50 Fun Facts About Goodfellas

Goodfellas is adapted from which 1985 nonfiction book by Nicholas Pileggi?

Scorsese read it while making The Color of Money and cold-called Pileggi to say he had been waiting for the book his whole life; Pileggi replied he had been waiting for the phone call.

Which actor plays Henry Hill, the film's narrator?

Warner Bros. wanted a bigger name; the part came his way after De Niro saw him in Jonathan Demme's Something Wild.

Which cast member won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Goodfellas?

It was the film's only Oscar win out of six nominations.

Robert De Niro plays which character in Goodfellas?

Once De Niro signed on, Scorsese was finally able to secure the money to make the film.

Complete Henry's opening line: "As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a ___."

The next sentence explains that to him it was better than being President of the United States.

Which character demands "I'm funny how? I mean funny like I'm a clown? I amuse you?"

The scene was worked up in rehearsal improvisations, recorded, and only then written into the shooting script.

Who plays Karen Hill?

She chose not to meet the real Karen, saying she wanted the creation to come from her, and earned an Oscar nomination for it.

Who plays Paulie Cicero, the crew's capo?

The actor said the hardest part was finding the character's kernel of coldness, which he considered the opposite of his own nature.

Jimmy's crew raids the JFK Airport vault of which airline in the film's 1978 robbery?

The real haul was about $5.875 million, then the largest cash robbery ever committed on American soil.

Henry and Tommy's first major score, in 1967, robs the cargo terminal of which airline?

The real Henry Hill and Tommy DeSimone walked in with an empty suitcase and walked out with about $420,000; no alarm was ever raised.

Which song plays over the long tracking shot as Henry leads Karen into the Copacabana?

The Crystals recording has since turned up in Adventures in Babysitting and Long Shot, but this is the scene everyone thinks of.

How much cocaine, by value, does Karen say she flushed down the toilet during the raid?

That flush left the Hills penniless and pushed Henry toward the only exit he had left.

Henry's frantic final day as a free man, tracked by helicopters, is stamped with which date on screen?

The sequence opens with Harry Nilsson's "Jump into the Fire" and its drum solo returns right before the arrest in the driveway.

When Paulie cuts Henry loose for dealing drugs, how much cash does he hand him?

The gesture also revokes Henry's protection, making him fair game for Jimmy.

Which future Sopranos star plays Spider, the card-game bartender Tommy shoots?

He later wrote five episodes of The Sopranos and co-wrote Spike Lee's Summer of Sam.

Who plays Billy Batts, the made man Tommy beats in Henry's club?

He and Joe Pesci had been a stand-up double act in the 1970s; Pesci's character kills his in Goodfellas, and the favor is returned in Casino.

Billy Batts taunts Tommy by telling him to go home and get his what?

The real Bentvena reportedly asked Tommy DeSimone if he still shined shoes; two weeks later he was dead.

Which future Pulp Fiction star plays Stacks Edwards, who fails to dispose of the getaway van?

The real Parnell Edwards parked the van outside his girlfriend's apartment instead of taking it to a New Jersey junkyard, and police found it two days later.

Tommy's mother, who serves the crew a late-night meal, is played by whom?

The director's mother also published a cookbook, Italianamerican, and turned up in several of her son's films.

Which song plays over the montage of murdered crew being found after the airport robbery?

Scorsese had the piano coda playing on set so the camera moves could be timed to it.

Whose version of "My Way" plays over the end credits?

There is no music at all from Henry's driveway arrest until that snarling punk cover kicks in.

In his final narration, Henry complains he now has to live the rest of his life like an average what?

His other grievance: he ordered spaghetti marinara and got egg noodles and ketchup.

How many Academy Award nominations did Goodfellas receive?

Picture, Director, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, Adapted Screenplay and Film Editing; only the Supporting Actor statue came home.

Which film beat Goodfellas to Best Picture at the 63rd Academy Awards?

Kevin Costner's debut also took Best Director over Scorsese, one of the most argued-about results in Oscar history.

What was the Best Supporting Actor winner's entire acceptance speech for Goodfellas?

It remains one of the shortest speeches in Oscar history; he was off the stage in seconds.

