Saturday night marked the closing night of the esteemed Tribeca Film Festival, as well as the 25th anniversary of 1990 crime film, "Goodfellas," calling for a obligatory cast gathering.
The Beacon Theatre in New York hosted the final festival celebrations, which reunited Martin Scorsese's co-writer, Nicholas Pileggi with Lorraine Bracco, Paul Sorvino, Ray Liotta and Robert DeNiro for a panel discussion--just a few cast members from the Mafioso film.
Pileggi penned a novel, "Wiseguy" which later became the inspiration for Goodfellas. Scorsese attempted several times to reach out to the author who mistakenly believed his co-worker was pulling a cruel prank on him, reports ABC.
"I never thought it was Marty calling," Pileggi told the audience at the festival, according to Variety. "I was at New York Magazine at the time, and I'd get these little pink slips that would say, 'Call Martin Scorsese.' I thought it was David Denby, who was the movie critic at New York Magazine, so I didn't respond."
As the talk hosted by comedian Jon Stewart continued, further film secrets were leaked-fans were clued in to the fact that the famous "funny how" scene with Joe Pesci and Ray Liotta was actually somewhat spontaneous and improvised as they veered away from script.
"A lot of actors talk about choices, but the fact of the matter is when you find the spine of the character, it's kind of like an inhabitation, from which you might need an exorcism. And it makes all the decisions for you," said Sorvino.
Sorvino confessed that he came close to resigning from the movie because he didn't favor his character, Paulie Cicero's, attributes. Nevertheless, Sorvino stuck with portraying Cicero and continued with the film that received six Academy Award nominations.
