1
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Action.

2
00:00:02,800 --> 00:00:08,800
They shot me.

3
00:00:08,800 --> 00:00:09,800
Gotta get that apron on faster.

4
00:00:09,800 --> 00:00:10,800
- Cut.
- Cut.

5
00:00:10,800 --> 00:00:13,800
0kay, good.
That's gotta be done much faster...

6
00:00:13,800 --> 00:00:15,800
It was so exhilarating...

7
00:00:15,800 --> 00:00:18,800
talking with somebody, who's ten times
more passionate than you are.

8
00:00:18,800 --> 00:00:22,800
A smile, but not as long.
All right? Try one more.

9
00:00:22,800 --> 00:00:23,800
That's why he's so great.

10
00:00:23,800 --> 00:00:27,800
He enjoys it, he doesn't put a cap on his
own, and he doesn't put a cap on yours.

11
00:00:27,800 --> 00:00:33,800
And that's what makes it a joyous
experience, as opposed to just a job.

12
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You, at least...

13
00:00:35,800 --> 00:00:36,800
The credit belongs to Martin...

14
00:00:36,800 --> 00:00:39,800
or this would have been
just another mob movie.

15
00:00:39,800 --> 00:00:43,800
We wanted to counter
the romantic image of the Mafia...

16
00:00:43,800 --> 00:00:47,800
and show not only what the pool is,
but what that decision means.

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And that was his goal in that movie.

18
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...if you touch her again, you're dead.

19
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This is what goes on. This is the
dog-eat-dog struggles of these people.

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Terrifying.

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I just know it from what I saw
in the streets...

22
00:01:01,800 --> 00:01:18,800
and when I saw it, lived it, I always said,
"That's the way it should be on film."

23
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When we were in Chicago...

24
00:01:20,800 --> 00:01:24,800
doing The Color of Money,
there was an article...

25
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in New York Magazine
that was an excerpt from the book.

26
00:01:28,800 --> 00:01:30,800
Having dealt with that world
to a certain extent...

27
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I felt I never really wanted
to touch upon that world again.

28
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I found that the style of the book
was so interesting, I tried to say...

29
00:01:37,800 --> 00:01:39,800
if I can make a film
like the style of this book.

30
00:01:39,800 --> 00:01:41,800
What's the point
making another gangster picture?

31
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There have been several books
about mob bosses.

32
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But it was like getting hold
of a soldier in Napoleon's army.

33
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That's who I wanted.
I wanted to know how it worked inside.

34
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Detail. Everything is detail.

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I was interested in the minutia
of how to live as a wiseguy.

36
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I wanted to get into the frame of mind
of a guy who works that way every day.

37
00:02:01,800 --> 00:02:04,800
And you also had the voice of Henry.

38
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So much of that book was just
his telling of the story.

39
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Then Marty called and he said. ;

40
00:02:12,800 --> 00:02:14,800
"My name's Marty Scorsese," he said...

41
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"I'm a film director."
"Movie director," I think he said.

42
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He said, "Do you know..."
And I said, "I know who you are."

43
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He said, "I'm calling because
I just read your book.

44
00:02:22,800 --> 00:02:24,800
"I've been looking for this book for years."

45
00:02:24,800 --> 00:02:27,800
I said, "I've been waiting
for this phone call all my life."

46
00:02:27,800 --> 00:02:29,800
So he said, "I want to do it."

47
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He wanted to write it with me,
but he couldn't make a deal with me.

48
00:02:32,800 --> 00:02:36,800
I said, "Don't worry.
The deal with you is on the phone now.

49
00:02:36,800 --> 00:02:39,800
"We will make this movie.
Don't you worry about anything else."

50
00:02:39,800 --> 00:02:43,800
All directors will work with writers
and sort of make it their own.

51
00:02:43,800 --> 00:02:45,800
But I think, particularly,
in the case of Goodfellas...

52
00:02:45,800 --> 00:02:48,800
it was so much about the world
that he understood...

53
00:02:48,800 --> 00:02:52,800
that he really wanted
to put his stamp on it.

54
00:02:52,800 --> 00:02:54,800
I hadn't put my name on a script
since Mean Streets.

55
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I wanted to create an exhilaration
of that kind of life.

56
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But he was stuck with somebody
who didn't know anything.

57
00:03:01,800 --> 00:03:04,800
So he really had to bring me along, I think,
as far as film was concerned.

58
00:03:04,800 --> 00:03:09,800
And I was a willing pupil because it was
fascinating, and he's a great teacher.

59
00:03:09,800 --> 00:03:14,800
Now, when you're working with Marty,
of course, he already sees the movie.

60
00:03:14,800 --> 00:03:17,800
I didn't, but it was all right.
He brought me along.

61
00:03:17,800 --> 00:03:19,800
I did most of the typing,
but he writes longhand.

62
00:03:19,800 --> 00:03:22,800
So I would type
and it would come out and then...

63
00:03:22,800 --> 00:03:25,800
he would scratch these little things on it.
We would work on it.

64
00:03:25,800 --> 00:03:28,800
And then the dialogue would be
bounced back and forth between us.

65
00:03:28,800 --> 00:03:31,800
So we would develop scene after scene.

66
00:03:31,800 --> 00:03:33,800
In this scene,
this is what's gonna happen, then this.

67
00:03:33,800 --> 00:03:35,800
And he also said, "Put in the corner..."

68
00:03:35,800 --> 00:03:39,800
And he would mention a piece of music,
"I want that music here."

69
00:03:39,800 --> 00:03:42,800
What really was important was
the nature of the relationship...

70
00:03:42,800 --> 00:03:44,800
between the main character
and the audience.

71
00:03:44,800 --> 00:03:46,800
And that's the experiment with voice-over.

72
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To us, those goody-good people who
worked shitty jobs for bum paychecks...

73
00:03:50,800 --> 00:03:55,800
and took the subway to work every day
and worried about bills, were dead.

74
00:03:55,800 --> 00:03:58,800
They were suckers. They had no balls.

75
00:03:58,800 --> 00:04:01,800
I think it's a wonderful way
to tell a story of a film.

