By: Elizabeth Flynn
Joe Pesci was last seen on screen in the 2015 movie ‘A Warrior’s Tale’ in which he played the role of Mosquito. Following this film, Pesci announced that he had decided to retire from acting. This was heartbreaking news for his fans. He has now announced that he is putting his retirement plans on hold as he has been offered a role in an amazing new movie.
‘The Irishman’ is a mob epic directed by Martin Scorsese. Confirmed cast members include Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. As Scorsese, Pacino and De Niro are all major figureheads in the gangster genre of movie, it was too good an opportunity for Pesci to miss.
The combination of Scorsese in the role of director and three of the biggest gangster genre movie stars working together means that ‘The Irishman’ is now one of the most hotly anticipated movies in recent years. Pacino and Pesci have never worked together before and Pesci hasn’t worked with Scorsese since ‘Casino’, which was released in 1995.
This is not the first time that Joe Pesci has announced his retirement and then made a comeback. In 1999, he announced he wanted to pursue a musical career and was retiring from acting. He then returned to acting to play a cameo role in ‘The Good Shepherd’, a 2006 movie directed by and starring De Niro. It is once again a collaboration with De Niro that has persuaded Pesci to make a return to acting.
‘The Irishman’ is based on a non-fiction novel, ‘I Heard You Paint Houses’, by Charles Brandt. It has been adapted to a screenplay by Steve Zaillian, the writer of ‘Schindler’s List’. The movie tells the story of Frank ‘The Irishman’ Sheeran, a real-life mob hitman, who claims he was the gunman for the controversial murder of his mentor, Jimmy Hoffa.
There is just one element of this movie that fans may not be so keen on; they are digitally enhancing Pacino and De Niro in some scenes to make them look younger. The reason given for this is to avoid the necessity of hiring younger actors or needing to use prosthetics on the actors. Fans of Pesci still have a while to wait before they see him on the screen as the movie is not planned for release until 2018.
