For an actor taking on a role as a tortured yet brilliant rockstar, learning to play an instrument is essential to selling the smoldering intensity of the performance. Though the Roku original movie Weird: The Al Yankovic Story parodies the self-serious excesses of biopics like Elvis, Bohemian Rhapsody, and Walk the Line, star Daniel Radcliffe, sporting a mustache and a curly wig, still had to actually strap on an accordion and pump his way through Weird Al classics like “My Bologna†and “I Love Rocky Road.†Given Yankovic’s status as a living accordion god, faking it wouldn’t be right. So Radcliffe recruited Pete Scalzitti, a New York–based filmmaker and animator with a background as an accordion-wielding subway station busker, to put him through a squeezebox boot camp.
After graduating from NYU film school and growing tired of playing low-paying gigs behind a piano, Scalzitti bought an accordion for $120 off Craigslist and taught himself to play in 2011. Soon, he was strolling around Manhattan with the box-shaped instrument attached to his chest. As an accordion salesman played by Thomas Lennon says in the film, “When you play the accordion, you are a one-man band.†Though he now works as a videographer and editor for the Met, Scalzitti found time to give Radcliffe — a friend of nine years, who’d seen him play accordion at parties — a crash course in all the buttons, keys, and bellows that make the instrument sing.
How did you land the job of teaching Daniel Radcliffe to play the accordion?Â
I’ve known Dan since around 2012. It was actually through his girlfriend, Erin Darke, who I used to work with. We bartended together at a place called Broome Street Bar, and she was actually leaving the place as I was starting, but she went on to work for a casting company, and she’s an extremely talented actress herself, and she met Dan on the movie Kill Your Darlings, and they started dating. So from 2012 onward, we would all hang out. My accordion followed me to some of our hangouts sometimes. I wouldn’t go so far as to call myself “the accordion douche,†but the accordion did make its way to some of our parties. So he became aware that I played accordion.
During the pandemic, we would have these Zoom hangouts where we would play Quiplash because that was all we could do. He mentioned he had gotten this role and wanted to know if I could help him learn accordion for it. His take on it was that they could hire an accordion teacher for him, but he would much rather do it with a friend and someone that he knew. He came to me with that. A couple of things to know: I’m a self-taught accordion player with zero teaching experience, so that was a little nerve-racking. But it was Dan, so it felt more or less like we’d be hanging out and we’d each have an accordion in hand.
What was that first lesson like?Â
He asked me to do it back in October of 2021. They shot this movie in 18 days in February, like four or five months later. So the first meetup we finally had was somewhere in mid-November. Preparing for that, I was like, “What’s your music experience like? Do you know any piano?†He had taken piano lessons as a kid but said that knowledge had pretty much disappeared. He knows where middle C is and that’s it. He played bass for a little while, which I think helps with rhythm. Other than that, completely cold to the accordion.
I had been collecting accordions and had a few extras — my wife was not thrilled about me just amassing accordions in our apartment. I have seven accordions. For a while, out of college, I was a freelance animator during the day and a subway busker at night. That was a big part of my life, and I did it for about four years, and it was a surprisingly lucrative source of income. But I learned accordion around 2011, and I only learned John Williams film scores, so Jurassic Park and Star Wars. Tons of video-game music: Legend of Zelda, Super Mario. That’s why it felt weird to teach him.
Also, a lot of accordion players do their best work in the bathroom. Because you need a mirror the first time you play accordion to see that button side. You can look down and see the keyboard side, but the button side is over a ridge, and you can’t see it. Our first few lessons were like, “Put on your accordion and let’s go to the bathroom.†So we’d spend 45 minutes or an hour in the bathroom.
What song did you teach him first?Â
He let me know a handful of the songs that would be in the movie, so the first one we worked on was “My Bologna,†which is also one of Weird Al’s first popular songs. So we put on the accordions and got a sense of where it’s supposed to be on your body, adjusting the straps. Got a sense for how heavy it is. I have a couple of different-size accordions, so we tried to find one that was most like Al’s accordion. Basically, I hooked up Dan with my smallest accordion, and he had that for three months. He took it with him to London for the holidays and to Texas for when The Lost City was premiering. He brought the accordion on the road and he was practicing a lot.
So was he really committed to this?Â
Yeah, he can do anything. He’s the sweetest guy on the planet, so he’s really easy to talk to about all this stuff, like when I was admitting that I hadn’t taught anyone how to play the accordion. He was like, “Okay, yeah!†He was really into it and has the best attitude ever. In our first lesson, we got to a point where I’d shown him quite a bit of stuff. I think we started on the button side. After 45 minutes of getting that first feeling down, we’d be like, “Maybe that’s enough for one day.†Then I’d try to explain the circle of fifths, which is like the bass side of it.
