But there was one experience that I had as a very young man that is the reason the film is set in a restaurant at all. Between my sophomore and junior years of college it was my dream to work and live in Manhattan. Luckily, through familial generosity and good old nepotism, I was able to secure a position in a midtown restaurant called Alfredo’s, the Original of Rome. My uncle Frank, my dad’s brother, had designed the interior of Alfredo’s and convinced the manager to give me a job, while my aunt Dora （my dad’s sister） and her husband, Bob, were kind enough to house me in their spare bedroom in their beautiful East Side apartment. I could not have been more fortunate or happier. So, at age nineteen, I started work at Alfredo’s as a busboy. But, because I spoke English or because I was a terrible busboy, or both, I was promoted to “bar boy” almost straightaway.
Alfredo’s did a huge lunch business, mostly for businessmen who worked in the area or tourists who wanted a taste of authentic Italian food. I say “authentic” because Alfredo’s was a sister restaurant to the Alfredo’s in Rome. The signature dish was, as you may have guessed, fettuccine Alfredo. This now-ubiquitous dish was created in 1907 by Alfredo di Lelio. It is basically fettuccine with butter and Parmigiano. Not basically; it actually is just that. But somehow, Alfredo’s version, with a bit more butter and Parmigiano, as well as the spectacle of preparing it tableside, the long strands of fettuccine glistening with the fats of the butter and cheese, turned it and him into a worldwide sensation.
Sometime in the late 1970s, whoever owned the name saw an opportunity to open in New York, and the establishment is still in existence today, making their eponymous dish according to the original recipe. However, over the years, in many restaurants, the sublimely simple combination of butter and cheese has been altered to satisfy American palates. Cream has crept its way in （unnecessary）， as well as chicken （yuck）， broccoli （why?）， and turkey （really? Fuck off）。 At any rate, fettucine Alfredo was basically all I ate for the entire summer, and as a college student, I thought it was just dandy.
Like most bartenders in most restaurants, at Alfredo’s one not only made the drinks but poured the wine and made espresso and cappuccino. For about three hours it was a nonstop frenzy of dispensing liquids from one vessel to another as well as restocking the glasses, ice, fruit, garnishes, coffee beans, milk, etc. And I absolutely loved it. I not only find cleaning and organizing satisfying and relaxing, but they allow me time to ruminate on such questions as how I might approach a certain role or whether anyone will ever hire me again. I was therefore in OCD heaven scouring a bar, organizing a stockroom, and getting paid for it to boot.
Two different chain-smoking bartenders trained me. The first was a very fast-talking Albanian who, like many of his countrymen, also spoke Italian. The other was an American ex-marine, ex–mercenary soldier, and ex-convict who had spent time in prison for murder. （I think he was eventually released because his crime was deemed self-defense, or something like that. But he did actually kill someone either way, which, at the time, I thought was terrifyingly cool. Needless to say, I was very careful not to anger him.） So the murderous mercenary and the silver-tongued Albanian took me under their nicotine-stained wings and patiently taught me how to become a very fluid, efficient bartender, a skill I hope to regain, and to this day I am forever in their debt.
Like many restaurants, Alfredo’s was a whirlwind of energy emanating from a cultural patchwork of employees. I must say, coming from the rather white suburbs of Westchester, it was a breath of fresh air to be a part of a place where the ethnic diversity of the staff rivaled that of the United Nations. Except for a couple of native New Yorkers, whose heritage I never came to know, the waiters were Greek, Egyptian, Italian, Albanian, Spanish, and Eastern European, while most of the kitchen and bus staff were either Puerto Rican or Dominican （including the busboy Cristiano, whose name and parts of his personality were used for the waiter/busboy character in Big Night, played by the too-talented Marc Anthony）。 As a young actor, I reveled in the variety of accents and the accidental poetry that occurred when one person had to translate what they were thinking in one language in order to express it in another.
I was also particularly fascinated by how a restaurant’s structure mirrored that of the theater. The kitchen was “backstage,” which, during a lunch or dinner rush, was its own mad biosphere filled with frantic humans barely controlling flames and blades. Simultaneously, the dining room was “onstage,” where some of the same humans, after walking through a swinging door, instantaneously became cool, calm, and collected, almost to the point of being benign. I have only ever witnessed this schizophrenic behavior, and of course exhibited it myself, while performing in the theater. It is as fascinating as it is disturbing, but in these venues it is not only normal but necessary.