Joe Pantoliano: ‘I saw acting as a way of making a living out of lying’

The Matrix and Bad Boys actor on growing up in the New Jersey projects, his love of Ginger Rogers and Margaret Rutherford, and dodging the Vietnam war

I grew up functionally illiterate. In most urban communities you were just pushed to the side and disregarded, so long as you were quiet. I was evaluated and told I had a third-grade reading level. I was frustrated and ashamed that I couldn't fit in and comprehend the work, so I turned my back on it all. The teachers would say: Did you do your homework?" I would say: No, I didn't." I frightened them into leaving me alone. I spent the last three years of high school in detention because I didn't fit the mould.