| Theodore Donald Kerabatsos aka Donny | |
|---|---|
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| Portrayed by | Steve Buscemi |
| Details | |
| Gender | Male |
Theodore Donald Kerabatsos aka Donny (played by Steve Buscemi) is a friend of The Dude and Walter. He's an avid bowler and frustrates Walter often who often says "Shut the fuck up Donny!". Donny dies of a heart attack in the movie, where as a result, we learn that his friends The Dude and Walter don't know much about Donny. At Donny's funeral, Walter says that Donny loves surfing. Walter says this because he doesn't really know what to say about Donny, and he assumes this because he asked to have his ashes spread by the beach and it is a typical California stereotype that Californians surf. His ashes never made it to the ocean. Even in death, he was out of his element.
Donny appears several times at the bowling alley wearing different bowling shirts that may be 2nd hand, in one scene his shirt is labeled "Austin".
The Coen bros. have said in interviews that they were in a pattern of writing very talkative parts for Steve Buscemi and wanted to give him a character with few lines and this is embelished further with Walter frequently asking him to "Shut the fuck up!"
At one point in the movie the Dude mentions Vladimir Lenin, which Donny mistook him for mentioning John Lennon, and starts quoting the lyrics "I am a Walrus," from The Beatles' I Am The Walrus, several times. Walter quickly becomes enraged by Donny's mistake and tells him to "shut the fuck up, Donny," something he famously says throughout the film, and corrects Donny on his mistake stating that the Dude was mentioning "V.I. Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov" and not John Lennon.