Bobby Cannavale on Scorsese’s One-and-Done HBO Series ‘Vinyl’: I ‘Feel Like I Let Marty Down’

Cannavale says HBO "screwed" them on the release strategy, and that the cancellation of an initial Season 2-renewal "was like a double f**k-you."

Bobby Cannavale is setting the record straight on Martin Scorsese‘s short-lived series “Vinyl.”

Cannavale led the 1970s-set rock and roll show that debuted on HBO in 2016. With Mick Jagger executive producing and Scorsese directing the pilot, it seemed like the next juggernaut series for the premium-cable (and now streaming) brand. However, despite initially handing “Vinyl” a Season 2 renewal, HBO pulled the plug on the show.

“[It] was years in the making, and it was just in Marty’s pocket for years, getting ready to make that movie — and that, for all intents and purposes, is a Martin Scorsese movie. It’s a two-hour pilot. That was one of those ones that you go, Well, shit, it really didn’t get put out the right way,” Cannavale told Vanity Fair. “You can Monday-morning quarterback these things: We really were screwed out by circumstances that we didn’t have any control over. Whether it was the fact that HBO didn’t promote it as a new Martin Scorsese movie; they didn’t let their audience know it was a two-hour pilot; they didn’t really take advantage of what they had; they premiered us after ‘Girls’ — didn’t make any sense. We premiered at 10 at night for a two-hour pilot.”

It wasn’t just the time slot that crippled “Vinyl”: The series was not received well by critics.

“All these things seemed to conspire against us,” Cannavale said. “I was shocked, frankly, by the reaction to it. I did feel like we’d created something special. When something that has that much profile fails like that, I couldn’t help but feel like I let Marty down.”

Cannavale was cast in the lead role after collaborating with Scorsese on “Boardwalk Empire.” Scorsese produced “Boardwalk,” which was Cannavale’s breakout gig.

“I felt like I was on a creative journey with Marty that lasted years. There was a window there between ‘Boardwalk Empire’ — he was so impressed with that character that I played and with my work on the show, that he took a big interest in me. So it was years of prepping (‘Vinyl’) and talking so much about it,” Cannavale said. “I felt like the bubble we created resulted in something that was really unique and special, and a different way of storytelling, certainly for television, than I’d ever seen. To just be brushed aside felt really disappointing.”

Cannavale said he couldn’t help but take the flop personally.

“I had everybody telling me, ‘It wasn’t your fault, it’s not your fault.’ Marty was like, ‘It’s not your fault, it’s just business.’ But that’s hard to accept because it’s your face that’s on the buses and on the billboards,” he said. “I always described that period as the stinky year. I had a stink on me, and I could feel it. To add insult to injury, we got picked up for the second season — they let everybody know we’ve got a second season, and then they changed their mind. It was like a double fuck-you.”

Cannavale, who stars in upcoming wrestling biopic “Unstoppable,” added, “I just kept it moving. I was like, Well, that’s the business. My depression over it settled in three months later, and then it was real. I really did go to a dark place. I just thought, Well, I’m never going to work again, because if something that Martin Scorsese and Terry Winter and Mick Jagger created didn’t work, and I was the star of the thing, then I’m going to have a stink on me forever.”

It also helped that Scorsese gave Cannavale another part in one of his projects, too.

“Marty was so kind and so generous to me by offering me something after: ‘The Irishman,'” Cannavale said. “But yeah, it’s always felt to me like a little smudge on his career. I know how much that meant to him. I can’t help but feel like, Fuck, why couldn’t that be successful? The one thing that I did with Martin Scorsese is the one thing that wasn’t successful?”