You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover—nor Chazz Palminteri by his mug—unless you don’t mind being dead wrong. You may not recognize the name, but you definitely know the face of the talented character actor. Best known for playing tough guys on both sides of the law, he has portrayed a mob boss, gangster, pool hustler, assassin, and cop in movies like “A Bronx Tale,” Woody Allen’s “Bullets Over Broadway,” which earned Chazz an Academy Award nomination, “The Usual Suspects,” “Analyze This,” and even “Stuart Little,” in which he played Smokey, the chief alley cat of the ’hood.

But make no mistake, behind the tough demeanor lurks a pussycat. This is a man with great sensitivity who cherishes his family, embraces spirituality, is passionate about his work and is grateful for his life.

Born in the Bronx where people with names like Jimmy Whispers, Eddie Mush, JoJo the Whale, and Tony Toupee hung out, Chazz witnessed a murder when he was nine years old that eventually became the impetus for the play and subsequent movie, “A Bronx Tale,” in which Robert De Niro made his directorial debut.

Chazz recently wowed audiences when he brought the revival of that one-man show to The Venetian for an extended run.

Tough guy? Wise guy? How about nice guy! During these challenging times, when people are searching for the true gifts of the holiday season, Chazz Palminteri is a shinning example of someone who worked hard to turn lemons into a delicious, sparkling cider. Buon Natate!

Marsala Rypka: What three words best describe you?

Chazz Palminteri: Spiritual, discipline, respect.

MR: Name something people would be surprised to learn about you.

CP: That I’m very spiritual. I’m Catholic. I believe in God. I study the bible like I read any other book. I believe we are all put on this planet for a reason, to reach our maximum potential. It doesn’t matter if someone’s an artist or someone who cuts grass; if you went to college or you come from the streets; God gives people gifts. But when you receive it, you have to use it to the fullest potential. There’s a saying, ‘When God hands you a gift, he also hands you a whip,’ which means you have a responsibility to do something with it.

MR: What three people have had the greatest influence on your life?

CP: My mom who’s 89. She was a wonderful artist. When I was growing up, the school I went to, Our Lady of Mount Carmel, commissioned my mother to draw murals in colored chalk on the blackboard. I still remember one she did of Chinese farmers in the rice fields. It was exquisite. And my dad, who was a bus driver, was a great singer. They were both talented, but they never did anything with it. They grew up after the Depression and they worked hard to support their family. I grew up on 187th Street and Belmont Avenue in the Bronx, a wonderful Italian neighborhood where violence could happen at any time. When I was nine years old, I saw a man kill someone right in front of me. Years later when I was 17, we moved to a better neighborhood in the Bronx.

From the time I was little, my parents told me I was going to be a star and be famous. Starting when I was about 12 years old, I would imitate movie actors or the wise guys on the corner and everyone would laugh and say, ‘Do it again.’ I knew I wanted to act and write. I had things inside me to say and my parents encouraged me. They said, ‘That’s great, that’s a wonderful idea. Dreams are what you shoot for.’ My dad also explained that you could have a gift, but it was no good if you didn’t have discipline. He would say, ‘Chazz, there are many talented people who never make it.’ That was a very rare attitude for Italian-American parents of that generation to have. I guess they saw in me what they wanted for themselves.

When I got older and was a struggling actor, I lived in an apartment on the ground floor and my parents lived in the apartment upstairs. I worked as a doorman at night and I went on auditions during the day. Whenever I needed money, I would write on an index card ‘Dear Dad, I need $20 for gas,’ and leave it upstairs. In the morning I would find the money under my door. After about four months, I started getting acting parts and I didn’t need the money anymore. Fast-forward 25 years. I get nominated for an Academy Award for “Bullets Over Broadway,” and I invite my parents to walk the red carpet with me, which was incredible for all of us. We were ready to get into the limo and my dad is fixing the bow tie on my tuxedo and he says, ‘I have something for you.’ He puts his hand in his pocket and takes out an envelope. He and my mother are smiling. I open the envelope and I see this stack of index cards. ‘What the hell is this?’ I ask. Then, ‘Hey that’s my handwriting.’ My father says, ‘You don’t remember? These are the cards you wrote when you were broke. Me and your mother saved them because we knew this day would come.’ Imagine, they saved them 25 years earlier, knowing I would be successful one day. That’s how much they believed in me and that’s what keeps me going.

