Sebastian Maniscalco is perhaps the most in-demand standup comedian working the circuit.
But it was his role in Martin Scorsese’s 2019 gangster epic “The Irishman” that snared Maniscalco his starring turn in “Bookie,” the eight-episode Max comedy premiering Nov. 30 and created by Chuck Lorre and Nick Bakay.
“I saw him in [‘The Irishman’] in the scene with [Robert] De Niro and [Joe] Pesci where he played Crazy Joe Gallo, a psychopath, and he was terrific,” Lorre told The Post. “And I realized there’s another way to go. This guy’s got real acting chops, and rather than exploit his standup material, I’ve always been interested in doing something with people who work off the grid — who aren’t involved in the workday, pay-your-taxes world.
“I talked this over with Nick and he said, ‘What if we make him a bookie?'”
And there you have it.
In “Bookie,” Maniscalco plays the titular character, Danny, an LA bookie plying his trade with the assistance of his sidekick/muscle Ray (Omar J. Dorsey), an ex-NFL player who would rather intimidate with his eyes than with his fists.
They’re working against the clock, threatened by the rise of legalized sports betting that could put them both out of the debt-collecting business.
Andrea Anders and Vanessa Ferlito play Danny’s wife, Sandra, and his sister/co-worker, Lorraine; Jorge Garcia co-stars as Danny and Ray’s new pal, Hector, an ex-drug dealer turned Lyft driver.
“We loved the idea right from jump street,” Bakay told The Post. “It felt like the perfect balance and I don’t think Chuck and I were ready to delve into a world any more medieval than [bookies]. Comedically, it felt like the grey areas were perfect for us.
“Our conversations in the early stages were more about the levels of [being a bookie] like lawlessness and violence and the more we learned the more we explored and the more we realized that this is great because [Danny] can really take beatings,” he said.
“He takes more than he gives and that’s perfect for us.”
Both Lorre and Bakay said their research took them to some interesting places.
“We did talk to a lot of bookies before we started writing and while we were writing and they were very forthcoming,” Lorre said. “They gave us great detail — they didn’t want their names used, necessarily, but they were terrifically helpful in giving us the lay of the land.
“One of the more intriguing things was [that] violence in this world is really bad business — no one wants that, and it’s a mythology created by television and movies,” Lorre said. “The breaking the kneecaps and all that stuff; people have that in their minds but it’s not the reality of a bookie’s 9-5 existence. It’s bad business. It attracts the attention of the authorities.”
“In the modern world that’s not a smart move,” Bakay added. “We had one great guy who we talked to who told us that the objective is not to destroy these guys [who owe money] and put them in a hole. As he put it, ‘We like to take ’em to the cleaners one shirt at a time.'”
Bakay said the decision to make Danny a bookie made sense in the context of a series.
“There were just certain things that lent themselves to making this good TV,” he said, “like having two guys in a car who could talk about their lives and people phoning in bets and interacting more than they would, necessarily, in an age of plugging your bet in online. That’s just not TV or cinematic in any way.”
“Bookie” has garnered attention with the casting of Charlie Sheen, who plays a not-too-far-off version of himself in a recurring role. Sheen, of course, was famously fired from Lorre’s CBS sitcom “Two and A Half Men” in 2011 after a very public and nasty meltdown.
The two men have since made amends.
“That first phone call [to Charlie] was terrific,” Lorre said. “It felt really good. I think we’re both in the same place: ‘Let’s work together and have fun.’ He was a really good sport about it — the way this stuff is written, we’re making fun of his persona and he absolutely understands his persona and he’s totally willing to make fun of himself. He has a really good perspective on himself and there’s a lightness to it.”
Bakay said he and Lorre had several “placeholders” for the role that ultimately went to Sheen.
“We had written it for different people and Chuck called me and I was like, ‘What?!’ It was a thunderbolt to me of which I was immediately scared — but then realized it was pretty brilliant.”