Goodfellas was a superb gangster film released in 1990 to critical acclaim. It was all about the life of a gangster called Henry Hill and his meteoric rise in the New York mafia. Based on a book by Nicholas Pileggi, a New York crime reporter, the story had a real touch of authenticity about it and that’s what attracted director Martin Scorsese to make the film. He co-wrote the screenplay with Pileggi and they went through 12 drafts together before they were ready to shoot in 1989. The film has gone down in history as one of the greatest gangster tales ever brought to the screen. It has been highly publicised that the film makers consulted people such as the real Henry Hill to achieve a realistic feel to the action and various other real life gangsters claimed some involvement. The casting for Goodfellas was absolutely perfect and as usual with great films it is tough to imagine different actors in the roles. However several of the roles were by no means definite and they could well have cast other people. Apparently Al Pacino turned down the role of Jimmy Conway which went to Robert De Niro so that he could do Dick Tracy. A decision he has admitted regretting. You can imagine Pacino in the role and although De Niro was great I think he would have worked well too. It is harder to imagine someone else in the lead role of Henry Hill because Ray Liotta gave the best performance of his career. Liotta spent a lot of time with the real Henry Hill while preparing for the part and he used to listen to FBI tapes of Hill made from phone taps on his way to the set each day. The producer Irwin Winkler wanted a big name actor for the part and many of the execs agreed with him. At the time Ray Liotta was relatively unknown. Apparently Scorsese offered the part to William Peterson but he turned it down. Liotta turned down the part of Harvey Dent in Batman so he could appear in Goodfellas and eventually he was able to persuade everyone concerned that he was the man for the job. It was De Niro who suggested Liotta for the part in the first place and he continued to champion the actor throughout the casting process. Joe Pesci won an Oscar for his portrayal of the insanely violent Tommy De Vito and his performance is one of the most memorable things about the film. Apparently he wrote much of the “Do you think I’m funny?” scene himself and upon being awarded the Oscar he was so shocked he hadn’t prepared a speech. Although Pesci really made the part his own the real life De Vito was apparently a huge man and so Henry Hill commented later that Pesci was 90% to 99% accurate except for the size discrepancy. Frank Vincent apparently wanted the part of Paulie but in the end it went to Paul Sorvino and once again this was definitely the right decision. Funnily enough not all of the roles were filled by actors and the former US Attorney Edward McDonald actually played himself in the film and simply re-enacted what he had done in real life.