The whole reason that Captain Howard starts saying “woosah” is to calm down, since he’s always getting worked up and screaming. Is there a challenge to scream-acting?
I’ve always had a big mouth. And my job has always been to breathe life into underwritten characters. I call those parts the, “Screaming to get into my office, screaming to get out of my office” parts, and to be able to stand out when you’re standing next to Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, now that’s acting!
Do you think we’ve seen the last of you in Bad Boys? I’m not sure where we could go now.
I don’t think it looks too good for Captain Howard. I mean, especially that they’ve got his daughter and his granddaughter in the fucking movies now. [Laughs.] But I’m happy to pass the torch.
Would you say that Captain Howard is the role that you’ve become the most synonymous with?
Yeah, it’s Bad Boys, Matrix, Fugitive. For the connoisseurs, like the college-educated, it’s Memento. For the LGBTQ+, it’s Bound. Also, La Bamba, Eddie and the Cruisers. The diversity and the fan base, I’ve been stunningly fortunate. It’s related to the zip code, like the movies that people come to me with is based on where they grew up.
I like the idea that there’s so many options that there needs to be multiple versions of the Joey Pants Mount Rushmore.
They’ve got to start doing the one degree of Joey Pants! Fuck Kevin Bacon! [Laughs.]
You mentioned The Matrix, which Will famously passed on. Did you two ever discuss that?
I never knew it. For me, it was always Keanu Reeves and then Laurence Fishburne. The Wachowskis asked me to introduce them to Laurence, and we did that at the Tyson-Holyfield fight the night that Tyson bit Holyfield’s ear off. So it was pandemonium. But you never know. Especially like Bad Boys 4—there’s what they call schadenfreude, people take pleasure in seeing somebody become miserable. So a lot of people want to see this movie fail, right? And so at the [premiere] the other night, to see seasoned industry people, who are all jaded, jumping out of their seats…. in a career that’s spanned close to 50 years, that’s only happened a couple of times: Bad Boys II, Bad Boys 4, and Fugitive.
When did the Joey Pants nickname really catch on?
That started when I was a kid in Hoboken, when I was four or five years old. The old timers, my grandparents, were born in Italy and came here, and so the European accents, the Italian, German, Dutch, that evolved into a Jersey accent, and “pantaloni” is pants in Italian. So the grandkids, my generation, shortened it to Joey Pants. And so when I went to Hollywood, I thought I was able to dodge that nickname. But because it was difficult to say “Pantoliano,” even I started doing it. I’d say, “Yes, Joe Pantoliano for so-and-so,” and they’d be like, “How do I say that?” “Just say Joey Pants, like a pair of pants.” And so it never left me—it’s been following me my whole life. I did an on-camera interview yesterday in New York, and on the chyron card, they introduced me as “Joey Pants.” So it’s like I’m not even Joe Pantoliano anymore—I’m just Joey Pants.
Is it true that there are actual Joey Pants pants for purchase now?
Yes! They’re fantastic. They’re work pants—I’ve actually got them on right now. I garden with them. They even have a zipper on the knee, you can put pads in the pants. And they’ve got like 13 pockets!
What’s left for Joey Pants to do?
Well, like Gary Cooper said, good parts and good pictures. Getting a job is easy, but getting a job in a movie that’s going to be successful and something you can be proud of, that’s mercurial—that’s the miracle business. I get asked advice all the time about being an actor, and I’ve kind of narrowed it down to just one sentence, which is making yourself available to be lucky. Because talent is the last thing you need in show business