76
00:04:01,800 --> 00:04:04,800
But so many times,
I think voice-over is used...

77
00:04:04,800 --> 00:04:07,800
to patch a little crack in the script...

78
00:04:07,800 --> 00:04:10,800
and it, sort of, doesn't work.

79
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You need a body of material...

80
00:04:12,800 --> 00:04:15,800
so that you have
enough richness of character...

81
00:04:15,800 --> 00:04:18,800
to be able to justify the voice-over.

82
00:04:18,800 --> 00:04:21,800
Because the narrative at that point
is not important. It's the language.

83
00:04:21,800 --> 00:04:25,800
It's the web that he's spinning
as a personality.

84
00:04:25,800 --> 00:04:29,800
He's getting you to like him.
And that's the danger of the character.

85
00:04:29,800 --> 00:04:31,800
The other thing we did
was a straight chronology.

86
00:04:31,800 --> 00:04:33,800
And that's the way
the first draft is written.

87
00:04:33,800 --> 00:04:37,800
And then Marty was looking at it,
"It's a little slow. We have to do...

88
00:04:37,800 --> 00:04:40,800
"This is a movie.
We gotta do something to hook them."

89
00:04:40,800 --> 00:04:44,800
He always loved the idea
of these guys driving around...

90
00:04:44,800 --> 00:04:47,800
with the guy they think is dead
in the back of the car, still alive.

91
00:04:47,800 --> 00:04:49,800
Because the moment
of Billy Batts'murder...

92
00:04:49,800 --> 00:04:52,800
is where everything changes for them.

93
00:04:52,800 --> 00:04:55,800
So rather than going from
the young boy directly to the ending...

94
00:04:55,800 --> 00:04:59,800
the rise and fall, which is
a very traditional rise and fall...

95
00:04:59,800 --> 00:05:01,800
we wanted to give it something extra.

96
00:05:01,800 --> 00:05:04,800
So we took that out of the middle
of the book, put it in the front...

97
00:05:04,800 --> 00:05:08,800
and he says, "When they kill him,
and they put the trunk down...

98
00:05:08,800 --> 00:05:17,800
"then I'll freeze on Ray Liotta looking out,
and then, bam, you're in the movie."

99
00:05:17,800 --> 00:05:22,800
Marty was lucky in this case, he got to
pick the person that was right for the role.

100
00:05:22,800 --> 00:05:26,800
Bob and Joe Pesci were, sort of,
obvious from the start.

101
00:05:26,800 --> 00:05:31,800
And Ray just had the qualities,
he was believable.

102
00:05:31,800 --> 00:05:35,800
Goodfellas was my fourth movie.
I had heard about the book.

103
00:05:35,800 --> 00:05:38,800
I picked it up just by accident one day...

104
00:05:38,800 --> 00:05:41,800
just to have something to read
from New Jersey to LA.

105
00:05:41,800 --> 00:05:44,800
Read it, really liked it.
Heard they were gonna make the movie.

106
00:05:44,800 --> 00:05:47,800
And I met Marty, and I would meet him
every now and then.

107
00:05:47,800 --> 00:05:50,800
But it was a long process.
It was extremely nerve-wracking.

108
00:05:50,800 --> 00:05:54,800
And then maybe eight
or nine months later, I finally landed it.

109
00:05:54,800 --> 00:05:59,800
Henry's character is somebody
who grows up with these guys...

110
00:05:59,800 --> 00:06:03,800
and is very much a part of them,
but he is slightly outside of it.

111
00:06:03,800 --> 00:06:05,800
That was part of the quality
that Ray has always had.

112
00:06:05,800 --> 00:06:07,800
That's why I think
he was so perfectly cast.

113
00:06:07,800 --> 00:06:10,800
You would never have bought
the Bob De Niro character...

114
00:06:10,800 --> 00:06:15,800
or the Joe Pesci character doing it,
but you did buy Ray's character doing it.

115
00:06:15,800 --> 00:06:18,800
You need Henry, not me, right?

116
00:06:18,800 --> 00:06:20,800
He asked me to come and meet him.

117
00:06:20,800 --> 00:06:24,800
And then he asked me to come up
and read with Ray.

118
00:06:24,800 --> 00:06:28,800
Just right from the beginning,
I trusted her, she trusted me.

119
00:06:28,800 --> 00:06:31,800
And we were kind of
the new kids on the block.

120
00:06:31,800 --> 00:06:35,800
And Marty always called us "the kids."
"Bring the kids out."

121
00:06:35,800 --> 00:06:37,800
It was always very cute.

122
00:06:37,800 --> 00:06:42,800
I'll think about it.
But it'll cost you, Hill. A lot.

123
00:06:42,800 --> 00:06:45,800
So we had a commitment
towards each other...

124
00:06:45,800 --> 00:06:48,800
and something that we were both
going through at the same time...

125
00:06:48,800 --> 00:06:49,800
a newness to the situation.

126
00:06:49,800 --> 00:06:51,800
Watch the suit.

127
00:06:51,800 --> 00:06:53,800
You little prick.

128
00:06:53,800 --> 00:06:58,800
Frank Vincent is part of the team.
He's been in other movies since.

129
00:06:58,800 --> 00:07:03,800
When I came to meet with him for this,
he said, "What do you wanna play?"

130
00:07:03,800 --> 00:07:07,800
And I said, "I wanna play Paul." He said,
"Don't play Paul, play Billy Batts."

131
00:07:07,800 --> 00:07:09,800
You don't argue with Marty, saying,
"No, I wanna play this."

132
00:07:09,800 --> 00:07:13,800
If he says to me,
"Listen to me. Play Billy Batts."

133
00:07:13,800 --> 00:07:16,800
"Okay, Marty, whatever you wanna do."
And that's how I was cast.

134
00:07:16,800 --> 00:07:19,800
At that moment, I did not know
what Billy Batts was going to be.

135
00:07:19,800 --> 00:07:22,800
So actually, it was really a gift.

136
00:07:22,800 --> 00:07:27,800
Because everybody I know,
that I ever see or meet, knows about it.

