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AARP The Magazine: Danny DeVito Opens Up about the Secret to His Success
The 81-year-old actor, director, and producer has cemented his legacy in Hollywood. But the wellspring of his success is more basic: family and friends
WASHINGTON—To most Americans, Danny DeVito is the outrageously funny TV characters he portrayed on Taxi (Louie De Palma) and still portrays on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (Frank Reynolds), and in films from Ruthless People to Get Shorty and Jumanji: The Next Level. But for most of his five-decades-long career, he has also been a successful director and a producer who fights for films he believes in—including the Quentin Tarantino classic Pulp Fiction — to steadily become a major Hollywood player.
In an exclusive interview with AARP The Magazine, the 81-year-old DeVito shares two pieces of advice that seem to define him. The first is for those starting out in Hollywood: “Make an impression. Walk in there and take over the room, and the rest is history.” The second is advice on living, no matter your age: “Do it with gentleness and extraordinary kindness.” Much of his success is down to smart, hard work and unrivaled comic timing. But the risk-taking, the confidence to take over the room, and the need to remain kind no matter what comes from a deep well: his relationships with family and friends. “Because of them,” he says. “I always had a feeling that no matter what I was doing, I could do it, no holds barred.”
The following are excerpts from AARP The Magazine’s August/September 2026 feature story with Danny DeVito. The issue is available in homes starting in August and online now at AARP.org/magazine.
On His “Very Open, Loose Childhood” Growing Up in Asbury Park, New Jersey:
DeVito remembers getting beaten up on the playground every so often—“I was the smallest, always” (due to a genetic condition, he topped out at 4 foot 10)—but he also had a great group of close friends. “I was smart enough to align myself with the people who could protect me. I still have buddies in Asbury Park. Nicky and Sal, a lot of guys are still around.”
On His Serendipitous Introduction to Acting: “I Started to Get Hooked”
After finishing high school, DeVito worked cutting hair at his older sister Angie’s beauty parlor. “I did that for three years. I wasn’t Vidal Sassoon, but I was pretty good, and I got along with women.” When he was around 19, Angie sent him to New York City to learn how to apply makeup. The instructor he settled on taught at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in the evenings, so she had him come there for private lessons. He wasn’t allowed into the building unless he enrolled at AADA, so he did, part-time. “I was just auditing classes,” he says. “But I started to get hooked.”
On His Enduring Friendship with Michael Douglas:
DeVito’s first paying role was in the play The Contrast in 1965. When he performed at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in Connecticut, he also helped build a new amphitheater on the property, and Michael Douglas was on the work crew. They bonded instantly.
“We had a lot of fun and then maintained our friendship over an incredibly long period of time,” says Douglas. “When I graduated from college and ended up in New York, he and I were roommates. He just was a special guy. And I think it was also that I was a little self-conscious in terms of being an early nepo baby, and he never treated me as a movie star’s son.”
On Meeting His Wife, Rhea Perlman:
De Vito was acting regularly in off-Broadway productions. One evening, a castmate’s friend, Rhea
Perlman, came to see their show. The three of them went out afterward. “We hit it off,” DeVito says. “We liked off-Broadway stuff. We went to movies all the time. We made little movies together—short films. We had a lot in common, and we fell in love. A nice Jewish girl from Brooklyn and an Italian from New Jersey: I cooked and she ate.” DeVito and Perlman separated in 2017, but are still married, and plan to remain so, in a sort of anti-War of the Roses, talking daily and getting together for meals. “We’re always over at her house,” DeVito tells AARP The Magazine. “We see the grandchildren together, that kind of stuff. So that’s a good relationship.”
On His First Big Break In “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” - Thanks to Michael Douglas:
A budding producer, Douglas took director Miloš Forman to see an off-Broadway production of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in which DeVito played Martini, a childlike mental patient given to vivid hallucinations. When it was time to choose the actors for the film version, “Danny was the first person cast,” says Douglas. “Miloš saw him and said, ‘Yah, we have Martini now.’”
On Aging in Hollywood: “The Older I Get, the Better I Get”
Two decades after the sitcom’s premiere, Season 18 of Sunny will soon be released (August 17). In addition, DeVito is returning to the big screen to reprise his role as the cantankerous Grandpa Eddie in Jumanji: Open World, due out on Christmas. “The older I get, the better I get for that part, so just bring it on,” says DeVito.
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About AARP
AARP is the nation's largest nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to empowering people 50 and older to choose how they live as they age. With a nationwide presence, AARP strengthens communities and advocates for what matters most to the 125 million Americans 50-plus and their families: health and financial security, and personal fulfillment. AARP also produces the nation's largest-circulation publications: AARP The Magazine and the AARP Bulletin. To learn more, visit aarp.org, aarp.org/espanol or follow @AARP, @AARPLatino and @AARPadvocates on social media.