At the 1990 Venice Film Festival, Goodfellas earned Scorsese which prize?

The film premiered there on September 9, 1990, nine days before its US release.

How many actors does Goodfellas share with HBO's The Sopranos?

David Chase has said the film inspired the series, especially the dinner at Tommy's mother's house.

How much was the real Henry Hill paid two weeks before filming began?

The cast did not actually meet him until a few weeks before the premiere; he told Ray Liotta he loved the film.

The Copacabana tracking shot needed eight takes because which performer kept flubbing his lines?

The comedian is on stage at the end of the shot; the whole thing had to restart from the street each time.

Why does the famous Copa shot go in through the kitchen instead of the main entrance?

Scorsese then decided to make it one unbroken take to show Henry's whole life opening up ahead of him.

The "funny how?" scene grew out of a real incident from which cast member's earlier life?

He thought he was paying a mobster a compliment by calling him funny; the compliment was not taken well.

In the improvised late-night dinner scene with Mrs. DeVito, what was the only scripted line?

Everything else at that table, including the debate about a deer's hoof, came from the actors.

Who actually painted the picture of the bearded man with two dogs shown at that dinner?

It was copied from a photograph in the November 1978 issue of National Geographic.

How many frames of blood did Scorsese have to remove to secure an R rating from the MPAA?

He wanted the violence to feel cold, unfeeling and almost incidental rather than stylized.

At the first test screening, how many audience members walked out in the first ten minutes?

It was the first film Warner Bros. ever obliged Scorsese to preview; the same audiences loved the "funny how?" scene.

Tommy is based on which real Lucchese associate, nicknamed "Two Gun"?

He vanished in January 1979 after being told he was going to be made, and his body has never been found.

Jimmy is based on which real hijacker, known as "Jimmy the Gent"?

The film borrowed his birth surname, Conway; he died of cancer in prison in 1996.

Who plays the federal attorney who talks the Hills into the witness program?

He was cast on a whim after joking with a location scout, and improvised the "babe-in-the-woods" line from memory of what he had really said to Karen.

What was Scorsese's one rule for choosing the songs on the soundtrack?

The film has no composed score at all; the pop songs do that job, often commenting on the action sideways.

The real Henry Hill's testimony led to how many convictions?

They included his old boss Paul Vario and his mentor Jimmy Burke.

Which other 1990 film, a comedy starring Steve Martin, was also based on Henry Hill's life?

Nora Ephron wrote it from the research she and her husband Nicholas Pileggi shared, so both Hill films came out of the same marriage.

Jimmy Burke's 1982 conviction, secured by Hill's testimony, was for fixing basketball games at which school?

The point-shaving scheme earned him 12 years; a later murder conviction added 20 to life.

The actor cast as Henry joked that the studio would rather have had which star in the role?

Cruise, Penn, Baldwin, Val Kilmer and William Petersen were all genuinely considered for Henry.

Which pop star was considered for the role of Karen Hill?

The eventual Karen found the male-dominated shoot emotionally hard and fought to keep her scenes from ending up on the cutting-room floor.

The actor who plays Billy Batts later played which New York boss on The Sopranos?

As boss of the Lupertazzi family he became the show's final-season antagonist.

Frank DiLeo, who plays Paulie's brother Tuddy, was better known as the manager of which pop star?

Joe Pesci had already played a villain named as an anagram of DiLeo in the singer's film Moonwalker.

Tommy's surname in the film was borrowed from a friend of Joe Pesci who had played guitar in which band?

The musician's story was later told in Jersey Boys; the film character otherwise has nothing to do with him.

Tommy firing his gun straight into the camera at the end is Scorsese's nod to which early film?

Scorsese argued the plot was essentially the same story 90 years later: the gunshots and the looking over the shoulder never change.

Jimmy tells young Henry the two most important things in life: never rat on friends, and what?

The scene ends with the whole crew waiting outside the courthouse to celebrate his first pinch.

Before killing Spider, where does Tommy first shoot him during an earlier card game?

The real bartender, Michael Gianco, was shot in the thigh a week before Tommy DeSimone killed him for talking back.