137
00:07:27,800 --> 00:07:29,800
And I did 40 movies.

138
00:07:29,800 --> 00:07:32,800
So that's gotta be the standout.

139
00:07:32,800 --> 00:07:35,800
Sorvino, he was perfect for Paul, I wasn't.

140
00:07:35,800 --> 00:07:36,800
I didn't think I could do it.

141
00:07:36,800 --> 00:07:40,800
Because it was not the kind of role
that I felt I really had an affinity for.

142
00:07:40,800 --> 00:07:43,800
The externals were easy,
middle-aged Italian man.

143
00:07:43,800 --> 00:07:47,800
The difficulty was in the lethality
that I felt I didn't possess.

144
00:07:47,800 --> 00:07:51,800
So even though I wanted to do it,
I was faking when I went to the meeting...

145
00:07:51,800 --> 00:07:55,800
and giving Martin the impression I knew
exactly what to do when I had no idea.

146
00:07:55,800 --> 00:08:01,800
I wanted to be in a Scorsese movie,
I guess he just figured I was capable of it.

147
00:08:01,800 --> 00:08:05,800
I had done so much homework.
I was just obsessed with it.

148
00:08:05,800 --> 00:08:08,800
I remember I was at home in Jersey...

149
00:08:08,800 --> 00:08:13,800
Nick Pileggi had tapes of Henry,
and I remember putting in the cassettes...

150
00:08:13,800 --> 00:08:16,800
in my mother's car
and as I would drive to New York...

151
00:08:16,800 --> 00:08:19,800
be listening to him tell stories
as he chomped on potato chips.

152
00:08:19,800 --> 00:08:23,800
And my dad was like, "Stop studying.
Get out and do something."

153
00:08:23,800 --> 00:08:25,800
I knew it was a great opportunity...

154
00:08:25,800 --> 00:08:29,800
and I did not wanna
be a week or so into it, and you know...

155
00:08:29,800 --> 00:08:31,800
Marty says, "Come to the trailer."

156
00:08:31,800 --> 00:08:34,800
I just wanted to play make-believe
with these guys.

157
00:08:34,800 --> 00:08:37,800
And not mess up.

158
00:08:37,800 --> 00:08:41,800
I believed I could be Karen,
and do Karen justice.

159
00:08:41,800 --> 00:08:42,800
...you are nothing but a whore!

160
00:08:42,800 --> 00:08:44,800
Is this the superintendent?

161
00:08:44,800 --> 00:08:47,800
I knew the motivation of jealousy...

162
00:08:47,800 --> 00:08:52,800
and wanting to hold on to her man.
I understood those things.

163
00:08:52,800 --> 00:08:54,800
Keep them coming.

164
00:08:54,800 --> 00:08:57,800
Jimmy was one of the most
feared guys in the city.

165
00:08:57,800 --> 00:09:01,800
The author, Nick Pileggi,
had a lot of information...

166
00:09:01,800 --> 00:09:04,800
research material that he had
discarded from the book...

167
00:09:04,800 --> 00:09:08,800
and I also would talk to...

168
00:09:08,800 --> 00:09:12,800
people who I thought would have
some connection...

169
00:09:12,800 --> 00:09:16,800
or some relevance
to this particular character.

170
00:09:16,800 --> 00:09:20,800
He wanted to talk to me
about the Jimmy Conway character.

171
00:09:20,800 --> 00:09:23,800
There were some mornings
when we talked four, five times.

172
00:09:23,800 --> 00:09:26,800
He'd be in his trailer
before he'd go in front of the camera...

173
00:09:26,800 --> 00:09:28,800
get me on the phone...

174
00:09:28,800 --> 00:09:32,800
- He'd call you four, five times a day?
- In the mornings, before he worked.

175
00:09:32,800 --> 00:09:37,800
How does Jimmy hold the cigarette,
how you think he reacted...

176
00:09:37,800 --> 00:09:42,800
when he'd seen Johnny Roastbeef
pull up with the Cadillac?

177
00:09:42,800 --> 00:09:46,800
And how he held the shot glass,
what kind of a face he made.

178
00:09:46,800 --> 00:09:50,800
All these crazy, I mean, I thought
they were crazy questions at the time.

179
00:09:50,800 --> 00:09:54,800
Then I started to get the hang of it.
I knew what he was requesting.

180
00:09:54,800 --> 00:09:58,800
And I was able to participate.

181
00:09:58,800 --> 00:10:02,800
And it was rewarding. I got paid for it.

182
00:10:02,800 --> 00:10:06,800
And it was about two months...

183
00:10:06,800 --> 00:10:10,800
in preparation to try to get this quality
that I knew it called for.

184
00:10:10,800 --> 00:10:13,800
I was kind of agonizing over it
for a couple of months.

185
00:10:13,800 --> 00:10:15,800
I was thinking,
"I'm gonna ruin this movie."

186
00:10:15,800 --> 00:10:17,800
I was looking for something
to get out of it...

187
00:10:17,800 --> 00:10:20,800
till two days before
we started production...

188
00:10:20,800 --> 00:10:23,800
by virtue of constantly searching...

189
00:10:23,800 --> 00:10:26,800
to find that kind of quality
that killers have.

190
00:10:26,800 --> 00:10:28,800
I was preparing to go out one night...

191
00:10:28,800 --> 00:10:31,800
passed by the mirror
to check for spinach in the teeth...

192
00:10:31,800 --> 00:10:36,800
and I jumped back.
I literally frightened myself.

193
00:10:36,800 --> 00:10:39,800
I saw a look in my eyes
that frightened me.

194
00:10:39,800 --> 00:10:42,800
"Who was that?" I said, "That's Paulie."

195
00:10:42,800 --> 00:10:46,800
Once I found it,
it all became just a duck in water.

196
00:10:46,800 --> 00:10:47,800
It was just so easy to do.

197
00:10:47,800 --> 00:10:49,800
What Paulie and the 0rganization does...

198
00:10:49,800 --> 00:10:54,800
is offer protection for people
who can't go to the cops. That's it.

