It’s been nearly three years since Martin Scorsese’s last film, the magnificent Silence, and in that time, he’s been working on two projects for Netflix: a Bob Dylan documentary and The Irishman. Based on Charles Brandt’s book I Heard You Paint Houses, the gangster-drama stars Robert De Niro as Frank Sheeran, a former labor union leader who allegedly became involved with the Bufalino crime family, and Al Pacino as Jimmy Hoffa (who Sheeran claimed to have killed), as well as Joe Pesci, Anna Paquin, Bobby Cannavale, Harvey Keitel, and Ray Romano. It’s a stacked cast, and because of the CGI wizardry involved, an expensive movie; some reports put the budget at $140 million.
Netflix still hasn’t announced an official release date, but while appearing on Joe Rogan’s podcast, Sebastian Maniscalco (who plays Joe “Crazy Joe” Gallo in the film) revealed that The Irishman is “coming out in October.” The actor/comedian added that prior to working with De Niro and Pacino, appearing in the same movie for the fourth time (following The Godfather Part II, Heat, and Righteous Kill), he “didn’t sleep for the first week leading up to the [first] scene.”
“When I went in there, I told myself that I’m not speaking to nobody. I’m gonna speak when I’m spoken to. There was a part when they were lighting De Niro and I, we’re standing face to face, and I’m looking straight at him. I wasn’t gonna say nothing. And then he comes in on my tie and tightens it a little bit. Oh wow. He straightened out my tie!” (Via)
Scorsese previously called The Irishman a “risky film” that “no one wanted to [make] for five or six years” until Netflix came along with financing. “The cinema of the past 100 years has gone and the presentation of it has changed,” he added. “I have no idea of how the future will look in terms of presentation of visual storytelling as we have no idea what the developments will be.”
(Via Esquire and Screen Daily)
