Making 'Goodfellas' Was Actually More Intense Behind The Scenes Than On Screen

According to co-writer Nicholas Pileggi, “Mob guys love [Goodfellas] because it’s the real thing, and they knew the people in it. They say, ‘It’s like a home movie.’” Some of the film’s authenticity stems from director Martin Scorsese growing up in Little Italy in New York City and his childhood best friend being the son of a Mafia boss.

Every detail had to be authentic, from the imported Italian suits to wads of the prop master’s own cash. Even some of the extras were members of the Mafia.

Nicholas Pileggi - who co-wrote Goodfellas - looked back on the film's unusual casting process, saying “We'd put the word out [to the Mob guys]: ‘Anybody who wants to be in the movie, come.’ [Scorsese] must have hired like half a dozen guys, maybe more, out of the joint.”

Kristi Zea, the production designer on Goodfellas recalled, “Sometimes the verisimilitude got too real. Somebody started pushing our counterfeit money, you know, the $100 bills.”

Pileggi continued:

Warner Bros. now had to put [the wise guys] on the payroll, and they wanted their Social Security numbers. The wiseguys said, ‘1,2,6, uh, 6,7,8, uh, 4,3,2,1,7,8 - ’ ‘No, that's more numbers than you need!’ They just kept reciting numbers until they were over. Nobody ever figured out where that money went or who cashed the checks.

At the 25th anniversary screening of Goodfellas, Paul Sorvino said he’d been seriously considering quitting the film a few days before filming began because he didn’t know if he could play the aggressive Mafia boss Paul Cicero:

I was really lost, what do you do, I called my agent up and said, 'Get me out!... Then I was going to fix my tie and I saw this guy (in the mirror)... And it scared the hell out of me. That's the guy!

Christopher Brooks - the music editor for Goodfellas - recalled, “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.”

In the film, Scorsese uses nostalgic ‘50s and ‘60s doo-wop songs to ground Henry Hill’s childhood days spent working for the Mafia in a recognizable historical period. As Hill becomes entrenched in mounting mob activities and substance abuse in the late ‘60s and ‘70s, songs like “Layla” by Eric Clapton and “Gimme Shelter” by the Rolling Stones jar viewers out of youthful innocence and into the unforgiving world of adulthood.

Scorsese explained his inspiration for the soundtrack, saying:

When I talk about recreating the spirit of that world, the music is as important as the dialogue and the behavior. From 1947 on, music scored what was happening in the streets, the back rooms. And it affected, sometimes, the behavior of the people, because this music was playing in the streets. Jukeboxes were brought out during the summer. Windows were open, and you could hear what everybody else was listening to. It expresses the excitement of the time. Simply, it's the way I saw life. The way I experienced life.

According to prop master Robert J. Griffon Jr., Robert De Niro was the only person on the set allowed to use real money while filming, as he didn’t like the feeling of fake money in his hands.

For Griffon, that meant entrusting a sizable amount of his own funds to the production:

[De Niro] had like $5,000 cash in his pocket. I went to the bank and took out a couple thousand dollars of my own, but you had to keep track of it. Like the scene in the casino, he's throwing $50 and $20 bills around. And as soon as they cut, we're trying to get them all back: ‘Everybody freeze!’

Ray Liotta admitted the scene where he assaults Bruce (Mark Evan Jacobs) was fueled by authentic anger, as his mother was losing her fight with cancer during the production:

You're dealing with real anger. My mom had cancer... There was a lot of anger about her being sick... I was wound up. I might have gotten a phone call about my mom [before that scene]. That guy was nervous.

According to Jacobs:

Ray was boiling with rage. He stayed away from me, across the street, and he kept that going for take after take. We tried to keep the anger controlled, but one take got a little too close and I got hit.