'About My Father' Director Laura Terruso Tells Outlandish Story of Tricking Dog to Sniff Robert De Niro's Crotch (Exclusive)

About My Father is a heartwarming and hilarious comedy movie about the importance of family, even when they make it hard to love them. The film is directed by Laura Terruso and stars stand-up comedian Sebastian Maniscalco as a fictional version of himself introducing his father to his girlfriend's family. Notably, iconic actor Robert De Niro portrays Maniscalco's dad, Salvo.

The rest of the cast is rounded out by Leslie Bibb as Ellie, Maniscalco's girlfriend; Kim Cattrall as Ellie's mom, Tigger; David Rasche as Ellie's dad, Bill; Anders Holm as Ellie's brother Lucky; and Brett Dier as Ellie's other brother, Doug. PopCulture.com had a chance to chat with Terruso about the film, and she dished on what it was like to film, as well as how they got De Niro on board for the project. She also shared a hilarious story of how Rache offered up a pretty outlandish suggestion when the crew had a tough time convincing a dog to "sniff Robert De Niro's crotch" in one scene. Scroll down to read all about it!

PopCulture.com: One thing that I want to clarify with you is the story, the film, all that is sort of loosely based on Sebastian's real life, but it is not a true story from his life, correct?

Terruso: Correct. I mean, his wife's family does have a house in a country club environment in North Carolina and they do go down there and they have gone for 4th of July weekends. So, all of that is true. The kind of structure of the family is the same. I think the line starts at jet-booting. I don't think he ever actually showed his balls to his future in-laws.

PopCulture.com: That would be quite the bonding experience... The dynamic between Sebastian and Robert as father and son is just fantastic. I was curious if there were any specific moments maybe before production or during production, shooting a scene, where you recall seeing them together and thinking, "Oh wow, this is going to work."

Terruso: Well, the way it all happened was we sent Bob the script and then two days later I had the Zoom with him, and then we went to New York and we did a table read. This was during the height of Covid, so we were like all had to be tested before we went in. We were six feet apart at these separate tables, but Bob and Sebastian, their tables were next to each other, six feet apart. During the table read, I was just like, "This is going to work. This is really going to work," because I could just see the chemistry. You could feel it in the room.

Bob did a ton of research. We're kind of similar in that. I'm the same way in directing, where I over-prepare so that on the day, I can let it all go and just be in the moment and work from instinct. He met with Salvo, he talked with him on the phone multiple times. Salvo went down to Oklahoma to visit him on the set of Killers of the Flower Moon. It was so much prep. I did four hours of oral history interviews with Sebastian's father and sent them to Bob. It was during Covid quarantine, so we all had time.

We did just a ton of prep, and it was kind of astounding because on the first day of shooting, we did a table read before the first day of shooting, but we didn't have a rehearsal period or anything like that. Bob stepped on set and he was Salvo. It was surreal, and Sebastian was like, "This is the craziest thing I've ever experienced."

PopCulture.com: I saw that you filmed in Alabama...?

Terruso: Yeah, we filmed in Alabama during hurricane season. Must be noted because at one point during the shoot it rained every day. And, what happens on big movies... if there's a lightning strike within a three-mile radius, the entire production shuts down. The crew can't go to the trucks, everybody just stops work. So, there were days where we would lose six hours to lightning strikes and to rain and delays. 

At one point Sebastian was like, "What's going on?" And I'm like, "Another lightning strike." And he's like, "It's the curse of the peacock." We started to call it the Curse of the Pavona because peacocks are notoriously bad luck in Sicily, and so there's this peacock moment in the movie and we were like, "It's the curse of the peacock."

PopCulture.com: Darn peacocks. Are peacocks a difficult bird to work with? They seem like they would be real egotistical.

Terruso: You know, they don't take direction super well. You kind of get what you get. Our dog was that way too. We worked with this very, very big dog, and the dog had one job and it was to sniff Robert De Niro's crotch and it could not do it. At one point David Rasche was like, "Put some dog food in your pants." And Bob was like, "I'm not doing that." So we ended up finding our way around it, but the animals there don't want to be tamed. Alabama animals just will not be tamed.

PopCulture.com: Been there several times and I can attest to that.

Terruso: Oh, it's wet... I googled "rainiest city in America." This was week two after we'd blown out all our rain cover days, in two weeks and, sure enough, Mobile, Alabama popped up on the screen and I'm like, "Are you f—ing kidding me?"

PopCulture.com: Another dynamic that I really like is with Robert and Kim, and I love how the story in this doesn't do the sort of trope-y like "Dad v Dad" when the families meet. It's more the kind of Dad v Mom and they have this interesting rapport and back and forth. I noticed that, I thought that was really cool, and I wanted to get your insight.

Terruso: Yeah, I mean that dynamic was in the very first draft of the script that I read and I absolutely loved it, also. I thought it was so fresh and so fun. Kim is just such a incredible comedic actress. She's grounded, but she's so funny and she's not afraid to take risks and have bigger moments and I can't imagine anyone else playing this role, because she was so good and so believable and so authentic.

She and Bob just had so much fun together. So, there's a scene where they kind of bond and smoke cigars and every smoke ring was real. There was no AI involved. It was all natural. Kim could blow a smoke ring through Bob's smoke ring. I mean, it was just unreal.

About My Father is now playing in theaters.