What Danny DeVito Really Thinks of That Iconic Mean Girls Line
Originally appeared on E! Online
Even when Danny DeVito isn't working, which is almost never, his very existence remains a cottage industry.
Whether it's an It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia tattoo of Frank Reynolds or his flesh-and-blood character in 1988's Twins drawn as a cartoon and spliced into any scenario imaginable...
Damian in Mean Girls spoke for one and all when he shrieked, "Oh my god, Danny DeVito! I love your work!"
And the prolific actor is here for it.
"I dig that kind of stuff," DeVito exclusively told E! News as he geared up for the big Super Bowl Sunday premiere of the State Farm commercial that reunited him with his Twins brother Arnold Schwarzenegger. "It's cool to have that kind of shout-out. I look through all the memes, people send me the shirts."
The tattoos are "very bizarre," he added, "but it's fun. It's good to have fans, you couldn't do it without them."
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It's in no small part thanks to fans' enduring love of the Ivan Reitman-directed comedy starring DeVito and Schwarzenegger as genetically modified twins Vincent and Julius, who were separated at birth and reunite just in time to save the, er, shorter one from a crisis situation, that State Farm came calling.
The reaction to Twins has been "through the roof" for so many years, DeVito explained, and "we have so much fun together." So when this idea was presented to him and Schwarzenegger, it was a no-brainer.
The 60-second spot, which premiered during the second quarter of Super Bowl LVIII, mostly plays on the Austrian star's action-movie chops and thick accent that prevents him from pronouncing "Like a good neighbor" the way the rest of the State Farm family would prefer. Enter DeVito to get it right and needle Schwarzenegger like only a brother could.
The duo "keep it light, keep it fun," said DeVito, who used a day off from his Broadway show I Need That, co-starring his daughter Lucy DeVito, to fly out and shoot the commercial. "We clown around a lot. We're very serious guys about our work—of course—but we do like to, every once in awhile, throw a curveball."
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And here's a change-up: After hoping to work together again for 30 years (after Twins they co-starred in the less-regarded 1994 comedy Junior), the longtime buddies—"We'll have lunch or go smoke a stogie together, or just hang out"—are closer than ever to making it happen.
"We've found something that we're developing, Arnold and I," DeVito shared, "a movie that we hope very soon you can experience on a big screen. We're working hard on that."
Whether or not it'll be family-friendly enough for their respective grandchildren to enjoy, he didn't say. But for decades the 79-year-old has made a point of doing "as many things as I can do for the kids," from My Little Pony, Hercules and The Lorax to Matilda—he'll be narrating Matilda Live at the State Theatre in New Jersey March 22—and his 11-month-old granddaughter Sinclair Lucille can have her pick.
For now, however, Sinclair—whose parents are DeVito and Rhea Perlman's artist daughter Grace, 38, and her husband Andy Giannakakis—only needs her grandfather to show up to be entertained.
"I come in, she grabs my glasses, she's grabbing my face," DeVito said, squeezing his own cheeks for emphasis. "It's all that stuff. And what they say about that grandpa situation is really true. You have so much fun with the kiddo and then you pass it back to your daughter and your son-in-law."
Still beaming, he added, "She's crawling all over the place, she's just about to pulling herself up to start walking, and it's just a joy. The best."
As for Perlman, still his wife of 42 years though they separated in 2017, "she's a great mom and now she just can't be happier as a grandma," DeVito said. "You miss those little babies when they grow up. You love 'em"—Lucy, 40, Grace and son Jake, 36—"but boy, those little tiny feet...Get a nibble of that toe."
And he's thrilled to be sharing this chapter with Perlman—which showed when he shouted out her four career wins during his 2023 Emmys bit with the Always Sunny cast last month, prompting a collective "aw" (and turning on a light bulb for those finding out that Matilda's parents are married in real life).
She's "a great partner," DeVito said, "and always has been."
We say, cheers to all of it.
Meanwhile, Danny DeVito and Arnold Schwarzenegger's State Farm ad had a lot of good neighbors. Keep scrolling to see the most star-studded 2024 Super Bowl commercials:
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