When Goodfellas debuted at the 47th Venice International Film Festival, Scorsese won the Silver Lion for Best Director. The writer collaborated with Scorsese on the flick, helping the actors get deep into their gangster characters.

The 1990 movie was adapted from Nicholas Pileggi's nonfiction book Wiseguy, which initially served as the title of the film. Ray Liotta, Robert De Niro and more made the mob scene come to life in Martin Scorsese's iconic crime drama Goodfellas. “I rewatched it and looked at the DVD and there was a lot of stuff I had not seen, interviews with Henry Hill and other characters,” De Niro said at the time, per Collider, adding that he “wanted to make sure it was accurate” to real-life experiences.Ĭredit: Dirck Halstead/Warner Bros/Kobal/Shutterstock The Golden Globe winner revealed during a 2013 press conference that the 1990 film helped him prepare for his role in The Family, in which he portrayed a retired mobster in the Witness Protection Program. Would I have been cast on The Sopranos? Who knows if there would have been a Sopranos?”įans aren’t the only ones who return to Goodfellas again and again - even De Niro has rewatched the movie. “I don’t know if I would have had the same career had I not done Goodfellas,” he told the same outlet in 2010. It’s defined who I am, in a sense.”Ĭostar Michael Imperiolicredited the mob movie with launching his path to stardom. A decade prior, Liotta told GQ, “For 20 years now, there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t hear somebody mention Goodfellas.

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