It's hard to imagine that the obsessive and frenetic Martin Scorsese ever endured blue periods in his career, but twenty years ago, he was going through one. On the eve of the premiere of his new movie, GoodFellas, he was still recovering from the protests, denunciations, and death threats that had accompanied The Last Temptation of Christ. But GoodFellas—based on Wiseguy, a nonfiction best seller by legendary crime reporter Nicholas Pileggi—would restore Scorsese's place in American film, and then some. To mark the film's anniversary, GQ interviewed nearly sixty members of the cast and crew, along with some noteworthy admirers of the picture, to revisit the making of one of the most endlessly rewatchable American movies ever made.

Ray Liotta (Henry Hill): For twenty years now, there's not a day that goes by that I don't hear somebody mention GoodFellas. Unless I stay home all night. It's defined who I am, in a sense.

Kevin Corrigan (Michael Hill): It's like one of the most quotable movies of all time. I have friends who, it's like part of our vocabulary, it's part of a shorthand way of communicating with each other.

Debi Mazar (Sandy): I know people who go, "I've seen that movie fifty times!"

Michael Imperioli (Spider): I don't know if I would have had the same career had I not done GoodFellas. Probably not. Would I have been cast on The Sopranos? Who knows if there would have been a Sopranos?

Isiah Whitlock, Jr. (Doctor): If I start watching it, I'll be up all night. Sometimes I hate to put the movie on because it's like, I've got shit to do.

Frank Vincent (Billy Batts): Wherever I go, anytime I go anywhere, they tell me to go home and get my shine box.

Chuck Low (Morrie Kessler): Every fucking guy on the street yells to me, "Hey, Morrie, did you get Belle her Danish?"

Illeana Douglas (Rosie): They don't make movies that way anymore. I was told that GoodFellas is the most expensive movie soundtrack in history. Marty used like thirty seconds of a Rolling Stones song; he had to have it. Vincent Gallo was an extra in that film, and people like John Turturro would come by and put sunglasses on and try to be an extra.

Paul Sorvino (Paul Cicero): I had a sense of elevation the entire time I was making it. I've never had that before or since, making a movie. Felt I was three feet in the air.

Nicholas Pileggi (co-writer): Mob guys love it, because it's the real thing, and they knew the people in it. They say, "It's like a home movie."

Tony Darrow (Sonny Bunz): Did opportunities open up for me after GoodFellas? Yeah, I've done twenty-one films! Where the hell have you been? You're going to get your head busted, you know?

Everett Collection

Casting Calls

Barbara De Fina (ecutive producer): I don't remember there being a lot of choices about who could play Henry Hill. There weren't a lot of actors who could pull it off. He had to do terrible things, and yet you had to somehow care about him. But Ray wasn't a big star.