The Goons in ‘The Goonies’: Joe Pantoliano and Robert Davi Share Their Best Pranks and Memories from Playing the Fratelli Brothers

Forty years ago this month, one of the biggest movies of the 1980s arrived in theaters. A coming-of-age story of kids on a search for buried treasure, The Goonies captured audiences at the time with its whimsy and imagination — and it continues to find new fans to this day. 

But the movie isn’t just about the kids. In competition for the buried treasure is the Fratelli family: the surly, face-slapping Mama Fratelli (Anne Ramsey) and her two idiot ne’er-do-well sons, Jake and Francis Fratelli (Robert Davi and Joe Patoliano). Together, the trio delivered some of the movie’s biggest laughs, while also adding a looming danger to the already harrowing tale. 

Ramsey ed only a few years after Richard Donner and, of course, each other.

To get started, I’d love to hear how you two got teamed up for Goonies.

Robert Davi: Goonies wasn’t even on my radar. I was signed on to do Rambo: First Blood Part II, and then my agent called one day and said that Donner and Spielberg were doing a film for Warner Bros. and they wanted to meet with me. I said, “Great, but I’m doing Rambo.” They said, “Well, we can work out the dates.” I asked, “What’s the film?” They said, “Goonies.” I go, “What the hell is a goony? I'm a Rambo kind of guy, not a goony kind of guy.” Anyway, at the time, no one knew what Goonies was, but I went in for the meeting and they paired me with Joey.

Joe Pantoliano: They were interviewing actors to play brothers, and it was Davi and me. We had worked together on several projects prior, and we had a repartee that was very ball break-y and that’s what we did. He tried to sabotage me a little bit during the course of the interview. He said, “Joey’s wearing a toupee,” so I tore it off my head and I said, “Yeah, and if you want me to be younger, I can do this,” and I lowered it really low. “Or older,” and I pulled it back so that it was more forehead. “Or bald! I come in three sizes!” I think that’s what won us both the part. 

We were always arguing. We were always fighting with each other off-camera. Donner and Spielberg just left it in the movie. He nailed my dressing room doors shut once while I was in there.

Davi: Well, he was upset because I had a parking space next to Steven Spielberg’s at Warner Bros., so he took my name off my space and that then provoked me to nail his dressing room door shut.

It always astounds me that Steven Spielberg was the second unit director of The Goonies. 

Pantoliano: It was an enormous lesson for me about the collaboration that goes into making a movie.There was a big necessity because they had a release date, and this was a big picture. We had four units. We had Spielberg's unit, Donner's unit — Spielberg was doing a lot of the Fratelli stuff, and Donner was doing all the kids stuff. Frank Marshall had a unit, and then you had ILM doing the special effects. As I recall, toward the end, we were shooting on five separate stages. It’s the only movie I ever worked on where we were doing looping while we were shooting. The Fratellis had 16 days of night looping; the entire movie had to be re-voiced because of all the water machines.

The movie opens with the two of you and Anne Ramsey with the prison break sequence. Is there anything that comes to mind about it?

Pantoliano: Carey Loftin was a famous car driver — he did the chase scene in Bullitt — and he was in his 70s when they dressed him up as Mama Fratelli, putting a mama wig and beret on his head. The camera was in the back of that Jeep Cherokee and Davi was sitting in the back and I was sitting next to Mama. This guy was doing 90 miles an hour and I was screaming, and Davi didn’t say a word. It was just so frightening. Davi was paralyzed, and I was just screaming for my life.

What was Donner like to work with?

Pantoliano: Very accessible. He was always making you laugh. He’d yell at us while we were shooting. He’d say, "Faster! Cut 20 minutes out of this! It’s only a two-hour movie!" He was just adorable.

Davi: Donner was 6-foot-2, big heart, big personality, big voice, very encouraging. He made you relax. He was very engaging from the get-go. I had a certain way that I wanted the character to look, and when I met with the wardrobe guy, he showed me what he had picked out, which I didn’t like. I said, “I had a different idea. Here’s what I’d like to do.” The wardrobe guy says, “Let’s go talk to Dick Donner.” We walked over, and he barely got it out of his mouth when Dick went to him, “Give him what he wants!”