And third would have to be Robert De Niro.

MR: What are you passionate about?

CP: Besides my family, I’d have to say my work. You can’t do a one-man show like this (“A Bronx Tale”) without being passionate. There was a great fighter by the name of Billy Bello. My dad said, ‘You see all the talent Billy Bello had? Well he blew it son. The saddest thing in life is wasted talent. You’ve got to remember that.’ That night he wrote that on an index card and pinned it on the mirror in my room. That has stayed with me my whole life.

I brought that card with me to L.A. in 1986. I was 35 years old and a respected actor in New York, but I was trying to break into the film business and it was very difficult. I did guest roles on shows like “Hill Street Blues,” “Matlock” and “Dallas” but I was running out of money. One day I sat down and said, ‘What the hell am I going to do?’ and I contemplated going back to New York.

I ended up getting a job as a doorman at a nightclub because I used to box and I could take care of myself. I worked there for three months living paycheck to paycheck. It was hard. After three months the owner came to me and said, ‘Chazz, I really like you and wish I could keep you on, but I have to fire you because I have a rule that I don’t let guys work for me too long because they get too chummy with people and let them in for free.’ So I got in my shitty car, and drove back to my shitty apartment in Studio City. I was about to book a flight home when I saw my dad’s card on my mirror and I said, ‘I’m not going to give up. If they won’t give me a great part, I’ll write one myself.’ I went to the drugstore, got notepaper, came back and said, ‘Okay, what am I going to write about?’ The killing that happened when I was nine. I never forgot about that. I belonged to a theater company at the time called Theater West and I wrote a ten-minute piece about it that I performed for them. They were blown away. During the week I would write another 10 or 15 minutes and perform it for them on Monday nights. I taped every performance which I would watch, rewrite and edit. This went on for almost a year. I had to borrow money from my friends to live. After a year, I had 90 minutes of this rocketship.

A friend lent me the money to produce “A Bronx Tale” in a 60-seat theatre. The reviews were phenomenal. No one had ever done a one-man show like that. When someone does a one-man show, they talk, they stop, they take a drink of water. I did 18 characters, boom, boom, boom and never took a sip of water. I hypnotized the audiences. Crowds lined up around the block. Every writer, producer, director, and studio head came to see the show. Pacino and all these stars came. After three weeks we moved into a 350-seat theater and still there were lines around the block. It was the biggest talk in Hollywood since “Rocky.” A few weeks later a movie studio offered me $250,000. I told them I had two conditions. I had to write the screenplay and I wanted to play Sonny, the mob boss. They said they had their own writer and they wanted a big star to play Sonny.

I was torn because I wanted to help my parents financially. I called and told them I was offered $250,000, but I’d have to give up all my rights. They said, ‘Don’t worry about us, do what you have to do.’ I called the studio back and said, ‘No deal.’ I continued doing the play and there were still lines around the block. A week later the studio called back and offered me $500,000. ‘Do I play Sonny? Can I write the screenplay?’ They said, ‘No, you’re brilliant, but you’re not a star and you’re crazy if you turn it down.’

Then another studio was interested and they wanted to meet with me. By now I’d signed with the William Morris Agency and I walked in with two agents, one on each side. There were about 12 of us at the table. The studio head pushed a piece of paper in front of me that said $1 million! I asked if there was a men’s room around. I excused myself and walked into this big, expensive men’s room where I started hyperventilating. I washed my face and then I put my hand in my pocket and pulled out my father’s card. I looked in the mirror, put the card back in my pocket and said ‘f—k’ it. Then I went back into the meeting and said, ‘I will sign that piece of paper, but I have to play Sonny and I have to write the screenplay.’ The studio head couldn’t believe it. He said, ‘Then this movie will never get made.’ And I said, ‘Not with you, but it will get done. Sooner or later someone will believe in me.’

A week later Robert De Niro comes to see the show and I get a message afterwards that he wants to come backstage. Robert De Niro says, ‘Chazz, this show is incredible. I’m looking to direct my first movie and I want to do this. I know what’s going on with the studios. Everyone’s talking about it. But I want you to write it because it will be real and honest and you’ll be great as Sonny. If you shake my hand, that’s the way it will be.’ And that’s the way it was.

