| Goodfellas
Character Name: Henry Hill
Appears in: Goodfellas
Dates: 1990
Awards: Ray Liotta did not win any awards, nor nominated for any awards. Although, Goodfellas did win an Oscar with with another 32 wins and 18 nominations.
Ray Liotta as Henry Hill.
Goodfellas: The Movie Trailer
| Character back story:
Henry Hill grew up in a poor working class family in East New York, Brooklyn. From an early age, Henry admired the local mobsters, the Lucchese crime family, which included Paul Vario. In his early teens Henry began running small errands for Vario. Hill eventually quit school to pursue the life of a gangster. Henry is soon taken under the wing of local mob captain, Paul "Paulie" Cicero and Jimmy Conway. They help and teach him about the mobster ways. Soon, Henry becomes daring and dangerous.
Enjoying their perks of the gangster life, they spent most of their nights at the Copacabana night club. Henry meets and later
marries Karen, a Jewish girl from the Five Towns. Aside from small time criminal activities, Hill begins to deal drugs and the FBI is constantly on his tail, he eventually rolls on all his mob friends/connections in exchange for the Witness Protection Program as a mole to protect himself and his family.
| Inspiration for character:
To get inspired/prepared for his role of Henry Hill, Ray Liotta listened to FBI audio cassette tapes of Henry Hill driving to and from the set of Goodfellas,
so he could practice speaking like his real-life counterpart.
| Occupation:
Mobster/Gangster/Mafia
| Personality type:
Henry Hill is daring and dangerous then his personality turns to paranoia.
| Resides:
New York
| Character connections:
Ray Liotta spent much time with the real Henry Hill for a few months before filming started to gain an exact idea of how to play him.
| Fun facts/trivia:
The director cast Ray Liotta after De Niro saw him in Jonathan Demme's Something Wild and Scorsese was surprised by "his explosive energy" in that film. The Ray had read Pileggi's book when it came out and was fascinated by it. A couple of years afterwards, Liotta's agent told him that Scorsese was going to direct a film version. In 1988, Liotta met the director over a period of a couple of months and auditioned for the film. Liotta campaigned aggressively for a role in the film but the studio wanted a well-known actor. "I think they would've rather had Eddie Murphy than me", Ray Liotta remembers.
Driving to and from the set, Liotta listened to FBI audio cassette tapes of Hill, so he could practice speaking like his real-life counterpart.
Ray Liotta spent much time with the real Henry Hill for a few months before filming started to gain an exact idea of how to play him. After the film was released, Hill stated in interviews that many mobsters ask him how can they have their stories told the way his was in this film. Apparently, they've seen and enjoyed the movie.
Ray Liotta turned down the part of Harvey Dent in Batman (1989) in order to make "Goodfellas".
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| | Character Quotes & Catchphrases | Henry Hill: You know, we always called each other good fellas. Like you said to, uh, somebody, :You're gonna like this guy. He's all right. He's a good fella. He's one of us.: You understand? We were good fellas. Wiseguys. But Jimmy and I could never be made because we had Irish blood. It didn't even matter that my mother was Sicilian. To become a member of a crew you've got to be one hundred per cent Italian so they can trace all your relatives back to the old country. See, it's the highest honor they can give you. It means you belong to a family and crew. It means that nobody can fuck around with you. It also means you could f*ck around with anybody just as long as they aren't also a member. It's like a license to steal. It's a license to do anything. As far as Jimmy was concerned with Tommy being made, it was like we were all being made. We would now have one of our own as a member.
Henry Hill: [narrating] As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster.
Henry Hill: [narrating] One day some of the kids from the neighborhood carried my mother's groceries all the way home. You know why? It was outta respect.
Henry Hill: [narrating] Anything I wanted was a phone call away. Free cars. The keys to a dozen hideout flats all over the city. I bet twenty, thirty grand over a weekend and then I'd either blow the winnings in a week or go to the sharks to pay back the bookies.
Henry Hill: [narrating] Didn't matter. It didn't mean anything. When I was broke, I'd go out and rob some more. We ran everything. We paid off cops. We paid off lawyers. We paid off judges. Everybody had their hands out. Everything was for the taking. And now it's all over.
Henry Hill: [narrating]And that's the hardest part. Today everything is different; there's no action have to wait around like everyone else. Can't even get decent food - right after I got here, I ordered some spaghetti with marinara sauce, and I got egg noodles and ketchup. I'm an average nobody get to live the rest of my life like a schnook.
Henry Hill: [narrating] When they found Carbone in the meat truck, he was frozen so stiff it took them three days to thaw him out for the autopsy.
Henry Hill: [narrating] For us to live any other way was nuts. Uh, to us, those goody-good people who worked shitty jobs for bum paychecks and took the subway to work every day, and worried about their bills, were dead. I mean they were suckers. They had no balls. If we wanted something we just took it. If anyone complained twice they got hit so bad, believe me, they never complained again. |
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