Danny DeVito revealed he almost took legal action over an outrageous “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” prank on set.
The actor, who stars as Frank Reynolds on the FX comedy, fell victim to an April Fool’s Day joke gone too far. DeVito, 80, was given a script that was never intended to be made, and the rest is history.
He told the Hollywood Reporter, “I was abused in this show to the point of, I can’t even tell you. Midway through, I said, ‘I’m not going to do this. There’s no way I can do this. This is really crazy.’ Long story short, the last line in the script, there are cops all around me with nightsticks, and they’re all going to have their way with me in a jail.
“I say, ‘I’m leaving,’ and the cop says, ‘You’re not going to leave without saying goodbye, are you, Frank?’ he recalls before realizing this is an elaborate prank.
He continued, “And they all get their nightsticks in their hand, I get thrown down on the ground and I’m on my stomach and the guy leans down into my ear, and he says, ‘April Fools motherf*****,’ (laughs) and I realized at that time that they had me totally wrapped around their little finger,” DeVito said. “I seriously was going to call my lawyer [and say], ‘Lawsuit, no way!’”
Looking back, DeVito said he could see the humor in the joke, but he got his revenge on the cast later. During a press run at Upfronts in Washington, the “Matilda” alum “got ‘em back.”
“It was a big hotel packed with TV people,” he explained. “I got there early, and we all had rooms that FX had given us on our own, so I talked to the manager, and I said, ‘Look, don’t give them their rooms. Give me a small room with one bedroom and get me a bunch of cots and tell them that the place is filled.’ The guy did it, and he played it to the hilt.”
DeVito says he watched the prank unfold while hiding “in the closet” watching it all unfold.
He added, “They were all in the room, and I was in a closet with a bottle of tequila and glasses watching them react to the fact that this guy is telling them there’s no room in this hotel and this is the room that FX booked for them, and they all had to sleep together on cots. Rob [Mac] got on the phone. He was going to call the big shots, and then I came out of the closet. I had ’em good.”