in, and I wound up pretty close to the table where the director was sitting.”
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“I was looking up and he was over there somewhere, and I was dizzy, but I had done my audition on the way in saying my lines,” he continued.
After he finally stood up, Foreman just said: “’Thank you very much, next,’ you know, like that kind of thing. So I might’ve blown that one.”
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DeVito said he’s also feeling good about getting older.
“I like it, I like, it’s kind of cool,” the “Taxi” alum, who turns 82 in November, said. “It’s really interesting. It’s good. I mean, it just happens without you doing anything. You know, you just get older and that’s kind of nice, you don’t have to really think about it.”
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But he said: “You have to exercise. You have to keep your mind working. You have, you know, I drink a lot of green, green juice, very, very important, right? A lot of walking around … Keep your friends, always talk to your friends. Keep talking to people, meet new people, try new things.”
“I’m not gonna jump out of an airplane. Promise. The only thing I don’t wanna do, no. And you know, I don’t think I want to go on a submarine either. I don’t think I want to be shot in outer space either. I like it, like sitting in the yard is really good. Sitting in the sun … And eat good, try and think about the gut, because the gut’s really important, you know? Gut health, try, you know, do that kind of stuff if you could, and you know and always be in love.”
