Many of us movie fans have played that game with each other of who we'd want to play our parents in a movie. Stand-up comedy sensation Sebastian Maniscalco was able to make that game into a reality, recruiting two-time Academy Award winner Robert de Niro to play his father, Salvo Maniscalco, in the new comedy About My Father, which opens in theaters everywhere on Memorial Day weekend. In the film, Sebastian plays a fictionalized version of himself, who is currently dating the lovely Ellie (Leslie Bibb). Upon receiving an invite to spend the Fourth of July weekend with Ellie's affluent and very American family, Sebastian decides to bring his father, the Italian immigrant, and esteemed hairstylist Salvo (de Niro) along, leading to a massive culture clash between the two families. It's a comedy that is very much in the vein of My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Meet the Parents with a splash of Wedding Crashers as well.

I was fortunate enough to get to talk to the cast and the director of About My Father, including the stars of the film, Maniscalco and de Niro. We talked about their favorite films that their parents showed, them if the real-life Salvo approved of de Niro's performance, and what a possible sequel to the film would entail. You can check out all of this and more in the video below, or read along in the transcript.

COLLIDER: So first of all, I loved this movie! I just love these kinds of movies where I can actually sit down and watch this with my parents, and my whole family, and everybody will enjoy it. My dad would always show me a lot of movies when I was in high school; I remember him showing me The Deer Hunter, and he showed me The Godfather Part II, as well. I was wondering, for both of you, was there a movie that had a special place in your heart because of your parents showing you that?

SEBASTIAN MANISCALCO: For me, I think it was Rocky. I'm the type of guy, I go see a movie and I wanna come home and be the guy in the movie. So I saw Rocky, I came home, and now I'm like, “Ma, I'm gonna be a boxer,” right? Or I would go see Superman and I’d wanna be a superhero, or what have you. But I think Rocky, for me, was that movie that my parents introduced me to that I wanted to be Stallone.

ROBERT DE NIRO: My father took me to King Kong, the original King Kong, and then another was a [Jean] Cocteau movie– I forget. What the hell was it? Like a French art film… Anyway, King Kong was the American. There are others, but that was off the top of my head. This is in the late ‘40s, early ‘50s.

So you guys did a Scorsese movie together, now you're doing a comedy together. If you two were to work together again, what kind of movie would you want to do next?

MANISCALCO: I don’t know, to me, I'd like to do a sequel to this one in Sicily. That would be a nice little– I'm pushing for this. So, I don't know the answer to that question other than I wouldn't mind doing another one of these. Maybe he meets a woman in Sicily, or what have you. I haven’t really fleshed this out.

I know you met with Salvo [Maniscalco] beforehand and you worked a lot with him, he was on set, but I really want to know, has he seen the movie yet?

MANISCALCO: Yeah, he saw the movie. He was touched, he was emotional. It was surreal watching this movie with him, and I'm trying to put myself in my father's shoes watching this movie, De Niro playing my dad – what's going through his mind? And just talking to people that have come in to interview us, I find that it's resonating a lot with, “I saw my dad in this movie, my relationship with my family.” I like to hear that because it means it's kind of resonating with people in a real personal way.

I saw a lot of my mother, she was raised by a German immigrant, so a lot of the culture clash and everything like that. It actually kind of helped make me laugh even more! So I also want to know, did you learn a lot about being a hair stylist? Did you style a lot of hair for the movie?

DE NIRO: No, I didn't do as much as– Salvo was helping me do what I had to do in the film, and he was great, but I didn't go take courses or classes in hairdressing. I didn't feel that I had to do that, I had him there. He would help me to do that, and then it's just doing the business with the dialogue and everything. It's not a technical thing, but all those things have to work and having that flow, and also that you know that you look like you know what you're doing. You make it your own, as they say. So that was what I had to do.

I also loved your ponytail in the movie. You rocked that.

DE NIRO: Oh, thanks! Yeah, that was Salvo’s.

So I also want to know, for you Sebastian, you have a lot of stand-up specials on Netflix; for somebody who maybe hasn't seen your stand-up, what is a good one to start with?

MANISCALCO: Well, I’d like it if you saw them in order, so you could see the progression. I mean, the first one was Sebastian: Live and then What's Wrong with People?, Aren't You Embarrassed?, and then I figure, where it goes after that. But, I think Aren’t You Embarassed? is one of my best specials, if I have to reflect back on what I've done in the past. So, yeah, that's kind of a good introduction. I talk a lot about my father in that special. I think, early on in my stand-up, I wasn't really getting personal with it. I'd tell you about, “Hey, I went to Ross Dress for Less today,” or, “I went here, I went there,” and then I started talking about what's really personal to me, and that's when I started resonating with a lot of people.

I always hate the saying when people are like, “Oh, they don't make movies like this anymore,” but for this, you really don't see a lot of movies like this. It kind of reminded me of what came out when I was in elementary school and I would see comedians getting movies again. So I know you've worked in television, but how did it come to be? Did Lionsgate present the opportunity to you or did you pitch it around?

MANISCALCO: Yeah, we pitched it around, and Lionsgate opened the doors and said, “We love it, and we would love to make this movie.” We found Laura Terruso, the director, who is also Italian American. The way she presented – we interviewed five directors, and Laura came in with a presentation with visuals of what the people are gonna be wearing and how she saw set pieces, and this and that and the other thing. And I'm like, “Jesus, if she took this much time for the interview, what the hell is she gonna do in the movie?” So I really resonated with her. Also, being Italian American, she knew the world. She's got immigrant parents herself, so it was a no-brainer for me.

About My Father hits theaters May 26.