Mulberry Street was the beating heart of the Italian-American experience, but you don't find those gangsters now. I live with a bunch of yuppies and models.
As an Italian-American, I have a special responsibility to be sensitive to ethnic stereotypes.
Explain to me what Italian-American culture is. We've been here 100 years. Isn't Italian-American culture American culture? That's because we're so diverse, in terms of intermarriage.
I don't say, 'Francis Ford Coppola, what a wonderful Italian-American director.' I judge him based on his film, his craft, his art. That's the way I feel I should be dealt with in this industry.
If you're an actor from New York, and you're Italian-American, you grow up hoping Marty Scorsese knows your name at some point before you die.
I don't consider myself part of the Kennedy family. It's almost like a little point of honor. I'm a DiFalco at the end of the day. An Italian-American from upstate New York.
I'm very proud of being Italian-American, but people don't realize that the mafia is just this aberration. The real community is built on the working man, the guy who's the cop, the fireman, the truck driver, the bus driver.
In New York, if you go into an Italian-American neighbourhood, the code of the streets is respect and reputation.
Playing a positive role on a network television show, it was great. I took it as a responsibility. Poncherello was supposed to be Poncherelli, and then when I got this part I said, 'You know what, this guy isn't going to be Italian-American, he's gonna be Hispanic American.' And they went with it.