USA TODAY International Edition
For Jersey boys, no place like home
Danny DeVito remembers being a young “Italian kid” riding his bike down the boardwalk in Asbury Park, N.J. — and now he’s heading back for the Asbury Park Music & Film Festival (April 26 to 29), where he’ll be honored for his contributions to the film world.
The Emmy-winning actor, 73, born and raised in Asbury Park until his late teens, told USA TODAY he’s excited to return.
“This festival and the attention that Asbury gets now makes me feel really good,” he says. “I’m really happy to be part of it, because it’s roots, it’s your hometown.”
The festival, which focuses on the role of music in movies, will screen 29 films in two days, including If I Leave Here Tomorrow, a documentary about Lynyrd Skynyrd, and
Oscar foreign-language film winner A Fantastic Woman, the story of a transgender singer. Musical highlights include Sublime With Rome and Michael Franti.
Proceeds from the actor’s “An Evening With Danny DeVito” will help provide music education to kids in the community, a cause the father of three finds particularly worthwhile.
“I think it’s really, really important for everybody to explore” what they’re interested in, he says. “To give (kids) the signal that’s something you should enjoy and be positive about.”
He noted that local kids have some great people to look up to.
“You know, that guy from Freehold, what’s his name?” he jokes, referencing Bruce Springsteen.
DeVito has just finished filming Disney’s live-action Dumbo.
“I played basically the same part in Dumbo that I played in Big Fish: I own a circus,” he says. “Now if you think back, in (Batman Returns), the Penguin had a circus troupe . ... This is the completion of our circus trilogy.”
His next project, the live-action/ CGI book adaptation The One and Only Ivan, follows Ivan (voiced by Sam Rockwell), a gorilla who tries to escape from captivity. DeVito plays a dog as part of a star-studded cast that includes Angelina Jolie (as an elephant), Helen Mirren (a poodle) and Bryan Cranston (a circus owner).
Also a self-proclaimed “Jersey boy”: Wyclef Jean, who returns to his former stomping grounds for a performance at The Stone Pony during the festival.
“There’s never a place better than playing at home,” he says.
Performing at the club is a first for Jean, 48, “one of those things on your bucket list.”
He moved from Haiti to the Marlboro projects in Brooklyn when he was a child and later to New Jersey. “Music for me was like survival,” Jean says.
“If I didn’t have the music, I could’ve ended up like a lot of my cousins and friends.”
Jean also reflected on immigration and politics.
“We’ve got to fight towards legislation and policy,” he said. “Me, I’m sensitive to the issue because I could’ve been a DACA baby, right? ... The idea of using propaganda for division or for politics is something I don’t support.”
Jean has been spending time with kids from the Hip Hop Institute, an after-school music program.
“When I see these kids, I see myself,” he says. “It was like exactly what they’re doing is what I was doing at 12, 13. Trying to figure it out.”
One student will perform a remix of Jean’s Warrior with him. “I want kids to feel like they’re cool, like it’s OK to be different,” he says. “The nerds that were considered the nerds are the fly girls of today.”