Stories from the set

Martin Scorsese's father and mother appeared in small cameo roles in the film.

The film is based on Nicholas Pileggi's book "Wiseguy" (Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family, 1985).

There were rumors that the real Jimmy Conway (whose real name was Jimmy Burke) was so thrilled that De Niro would play him that he called him from prison and gave him some valuable advice. However, Nicholas Pileggi denied this, claiming that Conway and De Niro never communicated. Nevertheless, he did not deny that people who knew the real main characters quite closely were involved in the project.

The real Hill said that the filmmakers captured the image of the real Tommy DeVito almost 99%, with just one "but" — Tommy was huge, which contrasts greatly with the short Joe Pesci.

The real Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) at one point moved to Redmond, where he opened an Italian restaurant. However, after the film's release he returned. One of his daughters appears in the wedding scene.

After Joe Pesci's mother watched the film, she called her son and said that the movie was good, but it was bad that he swore so much.

The word "fuck" is used 246 times in the film; in most cases it is used by Joe Pesci's character. Counting various variations, it comes to 275 times, that is, one swear word every 28 seconds.

At Scorsese's request, Joe Pesci himself came up with and shot the scene where his character Tommy DeVito loses his temper over the favorite line "Do you think I'm funny?"

Warner Bros. refused to produce the film unless one of the lead roles was played by a Hollywood superstar. Then Scorsese remembered his close friend Robert De Niro, showed him the script, and asked whom he wanted to see in the role of Jimmy Conway. De Niro read it and replied: "Myself." Soon Warner Bros. agreed to finance the film.

As soon as the director began reading Pileggi's book, he immediately realized that it had great potential for a film adaptation. Scorsese was pleasantly surprised to discover that the places described in the book were also very familiar to him, as he had grown up in Little Italy, a neighborhood of New York. Fascinated by the idea, Scorsese called Pileggi himself at his office at New York magazine. The writer was not in the building, and the director told his secretary that Pileggi must call him back. Upon arriving at the editorial office, Pileggi did not find his secretary at her desk, but he did find a note saying that Scorsese himself had called. The writer did not believe it and threw it in the trash, thinking it was another prank by his colleague. When the call did not come, Scorsese made his way to Pileggi's home and told him that he had been searching for his book for years. Not expecting such an admission, Pileggi said that he had waited his whole life to meet him, and that he had considered only him as the director for the film adaptation of his novel.