Credit: Far Out / Warner Bros.
Sun 20 September 2026 1:30, UK
Joe Pesci was never exactly meant to become a Hollywood star. Starting his career in the spotlight as a kid, spurred on by his father. As a youngster, he appeared in various plays and TV shows before eventually becoming a barber.
Yet, the call of stardom was too much to ignore. Having played a vital role in the formation of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons when he was a young performer, singing always found a significant place in his heart, and Pesci would release his debut album, Little Joe Sure Can Sing!, in 1968.
It wasn’t until he appeared in the low-budget film The Death Collector in 1976 that he lit the fuse that would subsequently catapult him into Oscar nominee territory. His performance was seen by Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese, ‘New Hollywood’ figureheads who knew that Pesci was the perfect person to play Joey LaMotta in their upcoming biographical sports drama Raging Bull.
Things were different back then; Scorsese and De Niro simply rang Pesci themselves, to which the budding actor was convinced he’d become the victim of a cruel prank. He called them back, though, just to be sure, and soon enough, he’d bagged the part that would earn him an Oscar nomination.
He went from having limited acting experience to competing against the likes of Timothy Hutton and Jason Robards, and soon after he landed more high-profile movies, such as Once Upon a Time in America, also starring De Niro.
He appeared in various crime and thriller movies throughout the ‘80s, and even the Michael Jackson movie Moonwalker, but by the end of the decade, he found himself having to lie to bag a part in a certain film. Just because he’d been an Oscar nominee a few years earlier didn’t mean that he wasn’t struggling to consistently land more roles, so he had to get a little creative.
He was after a part in 1989’s Lethal Weapon 2, which came just two years after the first installment in the Mel Gibson and Danny Glover-led franchise. You’d think he’d have it easy, but Pesci revealed on CBS News that “I started to lie, because I needed a job.”Pesci continued, “I was telling Dick Donner [director] and Joel Silver [producer], I have a problem going in and reading for a part. It’s just something I need to spend time with, and live with it.”
Further reading: Cutting Room Floor
Obviously, that wasn’t the case. “So, I kept telling them, ‘I can’t read for you, but you gotta trust me, I know how to play this guy.’” It was as easy as that. “And so, they said, ‘Okay, let him go; the guy’s a good actor.’” Pesci managed to charm them into giving him the role of Leo Getz, a character he’d reprise in the third and fourth entries of the buddy cop franchise.
Sometimes, then, you just have to concoct a fib or two to get yourself where you want to be. You don’t need to feel guilty; big stars, like Pesci, do it all the time, and it gets them exactly what they want. Not only that, but a year after lying his way into Lethal Weapon 2, he’d bag an Oscar for Goodfellas, and he wouldn’t have to lie to get a role again.
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