LOS ANGELES — In late July 2014, Danny DeVito started trending on social media after a few people snapped shots of him walking around Manhattan with a dachshund wearing a yellow polka dot dress. The dachshund was in the dress, not DeVito, but it was still quite a sight.
He later explained to Jimmy Fallon that it was in fact for a movie, indie auteur Todd Solondz’s “Wiener-Dog ,” which hits theaters in limited release Friday. Let’s just say that the joy of that image takes on a vastly different tone in the actual film, where DeVito plays a sad sack screenwriting professor whose life is a series of escalating disappointments. It’s one of the vignettes in the film, which chronicle the pup’s time with different owners (the others are Julie Delpy and Tracy Letts, Greta Gerwig and Ellen Burstyn).
DeVito, 71, is seated in his trailer on the Fox Studios lot where he’s filming season 12 of the FXX comedy “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.” He’s had the trailer for 20-some years — it’s his second and it’s a reminder of the stark contrast between a well-oiled sitcom and an indie.
“It was a ‘no budget film.’ It wasn’t even a low budget film. There was no money. I’m used to ... I mean, look at where I am,” he says gesturing to the lived-in trailer that’s easily as big as an apartment. “This is where I go between takes. I have a bathroom. I have a bedroom ... On ‘Wiener-Dog,’ we peed in bodegas.”
