“But my question, Joey, is: are you a gangster?” Diane smiled, yet her gaze was intense.
Joey threw his head back and laughed.
“Diane, come on. Gimme a break, huh? I’m an actor, I’m an entrepreneur, a self-made man, but a gangster?” He shook his head. “But I get it, you know, because we’ve been doing this since the beginning. Adam blamed Eve, God blamed the Devil, and Americans blame gangsters: outlaws, the bad guys. Somebody so you can also say, “Hey at least I’m not that.” But at the same time, we still admire the bad guy. So it’s a love-hate relationship. We need to feel good about our own BS,” Joey surmised.
“So you’re simply society’s scapegoat?”
“The modern-day version of the horned one himself.”
“Well, aren’t you capitalizing by putting out a movie called The Purple Don during your trial?” Diane probed.
“That was totally the decision of the studio,” Joey replied, but leaving out the fact that he was part owner of the studio.
“Tell me, Joey, if you weren’t an actor, what would Joey Diamanti be? Who would Joey Diamanti be?”
Joey shrugged nonchalantly and replied, “A plumber.”
“A plumber? Why a plumber?”
He smiled, devilishly and answered, “I like to lay the pipe.”