I feel like there was a higher power, some divine intervention involved because my father was the greatest man who lived and Robert De Niro, the greatest actor who ever lived, played my father in the movie.

MR: What is your greatest strength and your greatest weakness?

CP: My greatest strength is my perseverance. My

greatest weakness? That’s a pretty vulnerable question. I’d say that it’s difficult for me to relax and take it easy. I have tunnel vision. I have to make something happen at all costs. My focus gets so encompassing at the exclusion of everything else.

MR: Who would you trade places with for 24 hours?

CP: George Washington. To be the father of our country at that time in history, to be focused on fighting for our independence while everyone is saying we can’t win against England. I would have loved to be in his shoes. They wanted him to be the king and he said no, we’re going to be a democracy and vote. That’s the first time in history that a leader won a war and refused to be king.

MR: What is your most treasured material possession?

CP: The card my father gave me that said, ‘The saddest thing is wasted talent.’ I gave the same card to my son and I had other little cards printed with that saying that I sign and give to the kids who come to see the show. I ask them ‘How are you doing in school? You know you could do better.’ Lots of people have said ‘My son was on drugs and then he saw your movie and it really turned him around.’ I’ve made over 60 movies, but all over the world, in Europe and Japan, they talk about “A Bronx Tale.”

I go to juvenile prisons to talk with kids. One time I talked with these kids in a Maryland prison and afterwards the guards said it was a shame I hadn’t talked with David, a 16-year-old who was in solitary confinement after a second attempted-murder charge. I wanted to see him. I walked into the cell and asked the guards to leave us alone. He was tough in the beginning. I told him about my life and what happened and I handed him a card. I asked if there was anything he had ever dreamed of doing. Finally he said, he liked to draw and he’d wanted to be an artist. I hugged him and asked the guard to give him some paper. Two weeks later the warden sent me an email saying that David drew a picture that he put up on the wall in his cell along with my card. It’s gratifying to feel somehow you made a difference.

MR: What is your greatest extravagance?

CP: My home in Westchester. I grew up in the Bronx and I always dreamed of living in the country where I could have a lot of land with lots of trees. A true story. In 1999 I was going to buy a whole floor in an apartment building a block away from the World Trade Center. We’re just about to close the deal and my wife, Gianna, and I were outside and I looked up and saw the Twin Towers. They had tried to bomb it in 1993 and I said, ‘What happens if this thing falls down on us?’ My wife said, ‘You’re crazy.’ I said, ‘Please, I’ll build you a castle in the country instead,’ which I did. A year later it all came down. That’s why I’m so spiritual.

Speaking of my wife, I knew from the time I was a young boy that I was going to marry a girl named Maria. I loved “West Side Story” and I just knew it. I didn’t get married until Iwas around 39 years old so I had this thought for years. Anyway I’m at church in L.A. one Sunday and this girl walks in and we smile at each other. I went home thinking I hope I see her at the same Mass next Sunday. During the week my friend calls and says I have to come to this nightclub. As soon as I walk in, I see the girl from church. I was just coming in and she was just leaving. We started dating and after a few months I tell her that I always thought I would marry a girl named Maria. ‘I guess it’s not true, because I’m going to marry you and your name is Gianna.’ She smiles and says she was born Maria Gianna Ranaudo. Isn’t that something? We have a son, Dante, named after Dante Alighieri who wrote “The Divine Comedy,” and a daughter, Gabriella, whose birthday is Christmas day.

MR: What five people would you invite to a dinner party?

CP: Jesus, because I want to know, ‘Are you just a prophet or the son of God? Let’s end it right now. What’s the deal?’ and he would laugh. I’d also want the devil at the table. One can’t be there without the other.

Rudolf Steiner, one of the great philosophers and social thinkers of this world. I read a lot of his work. He said that suffering is good and through suffering comes joy. Jesus said, ‘It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.’

Abraham Lincoln. They didn’t have speechwriters back then and the Gettysburg Address is amazing. I feel strongly about all men being created equal. Racism is a horrible thing. You’re not born a racist, you’re taught to be one. It’s passed down from one generation to the next. And here’s this man who freed the slaves.