199
00:10:54,800 --> 00:10:57,800
That's all it is. They're like
the police department for wiseguys.

200
00:10:57,800 --> 00:11:00,800
So much of what Scorsese does,
is in the way he directs.

201
00:11:00,800 --> 00:11:05,800
And so you see something
entirely different up on the screen...

202
00:11:05,800 --> 00:11:07,800
often than is in that script.

203
00:11:07,800 --> 00:11:09,800
If I felt the scene could be opened up...

204
00:11:09,800 --> 00:11:11,800
I usually did that with the actors
in rehearsal.

205
00:11:11,800 --> 00:11:14,800
So we would rehearse 35, 40 minutes
a scene.

206
00:11:14,800 --> 00:11:17,800
They were all improvisations.
They were loosely around the script.

207
00:11:17,800 --> 00:11:19,800
They were just sort of
what was happening...

208
00:11:19,800 --> 00:11:22,800
not improvising by writing the lines.

209
00:11:22,800 --> 00:11:24,800
I mean, improvising behaviorally.

210
00:11:24,800 --> 00:11:28,800
He always says, "Don't act
like these people, behave like them."

211
00:11:28,800 --> 00:11:30,800
I would like to help you out.

212
00:11:30,800 --> 00:11:32,800
Sonny, tell him what we talked about.

213
00:11:32,800 --> 00:11:35,800
He gave me fabulous direction for Karen.

214
00:11:35,800 --> 00:11:40,800
He said, "She's the movie star.
She's the star. You know, Henry's life."

215
00:11:40,800 --> 00:11:45,800
He knows so well what actors need,
and how to help them.

216
00:11:45,800 --> 00:11:49,800
And then he'll see something he likes,
he'll come over and say:

217
00:11:49,800 --> 00:11:52,800
"You know what you said...
Why don't you say that?"

218
00:11:52,800 --> 00:11:54,800
0r, "Let him have it."

219
00:11:54,800 --> 00:11:56,800
Now go home and get your fucking
shine box.

220
00:11:56,800 --> 00:11:58,800
Motherfucking mutt!

221
00:11:58,800 --> 00:12:00,800
You fucking piece of shit!

222
00:12:00,800 --> 00:12:04,800
He uses the power of the verb.
Acting is doing something.

223
00:12:04,800 --> 00:12:08,800
I threaten, I charm, I beg.

224
00:12:08,800 --> 00:12:11,800
And what Martin does
in the improvisation...

225
00:12:11,800 --> 00:12:14,800
is encourage the doing of things.

226
00:12:14,800 --> 00:12:17,800
What that really means
is stay with the other fellow...

227
00:12:17,800 --> 00:12:19,800
and deal with what he's giving you.

228
00:12:19,800 --> 00:12:20,800
What are you, stupid?

229
00:12:20,800 --> 00:12:24,800
- What's the matter with you?
- I apologize.

230
00:12:24,800 --> 00:12:27,800
- I'm sorry.
- What the fuck is the matter with you?

231
00:12:27,800 --> 00:12:30,800
You feel like you're a real collaborator.
And in a sense you are because...

232
00:12:30,800 --> 00:12:33,800
you're giving all the good things
that you have.

233
00:12:33,800 --> 00:12:36,800
You see anybody fucking around
with this shit you're gonna tell me, right?

234
00:12:36,800 --> 00:12:38,800
That means anybody.

235
00:12:38,800 --> 00:12:42,800
He knows what he wants to do,
but you really feel like...

236
00:12:42,800 --> 00:12:44,800
you're creating and he's letting you go...

237
00:12:44,800 --> 00:12:47,800
to do what you've come up with.

238
00:12:47,800 --> 00:12:48,800
It's just the way he is.

239
00:12:48,800 --> 00:12:53,800
He's very open to a lot of ideas
from anybody.

240
00:12:53,800 --> 00:12:57,800
For an actor, that was like the jackpot.

241
00:12:57,800 --> 00:13:01,800
So even during the improv, once we had
the improv, then we had to lock it.

242
00:13:01,800 --> 00:13:04,800
You don't improvise on camera
when we're shooting.

243
00:13:04,800 --> 00:13:07,800
They all think that Marty
just doesn't do anything.

244
00:13:07,800 --> 00:13:10,800
That he says, "0kay, go ahead,"
and he sits there like this...

245
00:13:10,800 --> 00:13:13,800
and enjoys it. That's not true.

246
00:13:13,800 --> 00:13:16,800
It's so crazy to think you can go in there
and make a movie like that.

247
00:13:16,800 --> 00:13:19,800
It has to be structured.
You're still saying a script.

248
00:13:19,800 --> 00:13:23,800
I said, "0kay, go fuck your mother."

249
00:13:23,800 --> 00:13:28,800
Probably the most memorable
improvisation I've ever seen...

250
00:13:28,800 --> 00:13:33,800
was the Joe Pesci-Ray Liotta
improvisation at the nightclub.

251
00:13:33,800 --> 00:13:36,800
But, I'm funny, how? Funny like a clown?
I amuse you?

252
00:13:36,800 --> 00:13:40,800
Which is something that actually
happened to Joe, years ago, in reality.

253
00:13:40,800 --> 00:13:42,800
And so Marty said,
"We must put that in the film."

254
00:13:42,800 --> 00:13:45,800
I make you laugh?
I'm here to fucking amuse you?

255
00:13:45,800 --> 00:13:47,800
And that was very carefully worked on.

256
00:13:47,800 --> 00:13:52,800
Within our rehearsal period,
I was able, as the co-writer, to record...

257
00:13:52,800 --> 00:13:57,800
several takes, maybe four to five takes
between Ray and Joe of this dialogue.

258
00:13:57,800 --> 00:14:00,800
I took that and rewrote it,
which was inserted into the script.

259
00:14:00,800 --> 00:14:03,800
Funny how? What's funny about it?

260
00:14:03,800 --> 00:14:06,800
It was interesting
how he shot that sequence.

261
00:14:06,800 --> 00:14:09,800
He's shooting it in a medium shot,
not in a close-up.

