20th Anniversary of one of the Greatest Movies Ever

[Delhommey]

Corrigan: I'll never forget the first time I saw the scene where Pesci is saying, "You think I'm funny?" and he pretends like he's going to kill Ray Liotta. Now everybody knows it, but there was a first time when no one knew what he was going to say and do. We were on the edge of our seats, like, "Oh my God! He's gonna fuging kill him!"

Scorsese: When I asked Joe to be in the film, he didn't want to do it. We went up to my apartment, and he said, "Let me tell you a couple of stories. If you could find a place for this sort of thing, then I think we could make it special."

Liotta: Joe was working at some restaurant in the Bronx or Brooklyn. He said to some wiseguy, "You're funny," and the guy kind of turned it on him.

Scorsese: Joe acted it out. Then we did a rehearsal with Ray and Joe and put it on audiotape, and I constructed the scene from the transcripts and gave it to them to hit those levels, the different levels of questioning and how the tone changes. It was never in the script.

Douglas: That day Marty had invited down all the bigwigs from Warner Bros. There were a hundred things I learned from Marty, like what days to invite studio people to the set.

Scorsese: I shot it with just two cameras. Medium shots, no close-up, because the body language of the people around them was as important as their own.

Ballhaus: You cannot move the camera in a scene like that, because it will take attention away from what's happening.

Lupard: The people in the background were picked very carefully. The tension comes from not just staying on Joe Pesci, but seeing people's reactions to him.

Pileggi: The wiseguys are sitting there, and they're looking at each other: "What the fug's going on? Is Joe crazy?" That look was what Marty wanted.

Frank Adonis (Anthony Stabile): We didn't know it was coming. I was thinking, What is Joe trying to do?

Schoonmaker: Scorsese wanted to show that as Pesci gets angrier and angrier, the men around him and Ray stop laughing, and you see the look of dread come on their faces. The key moment was how long we waited before Ray says, "Get the fug outta here, Tommy," in an attempt to break it. We kept screening it over and over again to get just the right beat for that one incredible moment where Ray knows if he doesn't make this work, he's going to get shot. [laughs]

Liotta: It was supposed to end when I say, "Get the fug outta here, Tommy." But you let it breathe, just to see what happens. And for some reason I said, "You really are a funny guy!" and he gets the gun. We made that up in the moment, literally.

Pileggi: I've maybe even gotten awards from people because of that unbelievable scene, that I, quote, "wrote." I never wrote that scene! I had no idea about that scene!

http://www.gq.com/entertainment/movies-and-tv/201010/goodfellas-making-of-behind-the-scenes-interview-scorsese-deniro?printable=true

Long interviews with the major players.