Danny DeVito is nothing if not a good sport. His role as Frank Reynolds on “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” has led him to crawl naked out of a couch, paint himself blue, and do a multitude of other depraved activities in the pursuit of comedy. But even he has his limits. In a new interview with Uproxx to promote his FXX animated series “Little Demon,” DeVito revealed the one time the show’s creators sent him a script that would have asked him to go too far.
“They once put me in a situation that was like, I was in jail being raped by various inmates and I was at the end of my rope,” DeVito said. “This was not recent. This was a while ago. Somewhere in the middle. And I got a script that my assistant said, ‘Oh, the guys, Charlie [Day] and Glenn [Howerton] and Rob [McElhenney] called up this morning.’ I was going to work that day. We were going to read through. He said, ‘Well, they’re changing it up. They’re doing this one first instead of that one. So you should read it.’ And I thought, ‘Really? It’s like 10 o’clock in the morning.’ I said, ‘Well, I’m going to work at 1:00.’ ‘No, you should read it. They want you to read it.'”
With those ominous instructions, DeVito read the script and was shocked by the provocative storyline.
“So I read it and I go to pick up a hooker and I get busted and I get raped in the jail, in a shower,” he said. “Then they throw me in the lockup, the big lockup. I get raped by everybody and the cops. And they kept going back to the bar and then Frank would get raped. And I go back to the bar, Frank would get raped. And I said, ‘What the fuck, man? Call my lawyer.’ Right? And then I got to the end of the script. And the last guy that nailed me leans in. Well, Frank is now laying on the ground, [his] face is on the ground. He’s been fucked by every… And the guy leans down and he says, ‘April fools, bitch.’ And I realized it was April 1st. They wrote this script in order to break my balls.”
Once he realized it was a joke, DeVito’s anger quickly subsided and the show’s creative team went back to being a happy family.
“It’s love,” he said. “They love me. I called them up. They were all on the call, laughing their asses off. And then we went and did some other crazy show.”
“They once put me in a situation that was like, I was in jail being raped by various inmates and I was at the end of my rope,” DeVito said. “This was not recent. This was a while ago. Somewhere in the middle. And I got a script that my assistant said, ‘Oh, the guys, Charlie [Day] and Glenn [Howerton] and Rob [McElhenney] called up this morning.’ I was going to work that day. We were going to read through. He said, ‘Well, they’re changing it up. They’re doing this one first instead of that one. So you should read it.’ And I thought, ‘Really? It’s like 10 o’clock in the morning.’ I said, ‘Well, I’m going to work at 1:00.’ ‘No, you should read it. They want you to read it.'”
With those ominous instructions, DeVito read the script and was shocked by the provocative storyline.
“So I read it and I go to pick up a hooker and I get busted and I get raped in the jail, in a shower,” he said. “Then they throw me in the lockup, the big lockup. I get raped by everybody and the cops. And they kept going back to the bar and then Frank would get raped. And I go back to the bar, Frank would get raped. And I said, ‘What the fuck, man? Call my lawyer.’ Right? And then I got to the end of the script. And the last guy that nailed me leans in. Well, Frank is now laying on the ground, [his] face is on the ground. He’s been fucked by every… And the guy leans down and he says, ‘April fools, bitch.’ And I realized it was April 1st. They wrote this script in order to break my balls.”
Once he realized it was a joke, DeVito’s anger quickly subsided and the show’s creative team went back to being a happy family.
“It’s love,” he said. “They love me. I called them up. They were all on the call, laughing their asses off. And then we went and did some other crazy show.”