'Goodfellas' trivia and fun facts
FBI conversations
For doing his best, Ray Liotta listened FBI conversations in his car. He used listened it while he was driving to the filming.
Ray Liotta's mother
Ray Liotta's mother died of cancer during filming. Liotta says that he used his anger over losing his mother for certain scenes.
An Alternative
The now-legendary Steadicam trip through the nightclub kitchen was a happy accident. Scorsese had been denied permission to go through the front, and had to improvise an alternative.
Mobsters as extras
According to Nicholas Pileggi, some actual mobsters were hired as extras to lend authenticity to scenes. The mobsters gave fake Social Security numbers to Warner Bros. and it is unknown how they received their paychecks.
Henry Hill
Henry Hill was Scorsese's advicer in the filming. In fact, some actors resorted to him to get even more into the skin of the characters.
True story
Joe Pesci scene that says ?Do you think I?m funny?? Is based on a real anecdote that happened to him when he was young. He worked in a restaurant and told to one gangster that he was funny. So the gangster was very angry with him. Scorsese liked that story and let Joe Pesci and Ray Liotta improvise the scene without telling to other actors.