Becoming Ricky Roma: Joe Mantegna on Originating the Cutthroat Charmer of Glengarry Glen Ross

A little over four decades ago, theater audiences first met Richard Roma, the strutting, soliloquizing top-dog salesman of David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross. In the hands of the actor Joe Mantegna, Roma was a masterclass in wily seduction, wielding a silver tongue that could captivate as well as eviscerate.

Mamet went on to win the 1984 Pulitzer Prize for Drama while Mantegna took home the Tony Award for his performance. In the coming years, Roma would be played on film by Al Pacino and on stage by Liev Schreiber (who also won a Tony for his efforts) and Bobby Cannavale. In the latest revival at the Palace Theatre, recent Academy Award winner Kieran Culkin steps into Roma's sharply tailored suit.

After Glengarry, Mantegna went on to have a prolific acting career in film and television, notably starring as David Rossi on Criminal Minds and voicing Fat Tony on The Simpsons. For many, though, his turn as Ricky Roma remains his defining triumph.

Speaking recently with Broadway.com from his home in Los Angeles, the actor reflected on the process of finding the character of Roma, words as weapons and Armani as armor, and the way the character has endured.

Joe, I understand that, right before Glengarry Glen Ross changed your life, you were just making ends meet.

I was making ends meet—but just barely. I would get a job, then I would go on unemployment.

Then I got a phone call from my dear friend, David Mamet, who I had worked with in Chicago. "Hey, I got this new play called Glengarry Glen Ross." So I read the play. Now, I had never lived in a house in my life. My father never had the finances to purchase a house. We always lived in apartments. So when I read the script for Glengarry, I didn't understand a lot of it because it was about the world of real estate and leads and all that. I didn't know what the hell it was about. I had to call some friends who understood real estate. I said, "Will you explain to me what the hell a ‘lead’ is?"

What were your first impressions of Ricky Roma?

I pegged him as the bad guy. But then once we went into rehearsals, they brought in all these salespeople to talk to us, to give us a quick study of what it’s like to be in sales. They brought in a Fuller Brush lady. She would go door to door and try to sell you a brush or sell you makeup or whatever. And she did a little improv on stage with us. I realized, this is the kind of salesperson I'm looking for. This woman who, within a minute, you realized, "I gotta buy something from her!" No matter what excuse you had, she had some way to turn you around. She was a master of salesmanship.

All of a sudden, I started to think about Ricky Roma totally differently. In his head, he’s heroic. He’s doing them a favor. If they don’t see the wisdom of what he’s offering, then so be it.

I went and watched the show on tape at the library at Lincoln Center yesterday.

I've never seen the video. Someday in New York, I'm going to have to do that.

You should. Your hair looked great, by the way.

When we got there for the first day of rehearsals, my look was very different. I'd also been in a rock band up until 1969. I had long hair and a full beard.

So, when I came for the first day of rehearsals for Glengarry, especially since I was the young guy in the cast, you had guys like Bob Prosky and Jim Tolkan and all of them—real veterans—they all looked at me like, "This guy's going to play Ricky Roma? He looks like he should be in the Grateful Dead or something."

But I think once I shaved and cleaned up my act, started wearing the clothes of the character, they realized, "Oh, OK."

It’s funny you mention having been in a band. Ricky Roma is kind of a rock star.

Absolutely. When I dressed in my dressing room every night, I felt like I was a matador putting on the suit of lights. Because, first of all, it wasn’t a cheap wardrobe trying to look expensive. They had me wearing a $2,000 Armani suit.

Did you have a $2,000 suit in your real life at that point?

Oh, hell no. I'm lucky if I had a $200 suit in my real life. So every night I would put on this suit. I put the shirt and the tie, and I put on a little pinky ring. And I put on all the accoutrements that Ricky Roma would have to be the kind of salesman he was.

I would get my haircut and a razor cut at Mamet's barber in New York. I would go to a tanning parlor probably once every month just to get a little color in my face. Ricky runs down to Florida every few months because he can. He makes enough money to do that.

You also wore a gold bracelet with Ricky's name engraved on it.

I still have that stashed somewhere. I have the pinky ring that Ricky wore, too.

Roma gets the lion's share of the profanities in the play.

Oh, yeah.

You must have gotten a kick out of that.

I remember specifically one Wednesday matinee. Of course, on the Wednesday matinees you get an older audience. In the second act, I say to Williamson, “You stupid f**king c**t.” When I said that line, I heard a man yell, "That's it!" And with my peripheral vision, I could see that this guy and three women, and they're all elderly, work their way out of the seats and out of the theater. The house manager’s theory was that because it was called Glengarry Glen Ross there were audiences who thought it was a play about the Scottish Highlands. 

Ah, that's good.

