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Quotes on Making "Goodfellas"
Quotes on this page are from the article -
"Getting Made the Scorsese Way" from
GQ magazine, Oct 2010
Nicholas Pileggi (co-writer): "Mob guys love it, because it's the real thing, and they knew the people in it. They say, 'It's like a home movie.'"
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Debi Mazar (Sandy): "The short answer is yes, a lot of the extras were gangsters."
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Michael Imperioli (Spider): "I don't know if I would have had the same career had I not done GoodFellas. Probably not. Would I have been cast on The Sopranos? Who knows if there would have been a Sopranos?"
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Illeana Douglas (Rosie): "They don't make movies that way anymore. I was told that GoodFellas is the most expensive movie soundtrack in history. Marty used like thirty seconds of a Rolling Stones song; he had to have it. Vincent Gallo was an extra in that film, and people like John Turturro would come by and put sunglasses on and try to be an extra."
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Christopher Brooks (music editor): "Marty once told me that he knew what all of the songs were going to be three years before he shot the film. There was no music supervisor. Marty is the music supervisor."
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Liotta: "For the scene at Tommy's mother's house, I don't think Marty gave his mom a script. I remember Joe saying, "Mom, I need this knife. We hit a deer, we got to cut off its—" and he can't remember it, and Bob jumps in as he's eating "—hoof." There was a lot of improv. And then they're talking about the guy [with the dogs] in the painting. Joe says, "One dog goes one way, and the other dog goes the other way. And this guy's saying, What do you want from me?" I don't know where the fuck that came from. To this day, it's really funny."
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Robert De Niro (Jimmy Conway): "I was reading the book, and I called Marty. We always thought I was too old to play Ray's part, but I said, "What about Jimmy the Gent?" Marty said, "Yeah, great!" Who else they were thinking of or whoever turned it down, I don't know. I never knew about that."
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John Malkovich (who turned down the part of Jimmy Conway): "It sort of came at a bad time in my life, when I wasn't feeling well and didn't want to think about working. It's hard to explain why you end up in Eragon and not GoodFellas. But De Niro is fantastic."
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Thelma Schoonmaker (Editor, on the famous Joe Pesci 'You Think I'm Funny?' scene): "Scorsese wanted to show that as Pesci gets angrier and angrier, the men around him and Ray stop laughing, and you see the look of dread come on their faces. The key moment was how long we waited before Ray says, "Get the fuck outta here, Tommy," in an attempt to break it. We kept screening it over and over again to get just the right beat for that one incredible moment where Ray knows if he doesn't make this work, he's going to get shot."
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Liotta: "It was supposed to end when I say, "Get the fuck outta here, Tommy." But you let it breathe, just to see what happens. And for some reason I said, "You really are a funny guy!" and he gets the gun. We made that up in the moment, literally."
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Pileggi: "I've maybe even gotten awards from people because of that unbelievable scene, that I, quote, "wrote." I never wrote that scene! I had no idea about that scene!"
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Scorsese: "You think you're doing something at the time, and that gets you through it. And maybe it changes over the years. A picture takes on a life of its own."
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Read dozens more quotes on the making of Goodfellas at:
GQ magazine, Oct 2010
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