262
00:14:09,800 --> 00:14:12,800
The reason that I always tell
film students that it's very important...

263
00:14:12,800 --> 00:14:17,800
first, he knew the scene was powerful
enough that he did not need close-ups.

264
00:14:17,800 --> 00:14:19,800
And secondly, what he really wanted
to show was...

265
00:14:19,800 --> 00:14:24,800
how the people around Joe Pesci
and Ray Liotta were gradually...

266
00:14:24,800 --> 00:14:27,800
changing the looks on their faces
as the sense of dread...

267
00:14:27,800 --> 00:14:30,800
began to creep into what was supposed
to be a casual conversation...

268
00:14:30,800 --> 00:14:34,800
and suddenly... It is wonderful
how you see their faces change.

269
00:14:34,800 --> 00:14:37,800
And he was very adamant that
that's how he wanted to shoot it.

270
00:14:37,800 --> 00:14:39,800
Anthony.

271
00:14:39,800 --> 00:14:42,800
He's a big boy. He knows what he said.
What did you say?

272
00:14:42,800 --> 00:14:43,800
Funny, how?

273
00:14:43,800 --> 00:14:46,800
You just watch his body language,
and you know it's dead serious.

274
00:14:46,800 --> 00:14:49,800
And he could turn on it in a split second.
Hard to cut.

275
00:14:49,800 --> 00:14:53,800
Marty and I spent a long time
figuring out how long to wait...

276
00:14:53,800 --> 00:14:56,800
until Ray Liotta actually says,
"Come on, Tommy."

277
00:14:56,800 --> 00:14:59,800
What the fuck is so funny about me?

278
00:14:59,800 --> 00:15:06,800
Tell me what's funny.

279
00:15:06,800 --> 00:15:09,800
Get the fuck out of here, Tommy.

280
00:15:09,800 --> 00:15:13,800
Motherfucker! I almost had him!

281
00:15:13,800 --> 00:15:15,800
You stuttering prick, you!

282
00:15:15,800 --> 00:15:17,800
Frankie, was he shaking?

283
00:15:17,800 --> 00:15:21,800
All that laughter you hear on the track
is me and them.

284
00:15:21,800 --> 00:15:25,800
'Cause we had to create the atmosphere
of that kind of a moment on the set.

285
00:15:25,800 --> 00:15:27,800
When something accidental happens...

286
00:15:27,800 --> 00:15:31,800
delightful, that an actor does,
you'll burst out laughing as an audience.

287
00:15:31,800 --> 00:15:36,800
And it's a wonderful thing to see.
Very refreshing.

288
00:15:36,800 --> 00:15:41,800
Good.

289
00:15:41,800 --> 00:15:44,800
You can thrill him,
by giving him a good performance.

290
00:15:44,800 --> 00:15:47,800
And to watch someone...

291
00:15:47,800 --> 00:15:51,800
be thrilled while you're doing something,
is the best thing for an actor.

292
00:15:51,800 --> 00:15:54,800
He has an amazing sensitivity
to body language...

293
00:15:54,800 --> 00:15:57,800
and how an actor
is conveying a certain idea...

294
00:15:57,800 --> 00:16:01,800
with just a slight flicker of an eye.

295
00:16:01,800 --> 00:16:04,800
0r something very subtle,
and he's reacting to it all the time.

296
00:16:04,800 --> 00:16:06,800
And he goes like this.

297
00:16:06,800 --> 00:16:09,800
Give me more.

298
00:16:09,800 --> 00:16:14,800
No. Easy.

299
00:16:14,800 --> 00:16:18,800
And then when you do it, after the take,
he'd say, "Good. That was good."

300
00:16:18,800 --> 00:16:20,800
Good. That was good.

301
00:16:20,800 --> 00:16:24,800
I think Marty is probably one of the most
prepared directors I've worked with.

302
00:16:24,800 --> 00:16:27,800
In the case of Goodfellas,
he was working with Michael Ballhaus...

303
00:16:27,800 --> 00:16:29,800
who's also incredibly prepared.

304
00:16:29,800 --> 00:16:34,800
The good thing about Marty is that really
he has this movie in his head already.

305
00:16:34,800 --> 00:16:39,800
So the way we worked together,
is that I looked at his shortlist.

306
00:16:39,800 --> 00:16:41,800
Then we look at the locations together.

307
00:16:41,800 --> 00:16:46,800
And we figure out if his shots would work
on the locations like this or that.

308
00:16:46,800 --> 00:16:50,800
So there's no discussion, actually,
on the set anymore.

309
00:16:50,800 --> 00:16:54,800
We talk about shots, but it's not like we're
trying to figure out what it'll be.

310
00:16:54,800 --> 00:16:56,800
So we know what it's gonna be.

311
00:16:56,800 --> 00:17:00,800
There were many times
that we didn't do any coverage at all.

312
00:17:00,800 --> 00:17:03,800
- Thank you, sir.
- Bye, see you later, thanks.

313
00:17:03,800 --> 00:17:05,800
What're you doing?
You're leaving your car?

314
00:17:05,800 --> 00:17:09,800
I never even knew when we were
making it, what that scene was.

315
00:17:09,800 --> 00:17:12,800
I never knew. I was clueless.

316
00:17:12,800 --> 00:17:14,800
I had never even seen a Steadicam.

317
00:17:14,800 --> 00:17:17,800
And that doesn't exist in the book.

318
00:17:17,800 --> 00:17:19,800
But it does, in just a couple of lines.

319
00:17:19,800 --> 00:17:22,800
Except a couple of lines in the book,
in the hands of the director...

320
00:17:22,800 --> 00:17:24,800
that's where you begin to see...

321
00:17:24,800 --> 00:17:29,800
a nonfiction book in detail
really blossom into a kind of art.

322
00:17:29,800 --> 00:17:33,800
How are you doing? What's up?
Here you go.

323
00:17:33,800 --> 00:17:36,800
The whole idea is that
it has to be done in one take...

324
00:17:36,800 --> 00:17:38,800
so you don't feel
that it was a series of cuts...

