Robert De Niro insisted that real money needed to be used in ‘Goodfellas’
If there’s one film in which everything came together perfectly – cast, direction, style, influence – it’s Martin Scorsese’s epic Goodfellas. The 1990 biographical crime film, as adapted from Nicholas Pileggi’s 1985 nonfiction book Wiseguy, features a powerful cast working under a genius director in a story that holds and navigates the audience’s attention from start to finish. This cast in question is a gold mine on screen, with Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci, Lorraine Bracco, and Paul Sorvino playing a mob of gangsters who rise and fall in the mob ranks from 1955 and 1980.
Goodfellas premiered at the 47th Venice International Film Festival on September 9th, 1990, to widespread critical acclaim. It grossed $47million from a budget of $25million, and the film stands as one of the gangster genre’s apexes. Essentially, Goodfellas is considered one of the greatest films ever made. It’s slick, attentive, expressive and peak entertainment. The atmosphere practically beams with raw magnetic energy, as elevated by its talented acting crew, and the story transgresses in a blend of intelligence and thrill.
Goodfellas is all about its character arcs and overall character presentation. Scorsese effortlessly sets up the lows that the gangsters must rise from, then contrasts with the highs that they eventually tumble from, thus constructing some terrific storytelling. Each character is illuminated in authenticity and grit but still glossed over with some entertainment and style to get the best of both worlds. One important character is James ‘Jimmy’ Conway, played by actor Robert De Niro. Real-life crook James Burke, known to his allies and enemies as ‘Jimmy the Gent’, was the inspiration for the character.
De Niro gets the personality and effect of the role down to T, as Conway is charismatic and in some ways likeable at first, given that he is loyal and (chosen) family-oriented when we first meet him. He is even close with the families of his partners, such as Tommy and his mother, played by Scorsese’s mother. However, as Scorsese unravels the story and the characters, we see the layers hiding behind this surface appearance and discover who he is. It appears there’s more to this ‘Good Old Jimmy’ facade. We soon see how blunt and cruel Conway can become when pushed, even going so far as to attempt to kill Liotta’s wife, Karen. During an interview with Scraps from the Loft, Scorsese revealed how he associates De Niro’s character with “a breakdown of discipline, of whatever moral code those guys had in the fifties and sixties”.
De Niro as an actor who respects and elevates his craft, brings all the vital details to his performance as Conway. The star was so committed to getting everything right he even contacted those who knew Burke to find out how the criminal dispersed ketchup from the bottle. We then see De Niro utilise this information in his performance during the midnight dinner scene, where he rolls the bottle between his palms just like Burke did.
The actor also strived for complete realism in his role as Conway through the viral props that convey the imagery of the gangster genre. Reportedly, Niro didn’t like how fake money felt in his hand and insisted on using real cash. This caused the prop master, Robert Griffon, to withdraw several thousand dollars of his own money for De Niro to use. Therefore, every scene that focuses on the mass amount of money the gangsters come into, to highlight specific traits of the gangster genre, consists of real money. With such a large amount of real money at use, extreme caution and attention are necessary. Consequently, no one left the set until all the money had been returned and counted after each take.
Check out one of the scenes where De Niro uses real money on set below.