He took that, and through our conversations, we found that the secret sauce to how to teach him was animation. I started animating the accordion parts for him because I could only show him so much and I can’t write music or read music. So I took my knowledge as an animator and jumped back in and animated it.
When you say “animated it,†what does that mean?
I made a vertical, accordion-shaped video where you see the piano keyboard on one side and the button side on the other. I’d play the audio half-speed, and you’d actually see the keys animate. It would highlight a key and say “index,†so you would press that key with an index finger. On the button side, you’d see what note it was, like F sharp. I’d say, “Play it with your swear finger.†We figured that out by lesson two. He was able to do so much more in the homework phase by looking at the videos. We did one for every song we worked on: “My Bologna,†“I Love Rocky Road,†“Another One Rides the Bus,†and there’s a scene where he auditions at this punk venue and plays a polka version of “Beat on the Bat†by the Ramones, which was the hardest one because Al arranged that and that was really tricky.
How many lessons did you do in total?Â
I think we did seven, and that was November through January. Then he went right into the crazy schedule of the 18-day shoot in L.A., where he was spending the week before learning choreography with the band and getting Al’s thoughts on what I taught him, which added another layer of nerves for me.
Now that the movie is out, will Dan come over and jam with you?
We’ve talked about it a little bit: He wants to work on Jurassic Park on accordion, so he wants to keep it up. I got my accordion back from him and Al gave him an accordion after the shoot. So we’re working on Jurassic Park and we’ll see where that goes.
One of the funniest things about the movie is how in shape Dan is for the role. He looks really ripped. Does being in shape make you a better accordion player, or does playing the accordion help you get a body like that?Â
Shit, I don’t know. I don’t think I ever got in good shape, so I think it’s probably the other way. Being in shape may help you. I don’t think playing accordion ever got me in good shape, to be honest. It’s definitely hard. When I was busking, there were times when I’d play for three hours or even ten hours until I hit a certain amount of money I wanted to go home with. Accordions can be pretty heavy. I’d alternate between standing and sitting on a little drummer’s bench. It’s a physical thing because they’re heavy. The small accordion I lent Dan is I think 17 pounds. This full-size accordion that I have here, I think it’s 28 or 29 pounds.
Is there a significant accordion community in New York?Â
Yeah, there is actually. I’ve been on the outside of it most of the time. When I would busk, my first spot was at the Second Avenue F train because it was close to my apartment and there was another accordion busker who would come. Our first interactions weren’t great. I remember she came up to me and was like, “How long have you been playing here?†I was like, “Oh, a couple weeks ago. I live around the corner.†She was like, “I’ve been playing here for years.†So it was like, “Okay, it’s yours.†So I’d try to do it when she wasn’t there or I would go to a different spot.
But we slowly became friends, and she introduced me to this event in midtown called Accordions Around the World at Bryant Park, where they get tons of accordion players to play together. That was the most accordion players I ever met in my life, and I met a guy who repaired one of my accordions there, and there was a shop in New York called Alex’s Accordions, which is sadly gone now. But the guy gave me free straps, which was incredible.
Where does Weird Al stand among accordion players? Are “real†accordion players snobby about him or do they mostly embrace him?Â
I think they embrace him. One, he’s the American accordion player that’s evangelized accordions to the country. People are still aware of it because of him. And I think most accordion players recognize that. But I’m in such a weird place with all of this. At Accordions Around the World, a lot of those people were playing traditional accordion music, like German oompah music and Italian things, and I’m there playing Super Mario Bros. themes. Al is so technical, and everything he writes is so technical. He’s not up there playing easy stuff. Teaching Dan the stuff we worked on was difficult. From my side of it, I look at Al as an idol. He’s arguably the most famous American accordion player.
Who is the second-most-famous accordion player?
Probably Daniel Radcliffe now. [Laughs.]
This is an important question: Have you seen the movie Tár yet?Â
No, I haven’t.
Do you know what it is?Â
No, I don’t.
It’s a movie with Cate Blanchett where she plays a famous conductor and composer. And there’s a pivotal scene toward the end of the movie where she plays an accordion in her apartment to annoy her neighbors. Is the accordion finally having a big moment?
It would seem that way, wouldn’t it? I need to see Tár. And the annoying-your-neighbors thing is definitely true. That’s a thing that happens. Also, annoying whoever lives with you, too. There was an amazing moment where Dan was practicing in London the same song I was practicing here, and we were both annoying our significant others with the exact same music and, to make it worse, they both had COVID at the same time. They were both essentially trapped with COVID fevers in our respective apartments as Dan and I diligently played Weird Al songs night and day on our accordions. There’s nothing like hearing “Another One Rides the Bus†on accordion over and over to get over a fever.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.