There was a joke going around New York at that time. There’s this guy begging on the street. He says, "Please, sir, you have any loose change?" And then the guy looks at the beggar and says, “‘Neither a borrower nor a lender be.’ William Shakespeare.” And the beggar goes, “‘Yeah, go fuck yourself.’ David Mamet." [Laughs] It was a very popular joke at the time. You gotta understand, in '84, there wasn't a lot of that kind of language flying around on stage. Mamet broke some new ground.

Roma's also a philosopher. It's one hell of an opening speech.

I went up on that speech.

Really?

Yeah. On opening night in Chicago. The stage manager's yelling me the lines. I finally got through it. But I think I cut out about a minute of it. I was devastated. I remember Mamet coming backstage and hugging me, saying, “Joe, it's OK.”

In the second act, I was so pissed at myself. I mean, I think I knocked a minute off the show just by my energy. And so I worked on that thing. I wrote it out in longhand. It’s difficult because it's nonsensical in many ways. It’s stream of consciousness. 

It’s like he’s disorienting his prey.

It’s Ricky weaving this web. And then all of a sudden—bang!

I really worked on it. And then I remember it was one of the previews in New York when I got through it, and when I got to the point that I say, "Hi, my name is Ricky Roma. What's yours?" there was this roar of laughter and applause from the audience. And from that point on, I felt in pretty excellent command of that speech and that moment.

It’s obvious watching the tape that you had the audience in the palm of your hand.

Guys would come backstage, guys who were running big corporations, and offer me sales jobs. Wanting me to head up their whole sales division. “Hey, man, we could use you in our office!”

I had to laugh. I'd say, "Yeah, no, no, no, no. I played this guy. I am not this guy."

That's amazing.

“No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You guys are mixing life with theater here.”

But there has to be that charming aspect of him. It has to be that guy that you feel like, "I trust him."

When did you realize it was a great role?

I'll never forget James Tolkan, God bless him, coming up to me saying, “I hope you realize what this role is.” I didn't quite know how to answer. It really hadn't dawned on me just how important it all was, how great this role really was.

That's the beauty and skill of David's work. As you do it more and more and you become embodied with the character, you really feel [how great it is].

I never got bored with it. I mean, even when I did the last performance after doing a whole year on Broadway and touring for six months with Peter Falk, I never got bored. I could have gone on another year. I realized, I'm still getting stuff out of this. I'm still enjoying it. I loved to chew those words up every night.

Was it a character that lingered with you offstage?

Not much. I'm not a method actor. No, when I took the costume off and walked out of the theater, I was Joe again. I can put it down.

I was curious about your relationship with your co-stars. You say some vicious things to them.

Oh, yes. Yeah, no, we all loved each other. Look, we had won the Pulitzer Prize. We felt like we were “The Men of Glengarry.” It was like a football team or a baseball team, I guess is the best way to describe it. On a football team, maybe the offense may have some issues with the defense. But in essence, they're the same team. And when you win, you win. And we had won. We were winning. We were all very united. When I gave my speech at the Tony Awards, I am sure I acknowledged every single member of that cast.

You absolutely did. Did you see the movie? Have you seen any of the Broadway revivals?

The answer is no and no. I started to watch the movie. And then I realized I just really can't. It's got nothing to do with being subjective or me being critical of it or anything like that. I'm sure it was wonderful and everybody's performances, I'm sure they're great. But I couldn't divorce myself from the experience. I didn't want to alter that in my mind. You know what I mean?

Of course, yeah.

I want to live with the one I did.

I never got a shot at the film. But then Carol Channing never did Hello, Dolly! on film either. That's Broadway.

You did return to Glengarry in 2013 as an audio play, though. What was it like for you revisiting the character after 30 years?

I don't know what the word is for it, but it was like a very wonderful reminiscence, in a way. Like going back to your high school you haven't been to in 30 years. Walking around the halls and saying, "Oh, yeah, I remember this. Oh, I remember. Oh, yeah, yeah." Certain memories sprung back. And you start seeing the faces of the other guys you did it with back in the day.

And it's funny, as you well know, they're about to do the fourth production of it, I believe.

That's right.

I laughingly think of myself as Lee J. Cobb. Death of a Salesman opened with Dustin Hoffman while we were doing Glengarry. And I thought—I wonder what Lee J. Cobb and the original guys think of that?

Now I’m Lee J. Cobb.

Actors have reached out to ask you for advice about playing Ricky Roma. What do you tell them?

You have to see it through Ricky's eyes. Don’t ever think ill of your own character. Don’t play the result or the occupation—play what he believes in. Even a bank robber doesn’t see himself as a villain; he just thinks, "They have money, I need money—what’s wrong with that?"

All these years later, do you still think about Roma every now and then?

My wife and I still quote that line: "Never open your mouth until you know what the shot is."

I was going to ask you about that! The philosophy of Ricky Roma.

Absolutely. I mean, in life, sometimes your mouth gets ahead of your brain. And it can be very dangerous. You know what I mean?