“Well, it’s a great superhero movie. Empire called Pacino at his LA home one morning for a lengthy chat about his process, his iconic roles and shooting The Godfather in a graveyard. All rights reserved. Sometimes when you don’t get the footage you need, you do weep. And actors usually take access to that because it’s so available and you learn from it and it stimulates you. You don’t realise that until you learn the hard way. Antique Sicilian puppet knights dangle from hooks. I got tired of auditioning in California, of bumping into walls and saying, ‘Excuse me!’", On set, Donner gave him the freedom to improvise many of Leo’s wildest screes, such as the legendary, “They FUCK you at the drive-thru!” monologue. And what was it like being directed by the iconic creator of Seven Samurai? With Bob especially ’cause I’ve worked with him and am very close to him. I did TV shows. Commercial success was an afterthought. “I had nothing to do with it. In the run-up to The Irishman arriving in UK cinemas, Empire Online presents The Irishman Week – a series of features to get you ready for Martin Scorsese's latest gangster epic. You could see it in Taxi Driver. “Your head is on the floor — it should be up above your shoulders. His name is Marty Scorsese. That’s all. “Could I move quickly? While it delivers all the Scorsese-ness you want (you’ll lose count of how many times someone gets shot in the face), this is Marty in mature mode, a compelling meditation on time, ageing, connections and guilt that reaches the parts other gangster films only dream of. Okay, okay, okay!’ We thought it was really funny.”, "I wound up in New York running a restaurant, because I had nothing else to do. It was The Color Of Money, in 1986, that started to turn things around. In the run-up to The Irishman arriving in UK cinemas, Empire Online presents The Irishman Week – a series of features to get you ready for Martin Scorsese's latest gangster epic. I hope we don’t stay in this scene long, because I don’t wanna go out there.” New York can get real cold. The director became depressed, exhausted and hooked on cocaine, ultimately collapsing and nearly dying from massive internal bleeding. But Hoffa never becomes a clown: he is cunning, a control freak (he doesn’t drink alcohol so his underlings inject booze into watermelon to get their fix) and intelligent, and Pacino plays it to the hilt. Of course, Scorsese delivers a stunning gangster flick, but The Irishman is so much more, a melancholy eulogy for growing old and losing your humanity. Get the latest showtimes for The Irishman and bypass the lines by buying movie tickets online. VAT no 918 5617 01, Bauer Consumer Media Ltd are authorised and regulated by the FCA(Ref No. He got the chance, and then some, with his next two movies: The Last Temptation Of Christ, at last, and GoodFellas. Besides, making the Lethal Weapons was the most fun I’ve ever had. But there’ll be some people in the audience who’ll say, ‘Yeah, that’s me.’ And maybe it’ll make your life a little richer.”. We just played around, you know?”, Interviewing Joe Pesci is an intimidating prospect. They’d come closest with a biopic of suffering artist Amedeo Modigliani that would have featured Pacino chugging absinthe, but in the 1980s financing was not forthcoming for such maudlin subject matter. “I was 15 days over, Kurosawa was waiting, all these angry guys are visiting the set — everyone’s mad at me!” Scorsese recounts with a grin. They were really mad at us. “I tried, you know? And the image of her in the flowers? It’s a slow erosion, and you live with it. Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Joe Pesci star in Martin Scorsese’s gangster movie, coming to cinemas and Netflix. “We didn’t care,” Scorsese states. So I had a lot of footage of Hoffa and I just said, “I’ll look at this stuff, inundate myself with it and then hopefully some of it will reach my imagination.”. And that’s the way I’ve always done it since. “In the ’80s nobody would even talk to me,” he says. During our conversation, inspired by Empire’s Britishness, he waxes lyrical about Basil Fawlty (“With Basil, one has to genuflect”) and a “hysterical” Goon two-reeler called The Case Of The Mukkinese Battle-Horn. Interviews with leading film and TV creators about their process and craft. VAT no 918 5617 01, Bauer Consumer Media Ltd are authorised and regulated by the FCA(Ref No. That old Scorsese curiosity is still aflame — he remains as fascinated by people of all stripes as he was as a boy, peeking down from that third-floor fire escape. And many, many immaculately framed film posters line the walls. This 1954 Jaguar Roadster Sat Untouched in a Rural Barn for Decades. You behaved within those parameters, unless you were some kid who thought he could take on the world, who usually ended up dead.”, Young Marty had two favourite spots, both well away from the chaos. “The editing, the camera moves — glorious! And his world came tumbling down. “I tell everyone no,” he explains, “and with this one I had to think about it for a while. Laughs Those kind of thoughts. And not even the combined might of he and Al Pacino could get a biopic of painter Modigliani off the ground. The Irishman (titled onscreen as I Heard You Paint Houses) is a 2019 American epic crime film directed and produced by Martin Scorsese and written by Steven Zaillian, based on the 2004 nonfiction book I Heard You Paint Houses by Charles Brandt.It stars Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and Joe Pesci, with Ray Romano, Bobby Cannavale, Anna Paquin, Stephen Graham, and Harvey Keitel in supporting roles. Today’s world, everybody’s photographing everybody. A message wings its way to Empire from New Jersey, where Pesci resides, stating that he has decided to give his first proper interview in over a decade. It’s his best work in years. “They had good ideas, but I’m not looking for a job,” he shrugs. When daughter Peggy (Lucy Gallina) tells him her employer shoved her, Sheeran marches around to the grocery store and gives him an almighty beating. Read the full interview. I was amazed at it. Honestly, the closest I can think of them, as well-made as they are, with actors doing the best they can under the circumstances, is theme parks.