A version of this article appeared in Hotdog magazine.
Nicholas Pileggi (author, screenwriter): Wiseguy started out as a piece for New York Magazine. I chose Henry Hill not necessarily because he was the most interesting gangster but because he was willing to talk.
Henry Hill (former Mafioso): Nick is family.
Nicholas Pileggi: Henry was already in the Federal Witness Protection Program when I met him. When we talked, he was wired on uppers and downers - the government gave him pills so he could function. He sold his story to Simon & Schuster but they didn't have a writer. Henry never really intended doing the book. He was going to scam the publisher for the advance and forget about it. He began to look forward to meeting me, to get the gossip. He also began giving me personal details, using me as an unofficial shrink. It became clear that he took a lot of pleasure recalling the old days, driving Cadillacs at the age of 11.
Martin Scorsese (screenwriter, director): Most gangster movies focus on gunfights. The book Wiseguy gives you the day-to-day tedium - how they work, how they take over certain nightclubs and for what reasons. It shows how it's done.
Nicholas Pilleggi: I answered the phone and this guy said, 'My name is Martin Scorsese and I am a movie director.' 'I know who you are,' I said. 'I read Wiseguy - I'd love to do it,' he said. Then I said, 'To tell the truth, I've been waiting for this phone call all my life. If you want to do it, you can.’
Martin Scorsese: [Casting] happened very casually like old friends getting together again, which is in the spirit of the film. The right circumstances made it happen.
Robert De Niro (actor, Jimmy Conway): I'm always happen when I know I'm going to be making a movie with Marty.
Martin Scorsese: I asked Bob who he thought should play Jimmy. He'd read the script a year before and asked me a few questions. 'Is that the old guy, and he's only in a few scenes?' I said, 'Yeah!' And he said 'Why don't I do it?' Once we got Bob's name on the picture, we were able to get the money we needed for the whole film.
Ray Liotta (actor, Henry Hill): Marty wanted me to send him a tape and he said he'd see me. That night, I went home and wrote a letter, telling him it was nice meeting him, here's the cassette, view it at your leisure. About six weeks passed. We were both in Venice for the festival and I saw him in a hotel lobby without about seven bodyguards around him. The controversy over The Last Temptation Of Christ in Europe was almost triple over what it was in America. One of the bodyguards grabbed my arm, but Marty saw me and said, 'Ray, how are you doin'? I got the tape. I haven't been able to view it yet.' Now here is a man with what seems like the whole world coming down on him and still he remembers!
Martin Scorsese: I remember when we were kids, our mothers would make us get a haircut before allowing us to go to the movies. And after patiently waiting our turn, the wiseguys would walk in and ask, 'You got anybody waiting?' And the barber would say, 'Only the kids. Take a chair.' As a result, we would be late and miss the movie!
Robert De Niro: We all knew what went on but I don't think I saw as much of it as Marty.
Martin Scorsese: My father would say to be, 'Be very careful. Don't go with that person, go with that one.' I saw people who were so powerful that it was obvious from the way the walked. I saw how they used power, and how other people behaved around them. They behaved nicely. They were quiet. But they had control over life and death. Their attitude was, 'We want something, we take it. If you give us a problem, we slap you down. If you continue to give us a problem, you're dead.’
Ray Liotta: Marty lived right in the middle of that neighbourhood.
Martin Scorsese: When my aunt eloped, my mother's father declared his daughter dead and everyone had to go into mourning. The house was upset for months and everything stopped. It was just absurd. The only way it was eventually settled was when Don so-and-so came and talked to my grandfather and told him he had to stop.
Robert De Niro: When you are working on a part, you always have to see it from the character's point of view. Like in this case, it's about these guys who happen to have this profession.
Martin Scorsese: The Mafia think they've found the perfect way to deal with the American Dream. But you can see what happens - how it all crashes in on them in the end because all they want to do is get as much as they can as fast as they can. And that way of life becomes a nightmare.
Nicholas Pileggi: The first thing about wiseguys is that they work hard. They put in an 18-hour day, even if most of it's spent planning crimes. The second thing is that they are so funny. They spend so much time in bars and clubs that their banter is really very good.