And Anne Frank who spent so much of her young life in hiding. I’d love to talk with her and Lincoln about discrimination and have Jesus and the devil and Steiner there.

MR: What important life lesson have you learned?

CP: Family is everything. At the end of your life, it’s all about the people you loved and who loved you. Fame is fleeting. The only things you leave behind are your children, your work and how people feel about you. My dad said the most important thing is to be a good father. A father is an example to his children. We’re too caught up making sure our kid is a great tennis player or goes to Harvard. How about teaching him to have good morals and let him be what he wants to be. He said there are only two kinds of people in the world: the givers and the takers. The takers eat better, but the givers sleep better. My father was a bus driver and he was offered the chance to earn an extra $150 a week, which was a fortune in the 1950s. All he had to do was take the numbers the bookies gave him and drop them off at the end of his bus route. He wouldn’t do it. He didn’t want to lose his pension. He made the right decision. He retired at 65 and lived off of that pension till he was 89.

MR: In 1989 you wrote and performed “A Bronx Tale” as a one-man show off-Broadway and the movie version which De Niro directed came out in 1993. In 2008 you resurrected your one-man show for Broadway and most recently you performed it at The Venetian. What brought about the revival?

CP: I was offered a part in a movie called “Yonkers Joe” which was produced by John Gaughan (Michael Gaughan’s son), and Trent and Matt Othick, who are all partners in GO Productions here in Las Vegas. When we met, they said, ‘Everyone loves the movie, “A Bronx Tale,”’ and I said, ‘You should see the one-man show. I’ve been thinking about doing it again on Broadway, but you know how long it takes angels (financial backers) to bring shows to Broadway?’ And they said ‘Count us in.’ Six weeks later I was on Broadway. Those guys believed in me. I did the show for four months, then I did a film, then I went back and did the national tour. I’d wanted to play Las Vegas for years, but I was told it wouldn’t work, that Vegas wasn’t a theater town. I said, ‘You watch.’ After the national tour, we brought it here and they ended up extending the run at The Venetian.

MR: What’s your biggest regret?

CP: I don’t have many regrets; I try to live my life in the right way. My dad lived to see me be famous for 20 years and he became best friends with De Niro. But he loved Sinatra and the Rat Pack and I regret that he didn’t see me perform in Vegas because he would have gotten a kick out of it.

My dad got sick while I was doing “A Bronx Tale” on Broadway. He was 89 and had been in great health until he was diagnosed with colon cancer. The operation went well and I told him he was going to be alright, but once he heard the word cancer he got scared. I was doing eight shows a week and I’d fly down to Boca every week and spend Mondays with him and then come back and do another eight shows. It was a brutal schedule. The run was supposed to last three months, but they held it over an extra month. I told the producers that if my dad passed away, I would have to close the show early. The very day after the show closed, I went to see my father who had developed pneumonia. He looked at me, smiled and passed away. Isn’t that incredible? He supported me till the very end.

MR: What are you working on next?

CP: I’m about to begin writing a movie script called “Wall Street Mafia” based on a true story about a young executive who goes from Brooklyn to Wall Street and finds himself in the middle of the FBI’s investigation into the Mafia’s involvement in Wall Street and the world of finance during the mid-1990s.

MR: You’ve performed on screen and stage. Which do you prefer?

CP: I love both, but I started on the stage and my heart is always on the stage. Some of the plays I’ve written like “Faithful, which is about infidelity, have been translated into 15 languages. I also wrote the screenplay for “Faithful” and Cher starred in the movie with me.

MR: Is there any particular cause you support?

CP: Gianna and I started the Child Reach Foundation, which raises money for research for pediatric blood diseases such as Thalassemia. www.childreachfoundation.org

MR: Do you have any new year’s resolutions?

CP: Take more vacations.

MR: In 2004 you acted in and directed the holiday film “Noel” starring Penelope Cruz, Susan Sarandon, and Alan Arkin about five New Yorkers who come together on Christmas Eve seeking a miracle. What was the message of that movie?

CP: Be grateful for the life you have because there’s happiness all around you. Too many people aren’t grateful. If you focus on the things you have, you’ll have enough. If you focus on what you don’t have, you’ll never have enough. Every day I try and come up with five things I’m grateful for.