What first attracted you to "Dinner Rush"?
The script exposed a world I know well, namely the running of restaurants. Since I own several, this was a world I know first-hand. I'm also a film maker. It seemed like a welcome opportunity to combine the two.
Danny Aiello, who plays the lead, is excellent as restaurateur Louis. Was it difficult to persuade to take the part?
Initially my producer and I took Danny to Jean Georges, this wonderful four-star restaurant in New York that I own. We thought, take him to the best, hopefully he'll be impressed and sign up. To our surprise, there was nothing on the menu he liked so we got the chef over and said "whatever he wants, cook it!". Danny asked for a hamburger, so he got a hamburger and we sorted it out from there.
Did many of the actors get to enjoy the food that was on offer?
One who certainly did was Sandra Bernhard. She had an incredible appetite. I think she ate her way through the four-day shoot! It was as if her next meal wasn't coming until Christmas. We kept putting these dishes in front of her and between takes she'd clear them all!
Like "Gosford Park", "Dinner Rush" exposes frantic kitchen activity. Was that something you were keen to show?
It was. For me, Italian restaurant kitchens can be like a battle zone. You've got subordinates, generals and worst of all, a dictator screaming blue murder. It can be mayhem! I felt it was important to show that.
Your film neatly parodies diners' often overblown conversations. Was that a hard effect to achieve?
I get bored easily! So as soon as I got what I wanted, I'd move on. I wanted to film a story set in a busy restaurant so we'd film a line here, a conversation there but above all, keep the whole thing moving.