There were a few different things I suggested that made it in, like my character’s opera singing and when Data has the boxing glove that comes out. Joey hates when I talk about this shit. He goes, “Yeah, you directed the film!” No, I didn’t direct the film. As an actor, you suggest things, and I’m proud of the suggestions I’ve made because they wanted them.

Someone who fascinates me is Anne Ramsey. It’s so hard to imagine her out of character. What was she like?

Pantoliano: She was nothing like Mama. She was very maternal and accessible. This was her first really big movie. If you look at her resume, I don’t think she did a lot. She came from the theater.

Davi: Think of an aunt or a grandmother who’s very sweet — that was Anne Ramsey. She didn’t want to slap me too hard. I said, “Go ahead! Go for it, Annie!”

Pantoliano: She was encouraged by both Steven and Donner to smack the shit out of us. There was no holding back.

At the very beginning, we were in Astoria, Oregon, and I didn’t know they had two units. Davi, Annie and I rented a car to go exploring about 45 minutes away from the hotel. I said, “Look at the call sheet, we’re not even on the call sheet. There’s no way they’re going to call us.” So later, we’re at a souvenir shop, and Davi calls up — this was before cell phones. I hear Davi saying, “Yeah, we’re all together. No, I didn’t think we’d work today.” And I thought he was pretending, right? I’m going, “Oh, shut the fuck up! Cut it out! Hang up the fucking phone!” He says, “Here, talk to him.” Davi hands me the phone, and it was the line producer. He said, “Where the fuck are you guys? We need you!” I’m like, “Holy shit. It was totally my fault.”

So now we’re racing back and Annie’s sitting next to Davi. I’m in the back, and Davi gets pulled over by the cops for speeding. Davi’s going, “I’m an actor. I’m doing the Warner Bros. movie with Steven Spielberg.” Meanwhile, from the back seat, I’m shouting, “Stop name-dropping! He was speeding! Give him the fucking ticket, officer! He deserves it!” And Davi said, “Shut the fuck up. If you were in Vietnam, I’d have shot you!” Then Annie was like, “Stop it! Stop it! I can’t take it anymore. Stop with the screaming!” 

Is there anything to say about the sets? Like the catacombs or the pirate ship? They were incredible.

Pantoliano: For the pirate ship, I think that Mike Riva took the blueprints from Errol Flynn’s movie Captain Blood. He built the interior of the ship so that, when we were inside One-Eyed Willy’s dining room, that was inside the boat, inside the stage. Normally, that would just be on another set, but everything was practical on that boat.

Davi: The big mistake is why no one saved that ship to become a theme park ride. That pirate ship was huge. Later on, I did Christopher Columbus: The Discovery with Marlon Brando and we had the replicas of the Niña, Pinta and the Santa Maria and those could fit inside this pirate ship. That’s how big this pirate ship was.

I understand there’s a story about a vacation right after filming?

Pantoliano: Donner wrapped out the first unit before Spielberg wrapped out the second unit, and Donner went right to Hawaii to get a vacation before he started cutting the thing. One day, on Spielberg's unit, we were all sitting around waiting for the setup to be lit — it was Spielberg, all the kids and Annie, John Matuszak and Davi. Somebody said, “Wouldn’t it be funny if we all crashed at Dick’s house in Maui?” Spielberg said, “That’s a great idea,” and he arranged to send us all to Maui, all expenses paid. Mark Marshall was his assistant at the time, and Steven sent Mark with a video camera and a bag of money. 

Davi: They arranged for Dick Donner not to be home when the Goonies kids showed up. He comes home, and all of a sudden, he can’t believe all these kids are there and he starts laughing. And then the Fratellis, we decided to come up from the ocean. So, as Dick is dealing with the kids, all of a sudden, me and Joey are arguing, coming up out of the ocean. We start to fight each other, and Dick sees us and starts to laugh hysterically. He fell to his knees laughing.

Pantoliano: Then Spielberg put us back on an airplane and sent us to O’ahu so the kids couldn’t bother Dick anymore. It was just amazing.