325
00:17:38,800 --> 00:17:42,800
or there was a separation between him
and the world he was trying to get into.

326
00:17:42,800 --> 00:17:46,800
The camera flowed through them
and just glided through this world.

327
00:17:46,800 --> 00:17:50,800
All the doors opened to him,
and everything just slipped away.

328
00:17:50,800 --> 00:17:53,800
It was like heaven. And then to emerge
like a king and queen...

329
00:17:53,800 --> 00:17:56,800
this was the highest he could aspire to.

330
00:17:56,800 --> 00:17:59,800
It was kind of tricky also
to get all the extras right.

331
00:17:59,800 --> 00:18:03,800
Because Marty is so very accurate
about every single timing.

332
00:18:03,800 --> 00:18:05,800
What the people do in the kitchen.

333
00:18:05,800 --> 00:18:09,800
The guy with the table comes
at the right time and brings the table over.

334
00:18:09,800 --> 00:18:11,800
All these things are very important.

335
00:18:11,800 --> 00:18:15,800
But as far as I remember,
we shot the scene only eight times...

336
00:18:15,800 --> 00:18:17,800
and it was not even a full day.

337
00:18:17,800 --> 00:18:20,800
But we wanted it really in one shot
and we got it in one shot.

338
00:18:20,800 --> 00:18:23,800
Take my wife, please.

339
00:18:23,800 --> 00:18:28,800
And he really knows every second
of what you're doing.

340
00:18:28,800 --> 00:18:31,800
He'd send you back from the set
if he didn't like the tie.

341
00:18:31,800 --> 00:18:32,800
He sees every detail.

342
00:18:32,800 --> 00:18:35,800
The kid doesn't look like a gangster yet.
He has to look...

343
00:18:35,800 --> 00:18:37,800
His shoes have to be shined.

344
00:18:37,800 --> 00:18:38,800
- Got a pinkie ring, kid?
- Yeah.

345
00:18:38,800 --> 00:18:41,800
Yeah, that's better.
I would like just a little bit...

346
00:18:41,800 --> 00:18:44,800
You don't have any stays in the collar?

347
00:18:44,800 --> 00:18:46,800
No stays, Kristi?

348
00:18:46,800 --> 00:18:49,800
Every little nuance in it means something.

349
00:18:49,800 --> 00:18:52,800
He made sure it was registering right.

350
00:18:52,800 --> 00:18:56,800
That's the thing with Marty, because...

351
00:18:56,800 --> 00:18:59,800
his films really have a sense of reality.

352
00:18:59,800 --> 00:19:03,800
And he understands it so well. He knows
when something is real and when it isn't.

353
00:19:03,800 --> 00:19:06,800
Marty would say, "No, that doesn't
feel right. That feel right to you?"

354
00:19:06,800 --> 00:19:10,800
The only way to be truthful about it
is to really not be inhibited by anything.

355
00:19:10,800 --> 00:19:14,800
What do you mean?

356
00:19:14,800 --> 00:19:17,800
I think it explains
what the world is really like.

357
00:19:17,800 --> 00:19:22,800
And part of what's so interesting is that
it starts out as a lot of fun.

358
00:19:22,800 --> 00:19:26,800
We're as bad as they are. We're happy
to see the postman go in the oven.

359
00:19:26,800 --> 00:19:34,800
And all of a sudden when Spider
gets shot, it at all turns and it changes.

360
00:19:34,800 --> 00:19:36,800
Now he's moving.

361
00:19:36,800 --> 00:19:37,800
He shoots that poor kid in the foot.

362
00:19:37,800 --> 00:19:40,800
You should know then,
this is not the way to live.

363
00:19:40,800 --> 00:19:43,800
Don't be sucked in by these guys,
'cause it's only gonna end one way.

364
00:19:43,800 --> 00:19:58,800
Before the Witness Protection Program,
it only ended one way. ; death.

365
00:19:58,800 --> 00:20:01,800
It was very frightening.
I was out of my body for a minute.

366
00:20:01,800 --> 00:20:04,800
I had to put myself in a frame of mind
to really kill someone.

367
00:20:04,800 --> 00:20:07,800
I made them put full loads in the gun...

368
00:20:07,800 --> 00:20:12,800
in the.45,
because I wanted to hear the echo.

369
00:20:12,800 --> 00:20:19,800
I wanted to feel the gun really kick
like a real.45.

370
00:20:19,800 --> 00:20:24,800
The silence after the last shot rang out
was more deafening than the gun.

371
00:20:24,800 --> 00:20:28,800
Now you're going to dig the hole.
I got no fucking lime.

372
00:20:28,800 --> 00:20:31,800
I'll dig the hole. I don't give a fuck.

373
00:20:31,800 --> 00:20:35,800
These are very intense individuals.
This is what happened.

374
00:20:35,800 --> 00:20:39,800
They lived a very violent life.
And it was just part of their lifestyle.

375
00:20:39,800 --> 00:20:41,800
- You gonna pay?
- Give us the fucking money!

376
00:20:41,800 --> 00:20:43,800
I can't.

377
00:20:43,800 --> 00:20:45,800
Marty wants you
to figure things out yourself.

378
00:20:45,800 --> 00:20:48,800
He wants you to come to the film,
and you to look at it...

379
00:20:48,800 --> 00:20:53,800
and decide how you feel about it.
He doesn't want to tell you what to think.

380
00:20:53,800 --> 00:20:55,800
He wants you to experience it.

381
00:20:55,800 --> 00:20:59,800
What do you want, fucko?
You want something?

382
00:20:59,800 --> 00:21:04,800
This is, in my view,
the most violent scene I ever shot.

383
00:21:04,800 --> 00:21:07,800
There were no cuts in it,
and there was no tricks, nothing.

384
00:21:07,800 --> 00:21:13,800
You felt the violence right there.

385
00:21:13,800 --> 00:21:17,800
I think in Marty's movie there is an
intensity which is very similar to Marty.

386
00:21:17,800 --> 00:21:25,800
I don't know if it's necessarily violence,
but you never know what's gonna happen.

