The greatest actor to ever play a mobster, according to the mob: “The best portrayer”
Playing a criminal, gangland figure, or someone associated with organised crime is something most actors will do at least once. The genre has been responsible for some of the best movies and greatest performances in cinema history, but only one star got the ultimate seal of approval from the mob.
Whether it’s Al Pacino in Scarface, Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro’s Academy Award-winning turns as Vito Corleone, pretty much the entire ensemble cast of The Godfather trilogy (Sofia Coppola excepted), several James Cagney turns, or Daniel Day-Lewis Bill ‘The Butcher’ Cutting to name a small few, gangsters regularly become iconic.
Some performers have even built a career out of it: Cagney, De Niro, Pacino, Ray Liotta, James Caan, James Gandolfini, Christopher Walken, Frank Vincent, Paul Sorvino, and countless others have embodied at least a handful of gangsters in film and television if not more, but it takes a special kind of talent to get the thumbs up from those who’ve lived the life.
Michael Franzese dropped out of studying medicine at university when his father was sentenced to 50 years in prison, and by his mid-30s, he was one of the most notorious mob bosses in the United States, overseeing a criminal empire that had its fingers in several illicit pies worth millions of dollars.
During his own incarceration, he found religion and decided to walk away from the family business altogether, turning his attention towards being a writer and motivational speaker. As it turned out, he also evolved into a bit of a movie buff, and he used his first-hand knowledge and experience to pass judgment on Hollywood’s top gangsters.
He wasn’t a huge fan of The Sopranos, explaining that patriarch Tony pouring his heart out to a shrink wasn’t exactly realistic. He told Insider that “if a mob boss was ever visiting a psychiatrist, he’d be in the trunk of his car by the end of the week along with his psychiatrist.” Pacino and Johnny Depp’s Donnie Brasco got passing marks, too, but neither actor was the cream of the crop.
A lot of people would agree with Franzese’s assessment after he called Joe Pesci “the best portrayer of any mob guy” ever captured on camera. His Oscar win for Goodfellas says as much, but let’s not forget about his work in Casino, Once Upon a Time in America, or The Irishman, either.
If 100 cinephiles were asked to name the best actor to ever play a mobster in any movie or TV show, a high percentage of them are likely to have Pesci’s name roll off their tongue. However, as it pertains to a former high-ranking mob official who’s been there, seen it, done it, and gotten the t-shirts and prison time that come along with the job, the diminutive firebrand is the best bar none.
