"Jersey Boys" film poster. Photo Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures.

“Jersey Boys” poster. Photo Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures.

GALO: That’s true. I guess being an engineer, you were probably away from your family working just as much as Frankie was in the movie when he’s traveling with the band.

LV: Yeah. I guess the only difference would be that, at nights, I got to go home, and I was able to always keep in touch with the kids during the day while I was working. Some days I worked really long hours and the days were really long, but I still went home every night. If you’re on the road all the time and you’re a singer — I mean, that’s got to be really, really tough.

GALO: The film is about The Four Seasons, one of the most popular bands of the ’60s in the U.S. Despite all of their success, though, they were not without rivals and competitors. As I was watching Jersey Boys, I found myself wondering, ‘Where do the Beatles fit into all of this?’ Each band seems to represent two of the competing forces in society at the time: the traditional and the progressive. This is the era when you were growing up and becoming a young man. Where did you find yourself as all this was happening? Were you a Beatles’ fan and a true child of the ’60s blossoming rock phenomena, or were The Four Seasons and bands like them more your cup of tea?

LV: I listened to The Four Seasons a lot more when I came to the U.S. than when I was in Italy, because even though we had their records, they just weren’t as popular to us in Italy as the Beatles were. So, I think we were more fans of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, just because they were popular everywhere, whereas Frankie Valli was huge mainly in the U.S. We definitely knew of him and knew some of his songs, but it was just different. So when I came to the U.S., I got to know their music more, because it was more popular here than it was in Italy.

GALO: Since becoming an actor full-time, you’ve written and directed two films of your own. In one, you play a newly divorced single father, and in the other, you play the partially deaf friend of the film’s wheelchair-bound main character. What led you to create these characters and to tell these stories in particular? Are the people who struggle through adversity typical of the sorts of characters you like to explore?

LV: Well, with Divorced White Male, it was somewhat autobiographical; because I had gotten divorced a couple years earlier, and I knew the initial pain and everything else you go through when you get divorced. I also had five kids when I started dating. After a couple of years had gone by, I started looking at ads in newspapers, because, at the time, we didn’t have match.com. So I started looking and dating, and I had some really funny dates. Some of them were totally deceiving, because they’d say one thing in the ad and then would turn out to be totally different from their description [laughs]. So I had some really funny, strange dates, and one day, I just decided to write it all down. And so, all the experiences that I went through — the funny stuff, the grieving stuff, the painful stuff — it all just came out and I wrote the script in like four days.

GALO: Wow!

LV: Yeah, it was just there. So I did all I could and, uh [laughs], gathered a bunch of credit cards and made the film.

GALO: [Laughs].

LV: It was a great experience. It was scary too, to be honest. At one point, the day before we were going to shoot it, I woke up in the middle of the night and yelled at myself like, “What on earth are you doing, Lou?” But then I went back to sleep [laughs], and I woke up and we started shooting. It was exciting and scary at the same time, but I loved it and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

GALO: It must be a big transition going from playing one role as an actor to doing virtually everything as a writer and director, where you basically become the major creative force behind the whole project, instead of being just one part of it.

LV: Yeah, it was — although, it wasn’t my first time writing. I had written a few stage plays and scripts for movies on my own before I made Divorced White Male. Actually, the second movie I made, Every Secret Thing, was a play that I had written many years before called Tall and Powerful, and I had friends who kept asking me, “When are you gonna turn it into a movie?” I just couldn’t decide how to do it — how to change a play into a movie. So I couldn’t do it at first. But then one day, it kind of hit me, and I wrote it and made the movie.

But, in general, I do like playing those kinds of tough roles, and characters who have a lot of emotion and a lot of things going on in their life, and a lot of things going on inside of them as well. So I loved playing both of those characters in the two movies I wrote, and just playing somebody who became partially deaf due to some other stuff he’d gone through, and then has to do this agonizing thing for his buddy, the guy in the wheelchair. Those were things I really wanted to connect to and wanted to explore. So, yeah, I love those kinds of characters.

GALO: You have an interesting background. In the past two years, you’ve appeared on the television comedies Community and Eagleheart. You’ve also described your younger self as being a “class clown” type of personality. I even thought I saw you singing and dancing with the other cast members at the end of Jersey Boys.

LV: Yeah! That was a first for me. It was a lot of fun working with the choreographer for that scene.

GALO: You seem to be very multi-talented. How do you plan to employ these talents in the future? Are there any particular kinds of projects you’re looking to engage in — any singing?

LV: Well, singing and dancing is really not my thing. They’re things I only do for fun. And I’m not a professional dancer. I sing in the shower, and I sound good to myself [laughs], but it’s not really what I want to pursue.

So, I’m not gonna do either of those professionally. I would, however, love to get on a television series, whether it is a drama or a sitcom. And, yes, I used to be a class clown, and I still do see myself as a funny guy. I used to do crazy things for my kids to entertain them. I like having fun and laughing and making people laugh.

At the same time, though, I love exploring dramatic roles, because all the emotions that you have inside, if you’ve been trained to use them, are there for you to tap into — so why not? It feels really good when you portray somebody and you know that all the feelings a character is going through, you yourself are feeling at the same time. It just feels right.

So, I wouldn’t dismiss any type of role, really. I love both dramatic and comedic roles. As far as my future, I’d say I’m looking to do a television series, make some more movies, and just go from there. I just want to work as much as possible.

GALO: You mentioned you have five kids. Have any of them showed an interest in following in your footsteps in terms of pursuing an acting career?

LV: Actually, I don’t believe any of them have — although, I did have three of my kids in Divorced White Male. But it’s not something any of them really seemed to take to. They definitely like it that I’m an actor [laughs], but I never really pushed them in that direction. If they had wanted to do it, I wouldn’t have said no or anything like that. But none of them seem to really be that interested in doing acting. So, I’m okay with that [laughs].

GALO: Lou, it’s been fantastic talking with you. Before we end our conversation, I wanted to ask if there are any projects you’re currently working on that we should know about?

LV: Currently, I’m looking to do more writing and directing, but I also have other scripts that I’ve written that I’d like to work on. I’ve got a sitcom that I’m hoping garners some interest. But my goal is to do those other things while still being a working actor at the same time. Whenever you’re branching out, it’s good to keep doing your own thing at the same time.