387
00:21:25,800 --> 00:21:28,800
Believe it or not, some guys really think
you're the real deal.

388
00:21:28,800 --> 00:21:31,800
I remember one guy said to me:

389
00:21:31,800 --> 00:21:34,800
"How could you let that little guy
beat you up like that?"

390
00:21:34,800 --> 00:21:38,800
And he says, "What is with that language?

391
00:21:38,800 --> 00:21:42,800
"What kind of talking is this?
The effing this and effing that."

392
00:21:42,800 --> 00:21:45,800
This guy must have killed 25 people
that we know about.

393
00:21:45,800 --> 00:21:48,800
That's how real people think it is.

394
00:21:48,800 --> 00:21:52,800
We'll get a shovel at my mother's house.

395
00:21:52,800 --> 00:21:55,800
I had a woman say to me,
and this was a schoolteacher.

396
00:21:55,800 --> 00:21:57,800
Educated woman said to me:

397
00:21:57,800 --> 00:22:02,800
"When they were in the house eating,
how could you breathe in the trunk?"

398
00:22:02,800 --> 00:22:04,800
This is actually what she asked me.

399
00:22:04,800 --> 00:22:06,800
I said, "I had a little straw
and I put a hole."

400
00:22:06,800 --> 00:22:12,800
I learnt that it's very claustrophobic
in trunks. I don't get in trunks.

401
00:22:12,800 --> 00:22:16,800
I love watching Marty directing and
being with the actors and with the crew.

402
00:22:16,800 --> 00:22:20,800
It's wonderful. But first of all,
I don't have time to be there.

403
00:22:20,800 --> 00:22:22,800
And secondly, it does prejudice my eyes.

404
00:22:22,800 --> 00:22:27,800
I like to experience a film as it's being
born, and watch it every day with Marty.

405
00:22:27,800 --> 00:22:33,800
And then, my job is to help him,
sort of, make sure that, that all...

406
00:22:33,800 --> 00:22:35,800
ends up on screen the way he wants it.

407
00:22:35,800 --> 00:22:38,800
When he's in the editing room,
he can then relax and sit.

408
00:22:38,800 --> 00:22:42,800
And just with complete and utter control,
finish making his movie.

409
00:22:42,800 --> 00:22:46,800
And a great deal of Marty's movies
are made in the editing room.

410
00:22:46,800 --> 00:22:49,800
Particularly, the "last day as a wiseguy"
as we call it.

411
00:22:49,800 --> 00:22:54,800
"Last day as a wiseguy"is a sequence
that, I think, came together...

412
00:22:54,800 --> 00:22:59,800
particularly in the editing room,
because we found that we could...

413
00:22:59,800 --> 00:23:03,800
express the state of mind
that Ray Liotta was in at that time...

414
00:23:03,800 --> 00:23:07,800
being coked up
and completely out of control.

415
00:23:07,800 --> 00:23:11,800
It was written in a lot of small montages.

416
00:23:11,800 --> 00:23:16,800
But it was never really
visualized on the script...

417
00:23:16,800 --> 00:23:18,800
the way you see it on film.

418
00:23:18,800 --> 00:23:19,800
For example, when Ray Liotta...

419
00:23:19,800 --> 00:23:24,800
plonks the gun,
as the camera swish-pans up to him.

420
00:23:24,800 --> 00:23:28,800
I just enjoy all the strange jump-cutting
that we did.

421
00:23:28,800 --> 00:23:31,800
You know, Ray Liotta making veal cutlets.

422
00:23:31,800 --> 00:23:34,800
And how we just jumped around,
and just experimented...

423
00:23:34,800 --> 00:23:39,800
and just had a hell of a lot of fun
violating every rule there is.

424
00:23:39,800 --> 00:23:41,800
During previews,
the audience got annoyed...

425
00:23:41,800 --> 00:23:43,800
so I made it faster, more relentless.

426
00:23:43,800 --> 00:23:47,800
We can make it more jagged,
we can make it more fractured.

427
00:23:47,800 --> 00:23:51,800
And so we started doing more jump cuts.

428
00:23:51,800 --> 00:23:56,800
What I love about it is the annoyance
at having to go bring the guns to Jimmy...

429
00:23:56,800 --> 00:23:58,800
knowing damn well
Jimmy's not going to buy.

430
00:23:58,800 --> 00:24:00,800
Stop the drugs. They're making
your mind into mush!

431
00:24:00,800 --> 00:24:02,800
That should make you think,
"What am I doing?"

432
00:24:02,800 --> 00:24:04,800
He's annoyed.
"He'll make me bring this round...

433
00:24:04,800 --> 00:24:07,800
"he's not gonna want them,
put them back, go stir the sauce.

434
00:24:07,800 --> 00:24:10,800
"I swear this helicopter's following me.
I think it is. No, it isn't."

435
00:24:10,800 --> 00:24:14,800
Picking up his brother.
Drugs, coke, girlfriends, hiding guns.

436
00:24:14,800 --> 00:24:17,800
It goes on like that. Everything seemed
to be of the same importance.

437
00:24:17,800 --> 00:24:21,800
All at the same level,
he could not differentiate at that point.

438
00:24:21,800 --> 00:24:24,800
Total madness.

439
00:24:24,800 --> 00:24:26,800
That's Henry's life.

440
00:24:26,800 --> 00:24:30,800
I know he's stoned, and this is his vision
of it. But that was Henry's life.

441
00:24:30,800 --> 00:24:35,800
We did our jobs, we had great makeup,
they made us look all whacked-out.

442
00:24:35,800 --> 00:24:41,800
But talk about music and editing.

443
00:24:41,800 --> 00:24:43,800
Let's go shopping.

444
00:24:43,800 --> 00:24:53,800
Marty had such great ideas about how
to put music to some of those images.

445
00:24:53,800 --> 00:24:57,800
Some of it he had already pre-planned.

446
00:24:57,800 --> 00:25:03,800
Some of it, he put into the film
in the editing room.

447
00:25:03,800 --> 00:25:07,800
He has a deep sense
of how music should go with the film.