Martin Scorsese: I wanted to dispel the conventional notion that you can recognise gangsters from the way they dress and the wicked way they look. I wanted the audience to see the film on a human level and deal with gangsters as human beings. It just happens that they extort from people, they kill people. But they still have a sense of humour. They have mothers, wives and children.
Robert De Niro: As a kid, I didn't root for the bad guys. I certainly knew the difference between right and wrong, but in our American tradition the bad guys get a lot of attention. There is a certain glamour, a certain allure that they have, but we always have to remember to put it in the right perspective of what they represent.
Joe Pesci (actor, Tommy DeVito): We had to change Tommy’s surname. People ask if I know about Tommy DeSimone. I know a lot about him. I read and talked to people, but I don't take that stuff into the film with me. Bob De Niro will find out everything about his character and take those traits and little things with him. What I do is think of somebody that I know very well who is the same type and play him. I do my Tommy DeSimone. I do Joe Pesci as if I were this killer, this crazy, funny, wisecracking person.
Martin Scorsese: People think gangsters kill people. And yes, of course they do. But the main purpose of the gangster is to make money. That's why in Goodfellas, Tommy is killed - he was making more noise than money. He started killing people for no reason. So they had to get rid of him. he was messing up the whole plan.
Catherine Scorsese (Martin's mother; actor, Tommy’s Mother): My husband would come home [from filming Goodfellas] and I'd say, 'So, Charlie, what did you do today?' And he'd say, 'Well, today they killed so-and-so'. And the next day he'd come home and say, 'Well, they dumped the bodies today'. I said to Marty, 'Marty what's going on? What's this movie about? Only killing?!' He'd say, 'Ma, it's the book. It's the way it is.' I played the mother of Tommy and he's always killing, too!
Joe Pesci: Marty had his own feelings about the killings, the guilt and the religion. I believe the wiseguys justify what they do the way any soldier who goes to Vietnam or Korea does. They fight people they don't know. How do you justify killing someone you don't even know? The wiseguys only kill their own within the crime families. They don't go out and kill ordinary people. They kill for reasons. As far as they're concerned, there are only certain things that a person deserves to die for - stealing from another or having an affair with somebody's wife, things they hold very dear.
Paul Sorvino (actor, Paul Cicero): Italian-Americans have no patent on criminality. There are just as many people involved in crime that come from other walks of life, other races, other nationalities. I grew up in Bath Beach which is not a 'Little Italy'. I really didn't come up against crime. I knew it was there, but you had to be a part of that life to experience it and I wasn't.
Nicholas Pileggi: One of the great quotes came from Danny Jack Parisi. He was one of the hit men for Murder Inc. You don't even want to think about the number of people he murdered and he took Communion every day! My friend asked, 'Jack, how do you do this? How do you make sense of going to church every day and then going and killing people?' Jack replied, 'I got to church every day and I pray to God to give me the strength to kill again.' Now that's who you're dealing with!
Robert De Niro: Marty and I are friends but we're best friends when we're working together. We have a very special relationship. He's very open and I can't tell you has an actor how important that is. If you work with certain directors, you find yourself closing down and you don't want to do anything; you think whatever idea you come up with is not going to get a good response. With Marty, it's the opposite - the more you come up with, the more enthusiastic he gets. That's what makes it a joyous experience rather than a job.
Martin Scorsese: Bob and I had evolved a different kind of relationship. He just says, 'What do you need?'
Robert De Niro: I try not to get into situations with directors who I don't respect. I have to like and respect them and follow what they're doing, otherwise there's no point in working with them.
Paul Sorvino: In one scene, Marty said to me, 'If he's not convincing you, question him.' There are two verbs in that sentence. Almost all directors speak in nouns: 'You're happy here'; 'You're glad about this'. Marty doesn't speak in those terms.
Joe Pesci: I can draw on my temper because it's terrible. My father had a terrible temper, and my brother and I have it too. As I've gotten older, I've learned how to control it, to try to walk away from people. or to steer clear of somebody I don't like, that will upset me in a way that would make me want to strangle them or beat them to a pulp. So, as Tommy, I used those urges to kill.
To be continued…