Goodfellas. 1990. USA. Directed by Martin Scorsese. Screenplay by Scorsese, Nicholas Pileggi. With Robert DeNiro, Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci. 35mm. 146 min.
The beginning of Ellen Lewis’s career as Martin Scorsese’s casting director began in 1989 with the “Life Lessons” episode of New York Stories. Even if it had ended the following year with Goodfellas (assisted by Laura Rosenthal), who among us can ever forget the star turns of Ray Liotta and Robert De Niro and the irresistibly quotable, scene-stealing performances of Joe Pesci, Michael Imperioli, Paul Sorvino, Lorraine Bracco, Frank Vincent, even Samuel L. Jackson and Vincent Gallo (the list goes on and on), to say nothing of the walk-on roles of real-life mobsters and cops whom Lewis had “discovered” at Rao’s and other hidden redoubts of New York. Of course, the relationship didn’t end there: Scorsese’s latest movie, Killers of the Flower Moon, marks his 19th collaboration with Ellen Lewis over the past 34 years.