448
00:25:07,800 --> 00:25:11,800
And by that I don't mean that
it should go easily.

449
00:25:11,800 --> 00:25:22,800
Sometimes it's a shocking choice,
but it works like crazy.

450
00:25:22,800 --> 00:25:24,800
I see everything with music.

451
00:25:24,800 --> 00:25:27,800
Especially the juxtaposition of the music
you're listening to...

452
00:25:27,800 --> 00:25:29,800
to the images you see out the window.

453
00:25:29,800 --> 00:25:34,800
That's the way
music should be in a movie.

454
00:25:34,800 --> 00:25:36,800
Henry, shut the door.

455
00:25:36,800 --> 00:25:40,800
That was the first time
I had ever seen anyone shot.

456
00:25:40,800 --> 00:25:42,800
Do you remember where you ever heard...

457
00:25:42,800 --> 00:25:45,800
I remember when I first heard that music.

458
00:25:45,800 --> 00:25:48,800
You were with your mother
in a butcher's shop.

459
00:25:48,800 --> 00:25:51,800
He'd carry those pieces of music
around for years.

460
00:25:51,800 --> 00:26:04,800
And then suddenly find exactly
the right place for that piece.

461
00:26:04,800 --> 00:26:13,800
Each shot was designed
to certain bars ofLayla.

462
00:26:13,800 --> 00:26:17,800
We had the music already played
on the set to get the right rhythm...

463
00:26:17,800 --> 00:26:20,800
for the movement
or for the length of the scene.

464
00:26:20,800 --> 00:26:25,800
In the editing room, I had to make sure I
was trying to get exactly what he wanted.

465
00:26:25,800 --> 00:26:29,800
He was very specific
about how he wanted the music to cut.

466
00:26:29,800 --> 00:26:31,800
Let's try this.

467
00:26:31,800 --> 00:26:33,800
- It's really on the way.
- Yeah.

468
00:26:33,800 --> 00:26:36,800
Right here, the starting.

469
00:26:36,800 --> 00:26:40,800
Goodfellas was one of those films,
that I felt...

470
00:26:40,800 --> 00:26:42,800
we rode like a horse.

471
00:26:42,800 --> 00:26:45,800
It was so beautifully scripted...

472
00:26:45,800 --> 00:26:47,800
and shaped by Nick Pileggi and Marty...

473
00:26:47,800 --> 00:26:51,800
that it had its own energy,
it had its own drive.

474
00:26:51,800 --> 00:26:56,800
As Marty was laying it down, it just had
an incredible feeling to it.

475
00:26:56,800 --> 00:27:01,800
We were writing it, and trying to stay
on top of it, and ahead of it, if we could.

476
00:27:01,800 --> 00:27:04,800
But it was so strong, it had such a rhythm.

477
00:27:04,800 --> 00:27:15,800
You broke your cherry.

478
00:27:15,800 --> 00:27:20,800
The movie has such an effect on people
that no one expected.

479
00:27:20,800 --> 00:27:22,800
It's just such a grip.

480
00:27:22,800 --> 00:27:26,800
What I've found in my experience is that
there are certain films you don't preview.

481
00:27:26,800 --> 00:27:30,800
And certainly this is one. And that's when
we got our head handed to us.

482
00:27:30,800 --> 00:27:32,800
When we took this in front of audiences,
we got killed.

483
00:27:32,800 --> 00:27:37,800
The audience got really, in some cases,
almost violent.

484
00:27:37,800 --> 00:27:42,800
We had maybe 40 walk-outs
in the first 10 or 15 minutes.

485
00:27:42,800 --> 00:27:46,800
When they were giving their cards back,
they were throwing their cards.

486
00:27:46,800 --> 00:27:47,800
And writing profanities on them.

487
00:27:47,800 --> 00:27:50,800
The people who saw it
from the studio at first...

488
00:27:50,800 --> 00:27:54,800
they could see how incredibly entertaining
it was, what an amazing film it was.

489
00:27:54,800 --> 00:27:56,800
But they were nervous about the drugs.

490
00:27:56,800 --> 00:27:59,800
We had problems with them,
they wanted to cut out the violence...

491
00:27:59,800 --> 00:28:03,800
...which was impossible,
because that's what the movie was about.

492
00:28:03,800 --> 00:28:07,800
So he did have to fight very hard for that.

493
00:28:07,800 --> 00:28:12,800
And it was remarkable to watch him,
his courage, and his conviction.

494
00:28:12,800 --> 00:28:14,800
And the fact that he would never give up...

495
00:28:14,800 --> 00:28:19,800
but was very good at explaining why
it was important to retain the material.

496
00:28:19,800 --> 00:28:24,800
And we were able to get the film
that Marty wanted on the screen.

497
00:28:24,800 --> 00:28:29,800
You're working on something like this,
trying to make it as good as you can.

498
00:28:29,800 --> 00:28:33,800
And even in the end,
neither of us were totally satisfied.

499
00:28:33,800 --> 00:28:37,800
And I remember, literally,
at the opening of the movie...

500
00:28:37,800 --> 00:28:40,800
I think it was at Ziegfield or somewhere...

501
00:28:40,800 --> 00:28:43,800
I'm sitting next to him,
they got us in tuxedos.

502
00:28:43,800 --> 00:28:46,800
Thing goes up, and all of a sudden,
I get this elbow...

503
00:28:46,800 --> 00:28:48,800
and he says, "I told you, I should've..."

504
00:28:48,800 --> 00:28:52,800
And he started talking about editing.
You'd think he was in the editing room.

505
00:28:52,800 --> 00:28:56,800
I said, "Marty, forget it, it's over,
it's too late." He laughed.

506
00:28:56,800 --> 00:29:01,800
Even watching it on opening night, there
are still things you can tweak, deal with.

507
00:29:01,800 --> 00:29:03,800
I don't think he's ever gonna say. ;

508
00:29:03,800 --> 00:29:29,800
"I've finally done it, this is perfect."
You'll never hear that from him.

509
00:29:29,800 --> 00:29:31,800
English