Joe Pesci - Acting Career

Acting Career

The first film he starred in was the 1975 low budget crime film The Death Collector with Frank Vincent. After the film Pesci returned to run his restaurant in The Bronx, Pesci then got a phone call from Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro who were impressed with his performance in the film and asked him to co-star in a 1980 film with Robert De Niro, Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull. Pesci won the BAFTA Award for Most Outstanding Newcomer to Leading Film Roles in 1981 and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

Subsequently, he performed with De Niro in the films Once Upon a Time in America, and in Scorsese's Goodfellas (for which Pesci received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, in 1990), and Casino. He also had a small role in 1993's A Bronx Tale and 2006's The Good Shepherd, which were both directed by and starred De Niro.

The pairing became famous enough to inspire a recurring sketch on Saturday Night Live (SNL) called "The Joe Pesci Show". (The real Pesci and De Niro made a surprise appearance in one episode.) Pesci hosted SNL on October 10, 1992. During the monologue, he restored a picture of Pope John Paul II, which had been torn by Sinéad O'Connor on the previous broadcast; he demonstrated this by tearing up a photo of O'Connor, which was met with huge applause.

In 1988, Pesci co-starred with pop singer Michael Jackson in the musical-fantasy film Moonwalker as the film's antagonist, Frankie "Mr. Big" LiDeo (an anagram for one of the film's producers and longtime Jackson manager Frank DiLeo). In the film, Pesci was featured in the fifth and final segment, a short movie called Smooth Criminal, which was based on Michael Jackson's song of the same name.

He later co-starred in the blockbuster Home Alone (1990), playing Harry Lyme; one of two bumbling burglars (along with good friend Daniel Stern), who attempt to rob the house of the character played by Macaulay Culkin. Two years later, he reprised his role in the sequel, "Home Alone 2: Lost in New York."

Pesci also played David Ferrie in 1991's JFK and the title character in the 1992 comedy My Cousin Vinny. He appeared as Leo Getz in the Lethal Weapon sequels, released in 1989, 1992 and 1998 respectively. He was the original choice to play Myron Larabee, the stressed-out postman in Jingle All the Way opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger, but he was replaced by Sinbad, partially due to Sinbad rivalling Schwarzenegger in size as opposed to Pesci being dwarfed by Schwarzenegger.

He had starring roles in several other films including Easy Money (1983), Once Upon a Time in America (1984), Man on Fire (1987), The Super (1991), Jimmy Hollywood (1994), With Honors (also 1994) and Gone Fishin' (1997).