There’s a peculiar lack of hype surrounding The Irishman, Martin Scorsese’s time-hopping gangster reunion of Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Joe Pesci.
Considering how impossibly high the bar is, maybe that’s for the best. It sounds like an Icarian effort doomed to crush our teenage dreams on the way down, but Scorsese is giving it a good go regardless.
The Netflix original will be – at $175 million – his most expensive project ever, largely thanks to the visual effects needed to make the veteran cast looks 30 years younger at various points in the film.
Now, after much silence, it looks like we may finally have a release date. In an interview on the Joe Rogan podcast, comedian-turned-actor Sebastian Maniscalco, who plays Joe “Crazy Joe” Gallo, revealed that the movie is set for release in October.
Speaking of working with Scorsese and the cast, Maniscalco said: “I didn’t sleep for the first week leading up to the (first) scene, because I knew it would be with De Niro and Pesci.
“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!”
The film also stars Scorsese favourite Harvey Keitel, Anna Paquin and Bobby Cannavale. It's based on the book I Heard You Paint Houses by Charles Brandt, the story of hitman Frank Sheeran and corrupt New York union boss Jimmy Hoffa in the fifties and sixties.
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