Thursday night Vincent D’Onofrio told Seth Meyers about a mistake that almost cost him his career.
D’Onofrio was working the floor at the Hard Rock Cafe on 57th Street in New York when a chance encounter set his career on a different trajectory. His friend Matthew Modine, on hiatus from a film shoot, walked past with his wife. When D’Onofrio asked what he was working on, Modine told him it was a Stanley Kubrick movie, and passed along an address where hopefuls were sending materials.
D’Onofrio, who had a theater agent but no film representation, scraped together about $60 with a friend, rented a camera, and sat on a stoop at 10th Avenue and 21st Street to record a monologue. A film student at NYU edited the tape. D’Onofrio mailed it in, expecting nothing.
About a week later, the phone rang. The voice on the other end claimed to be calling on behalf of Stanley Kubrick. D’Onofrio assumed it was one of his friends, off-duty firefighters and cops who worked second jobs and regularly gave him grief about wanting to be an actor. He hung up.
They called back immediately. ‘Don’t hang up!’ said Leon Vitali, Kubrick’s right-hand man. ‘Stanley Kubrick wants to talk to you.’
D’Onofrio’s mistake was understandable. He told Meyers he had assumed Kubrick was British. He didn’t know the director was from the Bronx.
The role was Private Leonard ‘Pyle’ in Full Metal Jacket, and landing it required D’Onofrio to gain 80 pounds, going from roughly 210 to 290. He was also permitted to sit with Kubrick during the filming of Vietnam sequences before his own scenes began, which he said, was a front-row education in how the notoriously exacting director worked. Kubrick communicated to actors via megaphone from 40 feet away, D’Onofrio recalled, and was known to push well past the takes most directors would consider sufficient. The most D’Onofrio personally did was nine, for a scene called ‘The Blanket Party.’ He said he witnessed other actors pushed to around 60.
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Forty years later, D’Onofrio is back as Wilson Fisk, a.k.a ‘Kingpin,’ in season two of Daredevil: Born Again, now airing Tuesdays on Disney+. He no longer gains weight for the role. Instead he wears a fat suit, and has been open about finding it miserable. He noted that Colin Farrell, who wore a similar suit for The Penguin, became a friend partly through that shared grievance.
For the boxing scenes this season, D’Onofrio wanted Kingpin’s arms and shoulders visible, which meant training hard enough that his upper body looked proportional to the suit. The result is on screen.
D’Onofrio’s journey from a stoop on 10th Avenue to the undisputed crime lord of New York has certainly had its ups and downs (if you’ll pardon the pun). But it was well worth it.
This story was originally published by Parade on Mar 27, 2026, where it first appeared in the News section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
