Maurice Benard – Victoria Gotti: My Father’s Daughter

By: Kelly Kearney

Q) You’re playing infamous New York crime boss John Gotti in the Lifetime movie Victoria Gotti: My Father’s Daughter. How did this role come to you?

Maurice: Well, yeah, I auditioned on tape from my house a couple times. Then, on a Saturday, I got the call that I got the role and that’s when they tell me I have to age from twenty to sixty and have a Bronx accent and by the way, I have 48-hours before I need to be ready and I’m on the plane. Yeah, it was interesting and here’s the deal with that Bronx accent…Here’s what happened…I thought I had a decent accent in the audition, but it had to be more. So, I get there and of course I had been listening to John and that one YouTube video and watched Raging Bull and tried to get the nuances from there. There was also a dialect coach on the set and the first couple of days was so stressful. I didn’t want anything to do with him. [laughs] So, he was trying to help me, and I kept telling him, “No, I can’t. I can’t.” But then I said to myself, “I need help.” So, I called him and asked him to please help me and let’s do this. He would say the lines on a tape recorder, and I worked really, really, hard. His name was Jimmy. And I had a friend who speaks like that, too so that was how I had to do it, ya know? On the fly. Here’s the thing, I will tell you right now I did it and maybe it’s not perfect, but I did it subtly enough and got it as good as it could be. If maybe I had more time, I would have really delved into it more, but I didn’t have the time. I’m pretty happy with how I did and how it turned out.

Q) Obviously, John Gotti and his daughter Victoria have been in the limelight for decades, but did you do any additional research on John and the Gotti family for the role?

Maurice: I did as much as I could. I mean, there’s nothing on John Gotti. Nothing on YouTube or anything. There’s only one thing where he’s talking to Victoria and her son and that’s what I kept watching and hearing, but really that’s all they had because there’s really nothing with him. Victoria gave me some great advice. She said to play him like Michael Corleone from The Godfather and not like “The Sopranos.”

Q) The story really touches upon the relationship between a father and his daughter and all the drama that comes with it. In your preparation for the film, how did you separate the crime boss from the over protective and loving father?

Maurice: There’s two sides to everybody and, look, the other side of John…There’s not a lot of that in the movie. It’s more through her eyes and it’s actually a beautiful story. The other side, the gangster part, you know, I’ve been doing that for thirty years and it’s just kind of in me. [laughs] But the accent was tough and the aging…Ya know, going from twenty to sixty, that was tough.

Q) Was there anything you learned about the “Teflon Don” that you hadn’t known before? After all, you are getting an up close and personal account of what it was like behind the walls. Was there anything that surprised you about him? Maybe something the general public did not know?

Maurice: The only thing that was actually different and kind of surprised me was, I played him in like fourth or fifth gear. Now, I’m not sure if that is an accurate perception, but that’s how I felt he needed to be. That takes a lot of work to be…Ya know, I play on soaps (General Hospital) this kind of character and I play him, Sonny, in second gear. But Gotti, I just felt like he had a lot going on and he was full throttle, so I played it like that.

Q) The film was written and produced by Victoria Gotti, and really highlights the glitz and glamour of growing up in the shadow of the mob world. What was it like working with Victoria and were you concerned about getting the nuances of her father right?

Maurice: I desperately wanted to be great, or at least good, and wanted to please her and Lifetime because it is her father. [laughing] You really don’t want to mess that up! Really, she was a sweetheart and great the whole time and her and my wife talked a lot and now she is nothing but supportive and great. It turned out to be a really cool thing.

Q) Was Victoria a hands-on producer and did she offer you any tips on her father that maybe the public never knew? Something that perhaps helped guide your performance?

Maurice: Not really as far as tips, but she just told me about her father. You know, one thing that I got out of it was by watching her speak about her father. I saw him through her and how he saw her and how much he loved her, and that really helped me.

Q) Playing mob bosses seem to be a second skin for you. Did the role of Gotti seem like an obvious fit after decades of playing Sonny Corinthos on “General Hospital?”

Maurice: You know, that’s a good question because when I got the role I thought it would be pretty easy to get in his skin and play the gangster part, but I got to tell you it was the most difficult and exhilarating role I have ever done. It was very, very, difficult for a lot of reasons, but I think it needed to be difficult to get it right.

Q) Were you filming Victoria Gotti: My Father’s Daughter and “General Hospital” back to back? Was it challenging to try and keep the two men separate in your mind? Was there any fear that the performance could overlap and some of Sonny might seep into Gotti and vice-versa?

Maurice: Yeah, yeah, I had some of that and, you know, every role that I have done in the last two years I try to be different and that’s my challenge. And it makes it very difficult because playing Sonny is easy now. I can do it with my eyes closed. So, when I do a new role, and even this one, people may think, “Oh he’s playing Sonny as John Gotti,” but it really isn’t. And that’s what made it so difficult for me. I wanted him to be different.

Q) There have been a lot of films and documentaries about John Gotti. What makes this movie different than the films that we’ve previously seen?

Maurice: It does not have a lot of violence and things that you would expect from a movie about him. It’s more about the love between John Gotti and his family, or Victoria, John Gotti and their family I should say. It’s more, I don’t want to say romantic, but through her eyes there’s a lot of that and I think people are going to fall in love with it. The thing about Victoria, this is her writing and the story is told in her words so it’s accurate. You’re not going to sit there and say, “No, that’s not true,” because Victoria, you know, she’s very tough and if she didn’t like something or it wasn’t accurate she would tell you, “No, I don’t like that its not true. Take that out.” It’s her story and that’s what makes it different.

Q) You’ve been playing Sonny Corinthos since 1993, and he has gone through every challenge the soap world has thrown at him. Sonny has an incredible arc this season with caring for his father. What kind of fan reaction have you received to this storyline?

Maurice: Yeah that story, I don’t think it’s gotten enough…Gosh, even now trying to talk about it, I get a little choked up…[pause] I’ve never had such an emotional response to a story. Maybe because everybody has a mother, a father, a grandmother and a grandfather and they can relate. Even if it’s not Alzheimer’s and it’s just old age. I live with my Mom and Dad right now, so it’s been fantastic, the story. It’s hard to be in the scenes because the actor that plays my father, Max Gail, he’s a great actor and he reminds me a lot of my father. They dress the same, same jacket, same hat and I’m thinking, “This is hard!” Forget method acting, I’m trying to do just the opposite, so I don’t cry.

Q) Besides this film and “General Hospital,” are you working on any other projects the fans can look out for?

Maurice: I got another movie coming out this summer, a horror movie that’s with five different directors with five different shorts in one movie and I’m in two of them and Mickey Rourke is in it, too. You will see me and Mickey Rourke. We had a scene together and it was pretty intense. I’m also doing a campaign in June for Alzheimer’s and we will let you know about that. Let’s see, I think that’s it for now, but we’ll see what happens. I’m just concentrating on having people see this Gotti movie because I really think it’s going to be cool and thanks for talking with me. You ask really good questions and I appreciate that. Watch this movie because it is going to be great!