I was a busboy, a waiter, a manager, a sommelier... like... all of it from a family-run Polish restaurant, with, like, grandmas in the basement hand-making pierogies, to working at Bond Street for a while. I've done it all.
Insanity hovered close at hand, like an eager waiter at an expensive restaurant.
Being general manager is like being the de facto owner. It's like wearing the crown of 'Restaurant Man' without being 'Restaurant Man.' You're trying to run the business, but you're running the ranch without riding the big horse.
When I go to a restaurant I always ask the manager, "Give me a table near a waiter."
People treat you like s*** when you're a doorman or a busboy. I licked envelopes for eight hours a day for this management company and cried half the time I was there while the managers were on the phone working.
When I was a waiter I was fired twice from the same restaurant. I guess I was that good of an actor but that bad of a waiter.
Polish what you polish until it is like gold that has been refined a hundred times; anything that is done in a hurry is not deeply developed. Do what you do like a thousand-pound catapult; one who pops off too easily does not accomplish much.
I don't get the animosity when someone tells a joke that you don't like. Whereas if someone made a dish that you don't like if you went to a restaurant, you would either try another dish or you just don't go back to that restaurant. But you don't say like, "I did not like the hamburger here. This restaurant should be shut down. It should be banned from making hamburgers. No one else should have these hamburgers." And everyone else is like, "No, you wouldn't do that."
The family is something you are always missing, but it has to be like this. It is not easy for any manager to be with your family, in your house, and working at your nearest club. So you have to travel.
The riskiest thing I have done in my fifties is to do a Polish accent for a new film. I had a great time working on it and two wonderful people to guide me. A dialect coach that I have known for thirty years and a Polish actor.
As I walked down the street while talking on the phone, sophisticated New Yorkers gaped at the sight of someone actually moving around while making a phone call. Remember that in 1973, there weren't cordless telephones, let alone cellular phones. I made numerous calls, including one where I crossed the street while talking to a New York radio reporter - probably one of the more dangerous things I have ever done in my life.
I didn't start making a real living until eight or nine years in. Even after 'Goodfellas' came out, I was still working as a waiter, and people would recognize me - that was an odd experience. But when 'The Sopranos' hit, that was like an exponential leap.
When I went kayak surfing in Cornwall, I got a really deep gash on my hand - it looked like I had a slug on it - so I went to Harley Street for surgery, because I looked like a battered woman when I was making things on Blue Peter.
I would love to do a Bond song, and I could have done a Bond song: I was offered a Bond theme, but I turned it down because I didn't like the song. But as it turned out, I was right anyway because the song was the only Bond theme that never became a hit, so I'm glad I wasn't associated with that!
I have worked hard to be all the things that I thought a family man should be, but I probably could have done better by not trying to run a family like I was picking a five-a-side football team.
So I went to the Chinese restaurant and this duck came up to me with a red rose and says "Your eyes sparkle like diamonds". I said "Waiter, I asked for a-ROMATIC duck".
I am not a fan of people who abuse service staff. In fact, I find it intolerable. It’s an unpardonable sin as far as I’m concerned, taking out personal business or some other kind of dissatisfaction on a waiter or busboy.