Pete Davidson is primarily known as the stoner dude on “Saturday Night Live” who is frequently engaged in a severely high-profile relationship (Ariana Grande, anyone?).
Most casual fans of the comedian also know his heartrending backstory — that his father Scott, a New York City firefighter, died during the 9/11 terrorist attacks when Pete was 7.
Davidson’s struggle with depression and substance abuse is a topic he often references for a self-deprecating laugh, but his wounded spirit is always just below the surface.
On Friday, Davidson, 26, leaps to, well, not quite the big screen with movie theaters still shuttered around the country, but the big league of cinema with “The King of Staten Island,” a fictionalized autobiography that he co-wrote with director Judd Apatow and comedian/writer Dave Sirus. (The movie is available on streaming platforms including Amazon Prime, Apple TV and Xfinity.)
Davidson’s character, Scott (in a nod to his dad), is a hopeful tattoo artist living with his mom, Margie (Marisa Tomei), who hasn’t dated since the death of her firefighter husband. When she meets Ray (Bill Burr), also a firefighter, it forces Scott to confront the concept of moving on.
With his shambolic charm, gangly limbs and gummy smile, Davidson is an appealing presence with an obvious sweetness despite his slacker-ness.
Apatow recently participated in a virtual roundtable of interviews from his California office (“I’m reading some of my self-help books I have around here,” he joked) to discuss working with Davidson on the movie and the catharsis it created for his star, whom he first cast in a cameo in the 2015 Amy Schumer vehicle, “Trainwreck.”
On what first attracted him to wanting to work with Davidson on a bigger scale:
I’m a fan of comedy, and every once in a while, I’d meet somebody and think I wish they had a movie or I’d love to collaborate. I felt that way about Amy just from hearing her on Howard Stern’s show. She seemed to have a great story and personality. With Pete, he is one of those people when you meet him — I met him when he was 20 — you think, I think that’s the next guy. Sometimes it takes years between that feeling… Pete is a big-hearted person. He’s ridiculously funny. There’s something fascinating about him because you do sense that he’s going through something, and you want to know what it is, and you root for him.
Quietly, he’s a real artist who’s not afraid to go to difficult places to make this movie. He did something on his first movie that most people don’t try until, like, their 12th movie, and it was a remarkable achievement that he was willing to go through this process so fearlessly. He gives up a lot of himself on screen; there are moments that are very real. He’s living it. It’s a real gift to offer up this fictionalized version of his story. It really connects with people.
On the movie acting as a catharsis for Davidson:
I think it was. Most of us when we have issues we go to therapy and talk about it for years and years and years, but when you put it through the filter of creativity and you create fiction out of it and look at it from every character’s point of view, it makes it more understandable and hopefully releases some of the stuff that might be stuck. I definitely was nervous about making the movie. I didn’t want to put Pete through something that was painful for him, but he was very brave about facing everything directly, and the days we had emotional scenes, we talked about it weeks in advance… In some ways, those scenes are a little more documentary than they are fiction, and he allowed himself to be very vulnerable, and I think that’s why his performance is so strong.
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On paying tribute to Davidson’s family:
For us, it was important to show Pete and his father when the credits started to remind you that what you just saw is a tribute to his father and to his mother, who sacrificed so much to take care of him. That’s why Pete wanted to make the movie.
MOVIE NEWS
“The King of Staten Island” (R, 137 minutes).
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